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Wout Arets
Freelance Creative Director / Lead Creative at woutarets.com
Wout Arets is an independent creative with a passion for identifying opportunities, generating ideas, and transforming them into culturally significant brands, campaigns, ventures, services, and products that are digitally savvy, honest, and intelligent.
Colleagues describe him as having an entrepreneurial spirit, always curious, and capable of operating at a rapid pace. With extensive experience in the creative field, he is known for his energy and amiable nature.
After graduating from Hyper Island in Stockholm in 2013, where he focused on Interactive Art Direction, Wout co-founded The Pop Up Agency, undertaking projects for 15 clients in 15 cities worldwide over 15 weeks, which proved to be an invaluable learning experience.
Subsequently, he relocated to Amsterdam and has been actively involved in the creative industry. Alongside his agency and brand engagements, Wout was involved in a startup venture, secured investment but unfortunately faced bankruptcy.
Currently, Wout operates as a freelance creative for creative agencies, startups, and smaller brands. He undertakes solo projects and collaborates with like-minded freelancers on various ventures.
Highlights
A. Identity. New work together with The Wolfgang Project. The spoken word and videos are generated using a range of AI technology tools. I'm playing the music live as well as triggering the videos. A lot of fun working with Hesling Reidinga again since many years. Let me know if you want to collaborate. #newwork #ai
Last februari I started working freelance at the HvA to mentor a group of CMD students with their graduation project. After more than twenty weekly sessions (four hours per week), three of my students graduated a few weeks ago. Honestly this might have been the most fulfilling freelance gig of the year (so far) and I was sincerely proud of them when handing out their diploma in front of their friends and family and presenting their final projects.
Five of my own learnings.
- Teaching forced me to reflect on my own work and way of working.
- Covid had a bigger impact on students’ personal and professional development than I had ever thought before.
- I rediscovered the joy of embracing naivety, it definitely makes work more fun.
- Motivation is much bigger when you have complete ownership of the project. I've started working on some side projectes again.
- Working with young people keeps you young as well.
Best of luck Lauryn Grootfaam, Niga Majid and Jon Kuijs. I hope I wasn’t too strict, have fun out there.
And big thanks to Laura van der Vlies and Lia S. for guiding me through this.
