I took a bit of a break from blogging, but am starting to get back in to the swing of things.

Right now, you’re mostly going to see my Twitter posts being sucked in to the blog, because I’m finding that a handy way to bookmark my thoughts, questions, discoveries, etc.

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DISCLAIMER: This is a cop out, in the sense that I couldn’t be bothered to write something new for this blog, so just copied the little bio I had from the last ad agency I worked with.

Ahsan R. Shami
Creative Director
Prestige / Grey Worldwide

After spending his formative years in Los Angeles, Ahsan moved to the UAE in 1987 and finished his schooling. He started his professional life in 1992 with the intent of becoming an accountant and, fittingly, his first job was with KPMG Peat Marwick in Dubai. It took him 18 months, but he eventually understood that there wasn’t a lot of room for creativity in financial numbers. This realization forced him to find the door and walk out of it in a hurry.

Back in Pakistan, Ahsan joined a fledgling record label, VCI records, as the A&R Director and spent a few years helping build the careers of pop stalwarts such as Vital Signs, Junoon, Awaz and Sajjad Ali. His love for design started to take root while at VCI, where he found himself very involved in the creation of many album covers.

This provided the impetus for Ahsan to abandon music and start his own design firm, barely average . design, where he managed to work with several local and international clients such as Harry’s Bread, Habib Bank AG Zurich, GlaxoSmithKline, Yahoo, Elance and IDG Publishing.

While managing his own business, Ahsan was asked to serve as a creative consultant at the renowned R Lintas (now Lowe & Rauf), and was responsible for developing the creative department at one of the top agencies in Pakistan.

In 2005, the experience of working with a large agency lingered and Ahsan decided to make a permanent move into advertising by becoming the Creative Director at Contract Advertising and working on key clients such as HSBC, Mothercare, JVC, Toshiba, ARY and SanDisk.

He moved to Prestige Grey in July, 2006 and has welcomed the challenge of creating a culture of creative excellence at the organization.

I left Prestige Grey in Jan ‘07 out of a frustration stemming from dealing with office politics and their disinterest in “creating a culture of creative excellence”. I’ve returned full-time to managing my career through barely average . design.