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Electric Theatre Collective adds Will Denning and James Britton
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ETC amplifies their design offering with senior hires from FutureDeluxe And Buck.
Electric Theatre Collective has levelled up its design leadership with the appointment of Will Denning who joins as Creative Director and James Britton who has joined as Strategy Director.
With experience at revered creative studios including FutureDeluxe and Buck, the duo’s arrival cements ETC’s ability to collaborate as a plug-in design partner for brands, in-house teams and agency partners.
Denning brings with him a rich background in CG design, cemented across five years at FutureDeluxe as Technology Director where he played a key role in the studio’s expansion. He originally cut his teeth at The Mill and has spent the last two years crafting work independently for clients from his Shoreditch-based studio. At ETC, he will lead the development of a new design and research capability, expanding the studio’s capabilities across concepting and visual storytelling.
Britton joins from Buck, where he worked with clients including Apple and Google DeepMind. Prior to this, he was Group Managing Director at Stink Studios, where he helped develop the company’s client-facing strategy and international client relationships. In his new role, he’ll lean on this experience to identify new opportunities for creative partnerships while unifying ETC’s services under a single proposition.
Denning comments: “ETC's reputation for visual effects and colour is world-class, and that comes down to the talent here. Being able to leverage that talent in a more conceptual, research-driven context is what really drew me in. We’re already building out that offering with key hires in the design-led CG space and it’s creating a potent mix that our clients can tap into.”
“Things have really evolved these last few years,” says Britton. “Brands need to show up 24/7, always on, auto-play by default, and that’s created a demand for new expertise and new ways of working. Clients have built in-house capabilities with a lot of great talent, and there are new opportunities to work as an extension of those teams; connecting artists, innovation and our technical infrastructure.”
CEO Jon Purton says the pair’s arrival is especially timely, coinciding with the studio’s ongoing adoption of AI-driven tools. “We’re optimistic about the tools, but honestly, it’s the workflows that excite us more. Combining toolsets and approaches into pipelines and workflows has really been our focus since the beginning of ETC. They allow us to scale creative control, push ideas and create groundbreaking work and complex systems for our partners. Will and James are so exciting as collaborators; forward-thinking and strategic but with an unwavering desire to make the best creative work.”
