The Work That Made Me: Jiri Bures

This article first appeared on Little Black Books as part of its 'The Work That Made Me' series.

Jiri Bures is our Executive Creative Director EMEA and Global Creative Director across Shell, Major League Baseball, Ikea and Visa, he has over 20 years' experience in multi-channel brand communications, digital, broadcast and experience design. Below he shares his experience in the industry and the continuing influence of the Beastie Boys.

Prior to joining Imagination, Jiri worked across a variety of sectors where his clients included Johnson & Johnson, Orange, Intel, Volvo, DreamWorks and Fortnum & Mason for agencies located in Sydney, Hong Kong and London.

Jiri’s work has been internationally recognised by the likes of Cannes Lions, D&AD and Campaign. An active member of the creative industry, he has judged on various awards panels including Cannes Lion, EuroBest and D&AD, as well as providing mentorship through initiatives such as BIMA 'Digital Day' and The Drum's 'Do It Day'.

The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, directed by Spike Jonze. Pretty much every music video Jonze made during that era was incredible. Cannon Ball by the Breeders and Buddy Holly by Weezer were also great. 



The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…


RayGun magazine. Edited by Dave Carson, RayGun fused Alternative Music, Popular Culture and Design into one epic magazine. The magazine became an obsession and inspired me to switch from studying music to design.

Type-setting an interview with Brian Ferry in Dingbats, because it was shit is one of RayGun’s many highlights.

The creative work that I keep revisiting…

Check your head by the Beastie Boys, an album that paved the way for their Grand Royale years. They were fearless artists who never stopped exploring and evolving.

The End of Print by Dave Carson. Carson broke all the rules and he had many critics but his work was challenging and progressive, and it’s had a huge influence on me and I’m sure many other Designers, Art Directors, and Filmmakers over the years.

My first professional project…


Back in 1997 and straight out of college, my best friend and I started a digital agency called KMG. Our first paid gig was to create a launch film for NEC’s new mobile phone, The Mercury. Built using Macromedia Director (because we couldn’t afford video editing software) the project was terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time, it turned out alright and paid for the tools we needed for future projects.

The piece of work that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…


The early days of UGC. A few years back, there were so many campaigns by brands asking fans to make user-generated T.V commercials for them. A few were interesting and innovative, but a lot of them were just lazy and failed miserably.


The piece of work that still makes me jealous…


ROME: 3 Dreams of Black by Chris Milk, Google Creative Lab, and North Kingdom. It was so ahead of its time, brilliantly demonstrated the capabilities of Chrome, and looked so damn beautiful. Really the benchmark for technology-driven storytelling. 




The creative project that changed my career…


At KMG we won the account to create a series of micro-sites for Australian Youth Portal K*Grind. The work caught the attention of EURO RSCG (Havas) and they subsequently offered us jobs. The next week we moved out of our home office and into the largest digital agency in Australia (at the time).

The work that I’m proudest of…


There’s been a lot of fun projects along the way. MLB’s ‘London Yards’ is one of the more recent ones. It took years of effort, a super brave client, and many partnerships to bring the experience to life. Music, culture, sport & mad technology all in one project.

I was involved in this and it makes me cringe…


In 2003, I directed a series of TV commercials for FunPhone, a Swedish SMS-based social network. The films were pretty awful. That one’s probably the worst.

The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…


Working on an innovation project with Ikea’s in-house creative team, focused around their Smart and Sustainable product range. Helping to shape the brief in addition to developing the pilot for such a great brand was really exciting.