Hannah Smit has moved abroad.
The former John St. creative – and 30 Under 30 alumna – has been hired as a senior art director at 180 Amsterdam. She started her new gig last Monday.
Dave Canning, executive creative director at 180 Amsterdam, said hiring Smit was a “no brainer.” “Her work is smart, interesting and fresh,” Canning said. “We saw Hannah’s work and thought, ‘Damn. We wish we did some of that.'”
Smit is a heavily-decorated art director who’s won four Cannes Lions, a One Show pencil and an Applied Arts award. At John St., she helped Loblaw re-position President’s Choice as a lifestyle brand and earned widespread attention for “Cover The Athlete,” a campaign that called out sexist coverage of female athletes in the media.
At 180, Smit has already started working on a global brief for one of her new clients, United Colors of Benetton. Smit told Marketing the chance to work on global campaigns for big brands like Benetton attracted her to the agency.
“Amsterdam is a small European city with less than a million people, but there are a number of killer agencies here creating world-class work for great global brands,” she said, adding, “The 90€ flights to just about anywhere in Europe aren’t bad either.”
Smit had been with John St. for more than five years. Reflecting on her tenure at the Toronto agency, she said, “My time at John St. taught me that brands must be unignorable to stand out in today’s over-saturated ad landscape, so we need to challenge the way we think of advertising all together. 180 has a very similar philosophy towards the work.”
Smit and her John St. creative partner, fellow 30 Under 30 Jessica Schnurr, parted ways last year, but both ended up working at the same agency – albeit an ocean apart. Just a few weeks ago Schnurr joined the staff at 180 L.A.
