Voxpop

Last week, David Hillman confessed his regret at losing out to Cases Associats on the forthcoming redesign of the Daily Mirror. What dream job have you missed out on by a cat’s whisker?

We recently won a hard-fought battle to promote Diageo’s summer spirit drinks. But then researchers skewed the excellent focus group responses and the client lost its nerve. It was a dream project – fantastic ideas and outstanding executions, but they never saw the light of day. Despite being appointed, we still missed out.
Paul Burgess, Creative director, Loewy

Missing the chance to work with Rem Koolhaas on the Prada site and in-store interactive experience was painful. In 1999 we had wound down Antirom, the digital collective, so I tried to see if it could be done outside the group, but I couldn’t take it forward alone. Damn.
Nicolas Roope, Creative director and partner, Poke London

The dream job we missed by a whisker was a field of interactive sculptures on the beach at Aberafan in Wales – they were incredible wind-powered kinetic light sculptures that visualised the movement of wind. Instead, the client chose to go for the largest steel artwork in Wales…
Jason Bruges, Founder, Jason Bruges Studio

In the 1980s, in a global strategic design consultancy, I influenced a job for BP, resulting in a single-minded green – great, but boring stations. A decade later, another chance. I’d dreamed of beautiful green stations with former Archigram architect Ron Heron. Trees and hedges interspersed with effortless pumps, with a solar canopy, by Frei Otto, lighting the ‘beyond petrol’ environment. I lost. So did BP. The result, another global strategic design consultancy, joyless stations, difficult pumps and new graphics. I still weep.
Michael Wolff, Founder, Michael Wolff & Company

There are a few I wish we had won, but you can’t let it get to you. Apart from fee comparisons, you lose a project for two reasons/ you didn’t put your best foot forward for some reason, or the like-mindedness wasn’t there. You can’t control the latter, but you can the former. Learn from it and move on. The project I would like to win in the future, when it comes up, is the redesign of the British Airways identity, which has been stuck in no-man’s-land for a decade now.
Jonathan Ford, Creative partner, Pearlfisher