What happens when you finally land the role you’ve been chasing for a decade, only to realise it’s not what you imagined?
At just 18, Steffan Cummins set his sights on becoming a creative director at Wolff Olins. Ten years later, he got there.
The agency’s bold, unconventional work and global reputation had inspired him as a teenager; the BBC and Decathlon rebrands would become career-defining projects. On paper, it was the pinnacle: prestige, influence, and a place at the top of the creative league.
But in reality, the higher he climbed, the more he moved away from doing what he loved. Sound familiar? Instead of doing the actual work, his days were full of meetings rather than the happy act of creating. The title he’d fought so hard to reach had come at a cost, and he wasn’t comfortable with the situation.
“I couldn’t quite reconcile how the role of Creative Director involved so many meetings about creativity, and so little time to actually be creative,” he says. “If you don’t have space to think, time to wander and explore – how are you meant to do your best work?”
That love of making started early. “My dad was an engineer and my mum a nurse – from him, I inherited precision and attention to detail; from her, warmth and compassion. In many ways, that’s how I see design: building things that connect emotionally with people, with rigour and with care.”
His first obsession? Mobile phones in the peak Nokia era. “I’d pick up the free Carphone Warehouse catalogue every month, analyse every handset and sketch my own designs. No limits. Just cool shapes and colours. That curiosity evolved into websites and logos… and then, in 2007, when the London 2012 Olympic branding was unveiled, something clicked. My interest became a dream.”
By the time the Games arrived, the goal was set. “I said to my dad during that time, ‘One day, I’ll be a Creative Director at Wolff Olins’. Ten years later, I’d done it.”
The path there looked perfect: Cardiff degree, London internships, junior designer at Moving Brands, senior, then Wolff Olins. But success on paper didn’t guarantee satisfaction.
“Quietly, I started wondering: is this really it? I caught myself giving ‘direction’ without thinking it through, just to keep things moving. That didn’t sit right. I wasn’t proud of that version of myself.”
Other senior roles didn’t appeal either. “It was like changing the logo on the door, not the job itself. And honestly, I couldn’t think of a better place than Wolff Olins. So I had to ask: will this fix anything, or delay the truth a little longer?”
Then came the tipping point. “One Sunday, I had a classic ‘fuck it – if not now, when?’ moment. I decided I’d quit on Monday. No plan. No next gig. Just a belief that I’d figure it out.”
Overnight,