Marco Simonetti grew up with Walhalla. With the appointment of Creative Director Marco Simonetti, Heads Corporate Communications in Zurich is further expanding its creative department. At the beginning of the 1990s, Simonetti co-founded the design agency Walhalla in Bern, which later became renowned worldwide. "In the beginning, it was purely a hobby," recalls the award-winning designer, whose work has been published in books and design magazines around the world. Walhalla's office was initially located in the immediate vicinity of the Dampfzentrale cultural venue in Bern. The first customers were therefore event organizers who needed flyers or a DJ who was looking for a new logo. Walhalla made a name for itself with such orders in the cultural sector, became more professional and soon also became a specialist in the commercial youth sector. "A 60-hour week was normal back then," Marco Simonetti recalls of 1993, when he worked for clients such as Nidecker (snowboards) and Casio (watches). As their work also found its way into well-known magazines such as Tyler Brûlés Wallpaper or GQ, more and more international clients became aware of Walhalla.
A fax from Paris in which Renault was looking for an agency to design a new cultural center therefore seemed like an ominous call from Hollywood for an actor. "They had seen a report about us in the French design magazine Etapes graphiques," recalls Simonetti. The evaluation process with two other invited agencies from London and France took more than six months. Then the pitch was won and the Bernese were allowed to design an image center for Renault on the Champs-Elysées. The aim was not to showcase cars, but to offer customers a new kind of brand promise with restaurants, bars and exhibitions. Walhalla created the entire corporate design for this "L'atélier" of Renault. This assignment also earned them an appearance in the Paris Museum of Communication. Since then, Walhalla has regularly sent new material to the advertising museum in the Louvre.
The fashion spectacle Gwand in Lucerne and Kangaroos Shoes were other customers with whom Walhalla grew steadily. Nevertheless, after eight years, Simonetti wanted something new. The Walhalla crew disbanded because the two partners were moving in different directions. He moved to a web agency in Biel. There he spent two years creating web designs for clients such as Mövenpick and Swisscom. When his girlfriend flirted with a career move to Zurich, the request from Heads came at just the right time for Simonetti.
At Heads, the new CD is impressed by "the extensive expertise in strategic issues". In addition to this, he now wants to further expand his expertise in design. Thanks to co-founder Mike Stillhard, the agency already has its origins in the CI sector. Ralph Hermann later added the classic agency area to Heads. Heads employs ten people. Important clients include ETH with its 150th anniversary and Swiss Re with the global implementation of its corporate philosophy.
Marco Simonetti learned his profession on the job. After graduating from high school, he first studied computer science and then worked in the IT sector. When the first computers became affordable for ordinary people in the early 1990s, he "threw himself into it" and turned to computer graphics as an autodidact "with inner drive and passion".
He also lives for design in his private life. Simonetti also works on artistic projects such as SoulEngineer and develops product design for everyday objects with a Greek colleague.
From a job for alternative cultural events to global brands: Marco Simonetti kept getting "the right call".
Andreas Panzeri
