Inside Culture Works’ rebrand and pivot to a brand experience agency

Culture Works didn’t start as an agency. It began with four guys in Aarhus running a non-profit music association, learning to make people turn up and care before they learned to build a brand. Sixteen years on, that instinct underpins the agency’s biggest shift yet: a move from activation agency to brand experience agency, building on the conviction that being online alone no longer builds great brands in an AI-saturated world. It arrives with a new identity two years in the making, with a logomark made from handmade brushstrokes and sharp geometry, born out of team workshops, stacks of sketches and a fair few empty wine bottles. In this conversation, Brand Director Mads Severinsen and Design Lead Jesper Juul Sehested Larsen explain why physical experience is gaining ground, why they keep running their own ventures and more. TBI: Hi Mads and Jesper, how are you? Huge moment getting the new identity out there! MS: Great, thank you. It’s definitely a huge moment for us. Culture Works is a small, family-driven agency and has always been deeply shaped by the personalities and people behind it. So there was no way around involving the entire team in the process to make sure the new identity genuinely reflected who we are.