Caroline May

As the founder of a six-person shop called Grown Creative, what does ‘grown’ actually mean to you — is it about the work, the people, the clients, or something more personal?

We’re actually five people now: three designers and two writers. The name “Grown” is really about the people I want to work with and for: People who have earned perspective, who’ve worked a thankless job before, who have an original point-of-view on their work and the world, and — most of all — people who take accountability for themselves and their impact on others. It’s got nothing to do with age, but everything to do with worldview and worth ethic.

You wear both the founder hat and the writer hat every day — when those two roles are pulling in opposite directions, which one usually wins, and does that ever keep you up at night?

I think writer wins every time. Not necessarily because it’s more important or more familiar, but because it’s so inseparable (to me) from strategy that I often arrive at the 30,000-foot-view by working things out in the weeds. As a practice, writing is how I figure out what I think and make decisions — whether that’s on behalf of a client or for our business.

St. Louis has a complicated relationship with believing in itself creatively — do you think that’s changing, and does running a smaller agency here feel like an advantage or something you’re constantly working against?

I think Saint Louis has an insanely deep well of creative talent, especially relative to its size, and we’re altogether too quiet about it. People living in Saint Louis are (and have been!) doing insane work for celebrated brands and companies all over the country. But beyond that, I don’t know another market where the cost of living is so low that you can actually afford to do something crazy like quit your job and start a new agency from scratch. Being truly independent in that way — beholden to nothing and no one but your clients and what you know will make them successful — is a HUGE advantage, for us and them. I’m a Texan transplant who’s been here 10+ years now, and I think that’s the singular story Saint Louis needs to tell: how easy it is to bet on yourself here.

What’s a piece of writing you’ve done for a client that you’re genuinely proud of, but that nobody outside that client relationship will ever really see or know about?

Aside from the many, many concept write-ups that sparked in the room and then died with the deck, it’s probably the deep-dive animated social content I used to produce for a major multinational client. The scripts were all long-form, and the production value was totally disproportionate to the audience of mostly bots and employees, but the work was so fun. A total free-for-all.

Six people is a very intentional size — what’s the biggest thing you’ve protected by staying small, and what’s the thing you’ve had to make peace with giving up?

I don’t think we’ve given up anything by staying small. We’ve protected our ability to practice our craft and stay in the work even as we’re directing the agency, AND we’ve found that we’re able to sell and ultimately produce better creative when we’re also the ones communicating with clients and managing timelines. I used to find myself trying to fend people off at bigger agencies, anyway, so it’s nice to be working this way on purpose.