Abb-d Taiyo is co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at digital agency and B Corp, Driftime® – a mission-driven creative partner, helping progressive brands, established companies and sustainable initiatives, achieve long term impact through design and digital empowerment. Driftime® position themselves as the guide to their clients hero, helping them achieve long term success through creative strategy, brand, storytelling, digital design and development.
Ever the unconventionalist, Abb-d didn’t follow a traditional route into the industry via formal design education, instead finding himself shooting hoops in New York City playing basketball with some of the best prospects in the field. A few years down the line, Abb-d found himself in a different kind of court, honing his digital design craft by getting his hands dirty - an experience he describes as challenging but ultimately rewarding, particularly coming from an ethnic minority background.
With now over 20+ years working in the creative field, Abb-d initially entered the industry as a self-taught designer forcing his way in. Through numerous stints with multiple agencies, Abb-d eventually found himself as Creative Director for one of the worlds largest independent marketing agencies. With numerous years in the position, he came to realise the work wasn’t solving any pressing issues or adopting any meaningful sense of responsibility, and felt ‘design’ had a larger part to play.
After growing tired of what he describes as “purposeless commercial briefs” and decided he only wanted to work with clients committed to people and planet-centric goals. This led to him co-founding digital agency Driftime® in 2016, alongside his co-founder and wife Sara Taiyo.
Since then, Driftime® have worked exclusively within the three pillars of sustainability (social, environmental, and economic) with strict criteria on who they work with as partners and prospects. Driftime® became a B Corp in 2021, both advocating for impact-driven solutions to complex challenges, and empowering partners to create real change with a high-performing team, and extended partners globally.
Driftime® have been fortunate to work with an impressive ensemble of people in the impact space. From a long-term partnership delivering digital solutions for ocean conservationists Only One, sparking global conversations around healthier oceans with meaningful, accessible ways to take action, and inspiring and empowering change, through to global efforts with The Quad Investors Network, launched at the G7 summit in Japan and announced at The White House, implementing infrastructure and innovation through AI, quantum computing, clean energy and more.
Alongside Driftime®, Abb-d is invested in change beyond the design industry by co-founding and co-steering Design Declares!, a progressive movement bringing together designers, design studios, agencies and institutions to declare a climate and ecological emergency.