Meet Yarden Brikman | Creative Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Yarden Brikman and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Yarden, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Honestly, I sacrificed a lot to start my own business.

And I know it sounds like a cliché, but I don’t think I really chose it. It chose me.

Being a business owner is probably the worst job anyone can have. You carry everything. The pressure, the money, the people, the uncertainty, the mistakes. There is no real off switch. But for some reason, once you know you’re built for it, it’s very hard to go back and give your future to someone else.

Before starting my own company, I was a Creative Director at an advertising agency, leading big brands and doing the work I always wanted to do. But at some point, I looked around and understood the game. The “partnership” track was already closed. There were already partners, no one had become a partner there for a decade, and I realized there wasn’t really a seat waiting for me.

So I said, fuck it.

I wanted to build something of my own. Something that could last. Something that had my name, my standards, my taste, my decisions, and my legacy behind it.

It wasn’t because I thought being an entrepreneur would be easier. It’s harder in every possible way. But I wanted to know that if I was going to give everything to something, it would be something I actually owned. Not just financially, but emotionally. Creatively. Personally.

That was the thought process.

I didn’t want to spend my life waiting for permission, waiting for a title, or hoping someone else would decide my future was worth investing in.

I wanted to build my own future, even if it meant paying a much higher price for it.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I actually have a degree in Fine Art, so I’m very careful with the word “art.”

I don’t think everything creative is automatically art. Advertising is not fine art. Branding is not fine art. A campaign has a job to do. It needs to sell, explain, position, move people, or make a business clearer.

But I do think the way you approach creative work can come from an artistic place.

For me, it’s about taste, tension, composition, timing, restraint, and knowing when something is saying too much or not enough. It’s about seeing what other people don’t see yet, and turning it into something simple enough for everyone else to feel.

That’s probably what sets me apart. I don’t treat creative like decoration. I don’t believe the goal is just to make something “nice.” The goal is to make something true, sharp, and useful.

My background in fine art taught me how to look. Advertising taught me how to make that looking serve a purpose.

And this is coming from someone who made fashion ads, which from the outside can look like just beautiful people, beautiful clothes, beautiful lighting. But it’s never just that. The good ones have messaging, layers, tension, and a point of view. They know what they want you to feel, what they want you to think, and what they want to leave in your head after you look away.

Same with car ads. I’ve worked on BMW, and people might think, “Well, it’s a beautiful car, so you just make a beautiful ad.” That’s so wrong. The beauty is the surface. Underneath, it’s all positioning, emotion, status, desire, culture, and the story you choose to tell around the product.

So I wouldn’t say my work is art. I would say I bring an artist’s eye into business problems. And that’s where I think the interesting work happens.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
’d start in Silver Lake and Echo Park. Coffee, vintage stores, walking around Sunset, Echo Park Lake, maybe a drink somewhere that looks like nothing from the outside but is actually great.

Then Los Feliz. Breakfast, Skylight Books, Griffith Observatory, maybe a hike if we’re pretending to be healthy.

One night has to be Meteora. That’s the dinner. Not just because the food is great, but because it feels like LA at its best. Weird, beautiful, dramatic, and hard to explain.

I’d do an Arts District day too. Galleries, Little Tokyo, good food, good drinks, no real plan.

Then Malibu or Topanga for a completely different LA. Beach, canyon, coffee, maybe lunch somewhere with a view.

I think LA is so bad at “actual places” and so fun at exploring.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I think I want to dedicate my shoutout to probably the most unrecognized creature in questions like this: my dogs.

Of course, there are people I’m thankful for every morning. Some of them are my co-founders, some are shareholders in my company, some are friends, clients, mentors, and people who believed in me at different points along the way.

But my dogs deserve credit too.

When you’re building a business, it’s very easy to lose balance. It’s easy to stay too late at the office, to worry too much, to put too much energy into things that don’t really deserve it, and to forget that there is a life outside of the pressure.

My dogs kept me safe, sane, and grounded. They gave me something to come home to, something to care for, and honestly, sometimes a reason to keep moving when things didn’t look good.

That might sound simple, but it’s not. When everything feels uncertain, having that kind of unconditional presence in your life matters. They don’t care about revenue, strategy, clients, or whether the month was good or bad. They just need you to show up.

And sometimes, that’s exactly what keeps you human.

So yes, I’m grateful for the people who helped me build, supported me, and believed in me. But my dogs deserve a little credit in my story too.

Website: https://www.YardenBrikman.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/yardenbrikman

Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/yardenbrikman