About

For the last 16 years I’ve been a Creative Director for three agencies in and around Boston—creating work that inspires, campaigns that resonate, brands that differentiate, and connections that last. With work spanning a wide range of B2C and B2B clients, from CVS Health, Harman/JBL, Hood, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Northeastern University, Kohler, Stanford University, etc. the types of projects have covered everything from massive launch campaigns with Time Square billboards, to countless TV shoots, to dynamic interactive experiences, to livestream brand launches, to global thought leadership surveys/campaigns, to small but important pro bono rebrands for a couple of under the radar non-profits who just needed a little love. 

For the last nearly 4 years I’ve been working as the Creative Director for Matter Communications, a strategy, marketing, PR, and creative agency. When I was hired, Matter was in the process of building out a marketing and strategy groups to complement its robust PR arm and I was charged with building the creative group from the ground up. Under my guidance, the team grew from 3 designers to a 22 person creative powerhouse including 4 art directors, 7 designers, 6 writers, 3 web developers and 2 creative project managers/web producers. Through that process I have become known as a fierce collaborator, a prolific creative leader, a passionate and empathetic mentor, and a go-to strategic partner that solves problems, gets people unstuck, and gets shit done. And I do it all in the least ego-driven way possible. It’s not my style. It’s why my title is Creative Director, and not Creative Dictator.  

To give you a sense of who I am beyond work, I am a prolific watercolor artist (nikbarkleywatercolor.com), I once found 135 4-leaf clovers in one year, I can juggle, and I live in a house build in 1773.