Christopher Sharpe Interview
Jones Knowles Ritchie's Christopher Sharpe shares his journey from aspiring music journalist to Creative Director — digging into creative icks, the power of a strong point of view, and what it means to "Virgo out."
Published on
May 9, 2025
6
min. read
Where’s your hometown and where do you live currently?
I was born in Nottingham, East Midlands. I now live in Colchester, Essex.
In a few sentences, describe what you do.
When you’re lost for words, I help you find them.
What are the skills that make the biggest difference in your work?
I was once told: “you’ve got to collect the dots, before you can connect the dots”, which I love as a distillation of creativity in general, but commercial creativity in particular. Active listening, observation, and translation are always the startpoint, because without that, we don’t have the raw materials to craft with.
Can you tell us about the transition from account management to the creative side? Was taking this path always the plan?
I had no plan. What I did have was an itch to write for a living—which JKR, thankfully, gave me the ability to scratch.
I’d pursued music journalism since I was 14, unsuccessfully tried to break into radio, and ultimately ended up working as a substitute teacher at my old school. By the time I found myself accepting an unpaid music PR job as a final Hail Mary to get myself in the door, the dream had well-and-truly died, so I started looking for a ‘real job’.
Eventually, I happened upon an application to be an Account Executive at JKR. I knew nothing about design, branding, or marketing, but when I saw the first question on the form, I knew I had to apply: ‘Tell us about the last time you laughed until you cried’. I nearly did right there and then, discovering an actual grown-up job that seemed to actively encourage storytelling. Several rounds of interviews later, I got the job.
On my second day, I decided to write a brief for the design team as if it was the blurb on the back of a Penguin Classic. In my second week, I was rewriting the front of pack copy for Jura’s 1984 limited edition, to make sure it worked with the design. In my second month, a client said they “wished I could follow them around, to make everything they say sound better.” Eventually, someone mentioned this thing called ‘copywriting’ to me, so I asked to go on a course, in order to have some vague idea of what I was doing.
Flash forward, two years and oodles of lorem ipsum filled in later. Our founder, Ian Ritchie, asked me to stay behind after a complete car crash of a creative review. He took me out onto his balcony and said: “I’d rather have a full-arsed copywriter than a half-arsed account manager” and asked me to come up with a plan of what that would look like. So I did. He backed me to found the Voice department at JKR. And here we are.
How have you navigated other career turning points, like taking on leadership roles as your career has progressed?
For two years, I was the only full-time copywriter in the agency. I learnt fast and I loved it, but it became clear that I had breadth, not depth of knowledge. If I wanted to build anything bigger, I’d need to lay stronger, deeper foundations. So I did two things.
First, I sought out mentorship from Ed Chipperfield and James Minta, excellent copywriters who’d been there, done that, and wrote the slogan for the t-shirt. This helped fill in the blanks, not only on what the hell I was doing day-to-day, but what Voice meant to me moving forward. Which led me to the second thing, I needed a team to do it.
Luckily, I was given the best advice I’ve ever been given about leadership early doors: when hiring, hire someone better than you.
I found Kathryn Hindess (now Copy Lead at JKR), who worked in-house at Lush Cosmetics. She knew one brand’s distinctive voice inside-out, the perfect counterbalance to my ‘here, there and everywhere’ branding education. We’ve worked together ever since.
Since it seemed to work out the first time, I’ve applied the lesson ever since: what can they do, that I can’t. Seán Curran is an ad agency-educated agitator with a heart of gold. Isaac Izekor is a philosopher-poet. Janelle Alanguilan is an endlessly curious connoisseur of culture. Hope Whitehead is insanely intelligent, but also bloody loves a dad joke. What makes us different, has always been what makes us better.
With that in mind, in the last year, I’ve taken on maternity cover as a Creative Director at JKR. I wanted to see if a copy specialist could successfully adapt to being a generalist creative leader in a branding agency. It’s been by far the hardest, most challenging year of my career. At points, my comfort zone has been but a distant memory. But it’s also taught me so much about who I am, what I’m capable of and what I value as a leader.
You’ve spent the past decade at Jones Knowles Ritchie—what’s kept you around?
The philosophy of the agency is rooted in an Oscar Wilde quote: “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” We bring it to life all the time in the brands we build and redefine. But what’s kept me around, is that my own unconventional career path has shown it’s not just a clever turn-of-phrase, it’s true. If you bring yourself—and what you’re capable of—to work, that’s how you thrive at JKR.
How does your background as a critic and radio presenter impact your creative and/or leadership approach?
The critic in me, means I’m always looking for the red thread that ties a piece of work together, and identifying opportunities for improvement to get us there. The presenter in me, means I’m basically allergic to awkward silences in meetings and am always, always up for the performance aspect of our job: selling the work.
What’s a piece of feedback that still haunts you?
This brutal dressing down from a Creative Director in my second week at JKR, which revealed that my name is in fact a curse.
“What’s your name?”
“Chris Sharpe.”
“Not very sharp today, were you?”
What’s a piece of advice that still fuels you?
“Great creative wears in. Bad creative wears out.”
How do you see the relationship between copywriting and design? Has that perspective evolved as you’ve stepped into creative direction?
I maintain the same viewpoint I had when I first stumbled into design a decade ago: I cannot do what great designers do. I simply don’t have the skills, so that moment where a vision becomes reality, is still like magic to me. But equally, I love it when the same is true in reverse.
When the words that have been escaping someone else, whether they’re a designer, strategist, or whatever, are seemingly plucked from thin air by a writer and fall into place, just so.
A strong creative relationship is not just about working together throughout the process. That is (or, at least should be) brass tacks. Real strength comes from mutual respect and belief in the value of each other’s discipline.
What is your favorite and least favorite brand right now? Why?
I loved Uncommon’s recent work for The Ordinary. It’s a highly successful brand, but for an identity that’s so stripped-back, its voice has always been an untapped asset for me.
‘The Truth Should be Ordinary’ campaign was benefit-led, yet bold; minimal, yet meaningful. With lines like ‘Miracle creams aren’t miracles if no one can afford them’, it feels like they’ve finally been able to articulate their proposition and what makes The Ordinary extraordinary. For their next trick, I’d love them to commit to its implications across the full brand experience.
By contrast, any brand who jumped on the recent AI action figure trend needs to take a long walk off a short pier.
What do you think distinguishes a good brand voice from a great one?
You can’t have a great TOV, without a compelling POV. If you have the substance, the style will follow.
Do you have rituals for finding inspiration, or do you let it come naturally? And what’s your favorite offline source of inspiration?
It’s not a ritual and more of an insurance policy against my short-term memory, but I’m a copious note-taker and post-it maker. If it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist. If it exists, it can be a source of inspiration.
My favourite offline source of inspiration? Step away from the desk. Go for a walk by yourself. Make coffee. Whilst the pot is percolating, so are you.
What’s your favorite way to procrastinate?
“Virgo-ing out”. In the event of an imminent deadline or vaguely pressurised event (say, an interview request from The Subtext), intensive household deep cleaning and decluttering will usually ensue.
What about the industry do you wish you knew starting out in your career?
Complexity can be impressive, even seductive. But simplicity always wins.
Bonus Round
What do you listen to while working?
Usually nothing. But, when I really need to focus, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross soundtracks are in heavy rotation. Apparently, I work most effectively when pretending I’m in a David Fincher movie.
What’s your most creatively inspired time of day?
First thing in the morning, or last thing at night. No Slack. No Zoom. Just room to think.
What’s one writing rule you love to break, and one you never do?
If the intended meaning and flow of your writing is enhanced by breaking the rules, go for it. I have a habit of writing everything as if it’s going to be spoken aloud, so it’s commas, dashes, and ellipses galore in here.
The one rule I can’t abide people breaking though? Misuse of apostrophes.
If you could ban one copy line/phrase, what would it be?
“This one’s for the…” insert list of people, preferably delivered in an insufferably smug voiceover. We’ve all done it. Let’s all stop it.
Favorite personal mantra?
It belongs to Scott Hutchison, not me, but the lyric “while I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to earth” from Frightened Rabbit’s ‘Head Rolls Off’ is just about the best thing anyone’s ever said.
I have ‘Tiny Changes’ tattooed on my right ankle, to remind myself to put my best foot forward.
If you weren’t in this industry, what would you be doing?
The siren song of “move to a farm and run a doggy day care” is calling louder by the day.
Describe your creative process in three words.
Fewer, better words.
Christopher Sharpe is a Creative Director at Jones Knowles Ritchie (JKR). After stumbling into industry life via account management, he soon found his calling in copywriting and went on to found JKR’s Voice department in 2016. He now splits his time between overseeing a crack team of copywriters and directing brand identity development for a stable of global giants, charities, and cult heroes.
Where’s your hometown and where do you live currently?
I was born in Nottingham, East Midlands. I now live in Colchester, Essex.
In a few sentences, describe what you do.
When you’re lost for words, I help you find them.
What are the skills that make the biggest difference in your work?
I was once told: “you’ve got to collect the dots, before you can connect the dots”, which I love as a distillation of creativity in general, but commercial creativity in particular. Active listening, observation, and translation are always the startpoint, because without that, we don’t have the raw materials to craft with.
Can you tell us about the transition from account management to the creative side? Was taking this path always the plan?
I had no plan. What I did have was an itch to write for a living—which JKR, thankfully, gave me the ability to scratch.
I’d pursued music journalism since I was 14, unsuccessfully tried to break into radio, and ultimately ended up working as a substitute teacher at my old school. By the time I found myself accepting an unpaid music PR job as a final Hail Mary to get myself in the door, the dream had well-and-truly died, so I started looking for a ‘real job’.
Eventually, I happened upon an application to be an Account Executive at JKR. I knew nothing about design, branding, or marketing, but when I saw the first question on the form, I knew I had to apply: ‘Tell us about the last time you laughed until you cried’. I nearly did right there and then, discovering an actual grown-up job that seemed to actively encourage storytelling. Several rounds of interviews later, I got the job.
On my second day, I decided to write a brief for the design team as if it was the blurb on the back of a Penguin Classic. In my second week, I was rewriting the front of pack copy for Jura’s 1984 limited edition, to make sure it worked with the design. In my second month, a client said they “wished I could follow them around, to make everything they say sound better.” Eventually, someone mentioned this thing called ‘copywriting’ to me, so I asked to go on a course, in order to have some vague idea of what I was doing.
Flash forward, two years and oodles of lorem ipsum filled in later. Our founder, Ian Ritchie, asked me to stay behind after a complete car crash of a creative review. He took me out onto his balcony and said: “I’d rather have a full-arsed copywriter than a half-arsed account manager” and asked me to come up with a plan of what that would look like. So I did. He backed me to found the Voice department at JKR. And here we are.
How have you navigated other career turning points, like taking on leadership roles as your career has progressed?
For two years, I was the only full-time copywriter in the agency. I learnt fast and I loved it, but it became clear that I had breadth, not depth of knowledge. If I wanted to build anything bigger, I’d need to lay stronger, deeper foundations. So I did two things.
First, I sought out mentorship from Ed Chipperfield and James Minta, excellent copywriters who’d been there, done that, and wrote the slogan for the t-shirt. This helped fill in the blanks, not only on what the hell I was doing day-to-day, but what Voice meant to me moving forward. Which led me to the second thing, I needed a team to do it.
Luckily, I was given the best advice I’ve ever been given about leadership early doors: when hiring, hire someone better than you.
I found Kathryn Hindess (now Copy Lead at JKR), who worked in-house at Lush Cosmetics. She knew one brand’s distinctive voice inside-out, the perfect counterbalance to my ‘here, there and everywhere’ branding education. We’ve worked together ever since.
Since it seemed to work out the first time, I’ve applied the lesson ever since: what can they do, that I can’t. Seán Curran is an ad agency-educated agitator with a heart of gold. Isaac Izekor is a philosopher-poet. Janelle Alanguilan is an endlessly curious connoisseur of culture. Hope Whitehead is insanely intelligent, but also bloody loves a dad joke. What makes us different, has always been what makes us better.
With that in mind, in the last year, I’ve taken on maternity cover as a Creative Director at JKR. I wanted to see if a copy specialist could successfully adapt to being a generalist creative leader in a branding agency. It’s been by far the hardest, most challenging year of my career. At points, my comfort zone has been but a distant memory. But it’s also taught me so much about who I am, what I’m capable of and what I value as a leader.
You’ve spent the past decade at Jones Knowles Ritchie—what’s kept you around?
The philosophy of the agency is rooted in an Oscar Wilde quote: “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” We bring it to life all the time in the brands we build and redefine. But what’s kept me around, is that my own unconventional career path has shown it’s not just a clever turn-of-phrase, it’s true. If you bring yourself—and what you’re capable of—to work, that’s how you thrive at JKR.
How does your background as a critic and radio presenter impact your creative and/or leadership approach?
The critic in me, means I’m always looking for the red thread that ties a piece of work together, and identifying opportunities for improvement to get us there. The presenter in me, means I’m basically allergic to awkward silences in meetings and am always, always up for the performance aspect of our job: selling the work.
What’s a piece of feedback that still haunts you?
This brutal dressing down from a Creative Director in my second week at JKR, which revealed that my name is in fact a curse.
“What’s your name?”
“Chris Sharpe.”
“Not very sharp today, were you?”
What’s a piece of advice that still fuels you?
“Great creative wears in. Bad creative wears out.”
How do you see the relationship between copywriting and design? Has that perspective evolved as you’ve stepped into creative direction?
I maintain the same viewpoint I had when I first stumbled into design a decade ago: I cannot do what great designers do. I simply don’t have the skills, so that moment where a vision becomes reality, is still like magic to me. But equally, I love it when the same is true in reverse.
When the words that have been escaping someone else, whether they’re a designer, strategist, or whatever, are seemingly plucked from thin air by a writer and fall into place, just so.
A strong creative relationship is not just about working together throughout the process. That is (or, at least should be) brass tacks. Real strength comes from mutual respect and belief in the value of each other’s discipline.
What is your favorite and least favorite brand right now? Why?
I loved Uncommon’s recent work for The Ordinary. It’s a highly successful brand, but for an identity that’s so stripped-back, its voice has always been an untapped asset for me.
‘The Truth Should be Ordinary’ campaign was benefit-led, yet bold; minimal, yet meaningful. With lines like ‘Miracle creams aren’t miracles if no one can afford them’, it feels like they’ve finally been able to articulate their proposition and what makes The Ordinary extraordinary. For their next trick, I’d love them to commit to its implications across the full brand experience.
By contrast, any brand who jumped on the recent AI action figure trend needs to take a long walk off a short pier.
What do you think distinguishes a good brand voice from a great one?
You can’t have a great TOV, without a compelling POV. If you have the substance, the style will follow.
Do you have rituals for finding inspiration, or do you let it come naturally? And what’s your favorite offline source of inspiration?
It’s not a ritual and more of an insurance policy against my short-term memory, but I’m a copious note-taker and post-it maker. If it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist. If it exists, it can be a source of inspiration.
My favourite offline source of inspiration? Step away from the desk. Go for a walk by yourself. Make coffee. Whilst the pot is percolating, so are you.
What’s your favorite way to procrastinate?
“Virgo-ing out”. In the event of an imminent deadline or vaguely pressurised event (say, an interview request from The Subtext), intensive household deep cleaning and decluttering will usually ensue.
What about the industry do you wish you knew starting out in your career?
Complexity can be impressive, even seductive. But simplicity always wins.
Bonus Round
What do you listen to while working?
Usually nothing. But, when I really need to focus, Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross soundtracks are in heavy rotation. Apparently, I work most effectively when pretending I’m in a David Fincher movie.
What’s your most creatively inspired time of day?
First thing in the morning, or last thing at night. No Slack. No Zoom. Just room to think.
What’s one writing rule you love to break, and one you never do?
If the intended meaning and flow of your writing is enhanced by breaking the rules, go for it. I have a habit of writing everything as if it’s going to be spoken aloud, so it’s commas, dashes, and ellipses galore in here.
The one rule I can’t abide people breaking though? Misuse of apostrophes.
If you could ban one copy line/phrase, what would it be?
“This one’s for the…” insert list of people, preferably delivered in an insufferably smug voiceover. We’ve all done it. Let’s all stop it.
Favorite personal mantra?
It belongs to Scott Hutchison, not me, but the lyric “while I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to earth” from Frightened Rabbit’s ‘Head Rolls Off’ is just about the best thing anyone’s ever said.
I have ‘Tiny Changes’ tattooed on my right ankle, to remind myself to put my best foot forward.
If you weren’t in this industry, what would you be doing?
The siren song of “move to a farm and run a doggy day care” is calling louder by the day.
Describe your creative process in three words.
Fewer, better words.
Christopher Sharpe is a Creative Director at Jones Knowles Ritchie (JKR). After stumbling into industry life via account management, he soon found his calling in copywriting and went on to found JKR’s Voice department in 2016. He now splits his time between overseeing a crack team of copywriters and directing brand identity development for a stable of global giants, charities, and cult heroes.
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