Dare to lean into indigenous values - Laura Cibilich

0:11Yeah, I mean we didn't start out in this niche really, but yeah we gradually over the years it was moving towards te ao Māori, like the Māori worldview and incorporating an Indigenous lens across our work. And that was driven by us like as a family, me and my husband being on our journey, him exploring his culture more and his genealogy, whakapapa we call it, and just exploring that and at the same time more and more clients were coming to us for that lens as well. Now it's kind of part of every pitch document we receive, RFPs, the Maori culture is woven through work here in New Zealand, so it very much comes from all that.

1:00Laura Cibilich:Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast, a show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection. It's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. It's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Malinic. I'm a designer, author and eternally curious human being. I am talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that inspired lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

1:51Laura Cibilich:today i'm talking with laura sibelich a co-founder of run a design and advertising agency in new zealand she shares with me her journey from being a graphic designer to agency owner running a studio guided by maori values and how those indigenous values aren't separate from business, their fundamental human principles. Laura reveals how becoming a parent for strategic thinking leading to winning major clients despite being up against much bigger agencies. Our conversation explores navigating neurodivergence in creative partnerships, the courage to say no to misaligned clients, and why human creativity will always matter more than AI-generated shortcuts.

2:32Laura Cibilich:It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Laura Sibulic.

2:47Laura Cibilich:Laura, it's great to have you on the show. How are you doing today? Yeah, kia ora. Hello, good, thanks. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me. I really want to know what it feels like to be a creative in New Zealand in 2025. And how does it influence your world? How much of focus do you put in your local culture? I want to know all of it but for those who may not have heard of you in your studio how would you introduce yourself? Yeah hello I'm Laura, Laura Siblich. I run the design and advertising agency called Run based in Aotearoa New Zealand and started it about 17 years ago. Now I run it with my husband Raymond Tune Makai and yeah we work a lot in the cultural space.

3:31He's Maori, it makes us one of the few indigenous-owned agencies probably in the world. And we lean into that. So that inspires a lot of our work and brings clients to us as well.

3:44Laura Cibilich:So tell me about your philosophy behind your agency, why you started positioning and the work that you do. Yeah, I mean, we didn't start out in this niche, really. I have a background in graphic design, so I was a graphic designer many years. I still think of myself as a designer, although I'm probably not on the tools anymore, really, sadly. But, yeah, we gradually over the years, it was moving towards te ao Māori, like the Māori worldview and incorporating an Indigenous lens across our work. And that was driven by us as a family, me and my husband being on our journey, him exploring his culture more and his genealogy, whakapapa we call it, and just exploring that.

4:24And at the same time, more and more clients were coming to us for that lens as well. Now it's kind of part of every pitch document we receive, RFPs, things like that. Yeah, a lot of the Maori culture is woven through work here in New Zealand. So it very much comes from all that.

4:41Laura Cibilich:So here's my question. You said it's kind of woven through every RFP and every pitch. Is it a collective awareness? Is there sort of amplification of the values? Like we need to look local first before bringing anything else? Yeah, I think so. So it's a really nice thing to bring in the Indigenous culture. It very much feels like we've embraced it. And here there is a treaty, Te Tiriti o Waitangi. So that was signed in 1840 when I'm not the best person to talk about all this. There's a lot of history involved in it all. But yeah, when people came here, it was a big thing signing this treaty. And there's just a lot in it.

5:22But people are driven to include it through their work and incorporate it. and it makes it unique, genuinely from New Zealand, and that kind of makes it special.

5:34Laura Cibilich:The New Zealand's got kind of one of the youngest populations because it's only sort of 800 years old. It's fiercely protective of its identity. Maori culture was very much built on kinship. It's very much like how people stick together and how they look after one another. And I think what we slightly touched on and what you're telling me so far, it feels like that kinship is very much that running theme through what you guys do right now. Yeah, yeah. A lot of it is about, yeah, kinship, I guess, relationships, treating people right, and also how it links into the environment as well. Yeah, it all comes back to that.

6:11So I think that's quite common across Indigenous cultures across the world. It all links to the environment. So yeah, it really is special. And New Zealanders are really connected to the environment anyway. We're close to the ocean. We've got lots of land. And it's just beautiful. And it's great to incorporate that through the work as well.

6:32Laura Cibilich:It's a fascinating thing to actually look into the history because that's created this societal cocktail of influences that must be unique like never else. So I'm going to bring it to graphic design now. Talking about you, obviously growing up in a place like New Zealand, what was your introduction to creativity? What was your background? what was your upbringing and that kind of stuff because you find yourself well technically from to me on the other side of the world and I want to know what it was like yeah I mean to me it was just no I didn't know anything else so it doesn't matter that I'm on a little island at the bottom of the world just grew up loving art loving creativity I believe that you know everyone One is creative and some people just get it almost taught out of them sometimes.

7:22Kids get it taught out of them, which is really sad. But I kept that and just have always been passionate about art and creativity and loved it. Did like lots of colouring competitions when I was little and things like that. Lots of drawing, all that was, I was that kid. And yeah, and then just through school, did art through school. and then took a year off to decide what I wanted to do and did some night classes and things like that, like photography and things like that. But yeah, decided design was it. That's what I really wanted to do. And from there studied a diploma in graphic design and weighed up doing a diploma over a degree so I could get those extra years of experience working rather than studying.

8:06Yeah.

8:07Laura Cibilich:Did you have any influences? Was there a particular moment that you thought, okay, I want to be as good as this, or this makes me move, like this is something that I want to be the enabler, the conduit to this communication? Was there anything like that? I kind of came into it really naive, and I didn't learn about the world of graphic design or famous designers till I was studying it, really. I did in my high school years I think end of high school I did visit some thinking that I wanted to be a designer visited some studios asking for a job part-time job or an internship or something none of them gave me a job but it was just even just going in there some would sit down and talk with me and even that was inspiring to me just being around it all and feeling the creativity in the office and I just loved it and got inspired by that I think.

8:57Laura Cibilich:You mentioned that you started your business or that you've got your business with your husband is that right yes so you met a fellow creative soul yes I did what was that like I've heard lots of recent conversations about like relationship partnerships business partnerships on this show and it's very much like the opposites attract and thrive what was it like in your case yeah that's probably us and when we met we were quite young we weren't in this industry at all He was a postie and I was in retail during that year off. Everyone thinks we met in the industry, but we didn't at all. And I think I was quite clear on what I wanted to do and he was figuring out what he wanted to do.

9:40He comes from the advertising background. So he did like an advertising creativity course degree and I did the graphic design avenue. and I started the company in 2008 and he joined me a few years later as he was freelancing and coming in more and it just grew from there.

10:01Laura Cibilich:I'm loving the plot twist. I'm loving the plot twist. He was a postie, I was in retail. I was like, hey, there's a graphic designer, there's a guy coming from ad background. No, he was a postie, I was in retail. I think that's potentially the best way to actually find that joint curiosity and what you want to do and that sounds super super exciting and linking to your kind of like the opposites attract kind of thing we very much are opposites like i'm quite detail orientated and love the finer details of the designs and he's just all about ideas and big thinking and the big ideas and he's actually adhd so his brain's going a million miles an hour and constantly onto the next thing and all that so we're very different but it works yeah I love that story so far I'm gonna go back to one thing that you said just a few seconds ago and you said that creativity sometimes is taught out of people it's something I've been thinking about a lot recently I'm working on my seventh book based on the theme of this podcast and I'm thinking is this the reality is it excuse is it a loss of curiosity because I'm thinking if the creativity was taught out of us there would be no creatives and it's usually the people who are you know a posties or in retail that even obviously you get your graphic design and a degree but i'm thinking would you think that it actually depends on what's deep inside us that drives the exploration of creativity because yes we can always have more creative subjects in school but then someone needs to run the bank and then maybe their degree in watercolor wouldn't be that so i just feel we're not going to say well because you go to graphic design the business acumen is taught out of you so it's not me challenging it's me running this as an open research and open questions like what do you think about this or how much of accountability when it comes to creativity do we really need.

12:04Yeah, yeah. No, I love the thinking. It's nature versus nurture. And yeah, when you think that to kids, everyone is curious. And I guess maybe that's the creativity that I think of or see. Experiencing the world for the first time, every single experience for the first time. And that kind of leads into the creativity or inspires the creativity. But then I guess some people are just naturally gravitate more towards design or accounting so yeah a bit of both I guess I've never thought about that way yeah because in your case and your husband's case

12:42Laura Cibilich:you started your agency and he joined you because you wanted to do this together like you wanted to explore creative work let's go to 2008 and you've started your own thing what did that feel like what was that change from not being agency oh no not having a creative business to having a creative business and not realizing oh shit i'm running a business what do we do next yeah well i used to go to the creative conference semi-permanent i'm not sure if you know but it was on every year semi-permanent and i'd go there listen to all these amazing designers show their work and they were it seemed like they were all freelancers or business owners or had their own studio kind of thing.

13:26And I always left it thinking, God, I just want to quit my job and start my own thing. And I'd think that every year. And so finally one day I just did it basically, which is crazy. I did end up, I didn't plan it as a business or think strategically at all at that time. So probably if I was going to do it again, I would plan it out a bit better. I did end up having to go back to work a little bit part-time and get contracts and things like that as I built up over those years but that's how it started how did you feel like when you as you said like you

14:00Laura Cibilich:have to go into employment like how did you feel that you wanted to start your own thing but the dreams of the semi-permanent stardom conference emulating the others didn't happen straight away what was that like for you did it feel challenging or were you like that's just a part of a job i think it's just part of your journey really there are ups and downs through life and it's just one of those things and I think I think very long term in general and so it was just one of those bumps in the road I always knew I would get to running a studio but it just took longer than I thought maybe and needed a few more steps along the way.

14:42We'll be back after a quick break.

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15:32It's one of the things that I'm really trying to help novices and newcomers.

15:38Laura Cibilich:Not even help, just to say, look, it's okay to start again. It's okay to do this. not slowly when you watch i was watching just before our conversation i was watching an interview with les claypool from primus musician for 30 only nearly 40 years it was like look we took years and years and years to get good we played shitty gigs we played small rooms we did this but we learned bit by bit and we stuck to what we really thought of doing whereas the world moves much faster right now at least we like to believe that it moves much faster and it feels like not getting things wrong and sort of fatal blow okay this is it whereas in fact we've got so much more information and so much more resources and more people to talk to i mean so much more connected because as you said when you were growing up it didn't make any difference being on the island on the other side of the world because that was your immediate surroundings whereas now we've got bigger view of the world is a bit more scarier yeah is it too much is the thing like is more necessarily better or is being naive the way to go because you don't know the other side of it and I quite like that I'm not hugely qualified technically so I didn't do that degree so I don't have the knowledge of people that have but I think not knowing the rules you naturally break them and you make discoveries along the way which makes it all you know even more awesome you got your business moving you got a business and strong enough that They were supporting you to not needing an additional income.

17:12Laura Cibilich:How was your work developing? What was it that you started your own thing with? It's easy to dream about the freedom, then the artistic expression, the card blanches that we demand as a young designer. And then you realize, oh, this is a reality. And I need to find something that I really want to enjoy doing. What type of work did you want it to do? What you didn't get to do? And how did that sort of shape the way of that led you to build, run to what it is today? Yeah, I guess the real driver to it becoming serious and it needing to work as a business was becoming pregnant about 12 years ago, I think.

17:47And there's nothing like having a baby on the way to actually make you think seriously about life and what you're doing with your life. And so that was real motivation for me. I really felt that. And then when I had the baby, like brand new breastfeeding in the middle of the night kind of thing a pitch came up for new way tourism to be their sole agency and they're a small pacific island country beautiful by the way and i was just thinking i'll imagine if we won that and long story short we actually did win pitch for it won and that set us off on yeah on our journey and established us as a real agency let's talk about a pitch because nothing gives you more focus

18:30Laura Cibilich:than having children because you have to step out of yourself and go, okay, I was enough of an idiot wondering about number one. Okay, what do the others need? So how did you guys work on the pitch and how did you have to change to your working processes to make it happen and put that extra effort into winning the work? Yeah, I guess nothing changed. I do enjoy being a designer. I love working, so I didn't really have time off, couldn't afford it either. but was just part of the process of getting work. We hadn't done any major pitches before that but it was just part of it and I wouldn't have possibly, before kids, I probably wouldn't have even pitched for it thinking that we're too small or wouldn't win but we just positioned ourselves.

19:18I think we even said in that we might not be the obvious choice but we think we'd be the right choice and we were up against really big agencies with cafes and in their office and everything like this but I think they saw something in us as well and maybe it was like the passion like we really wanted it and and love love the Pacific Islands too we've got a few Pacific Island clients now as well and I love the ocean and everything like that and I guess they just saw that passion in us and that we were they didn't want to be the smallest client and with a bunch of big clients they i think they knew that they would be our biggest client and that because of that we would put all our energy into it you don't get qualified as an agency just because you got drinks for each and exactly but it's really interesting what you

20:08Laura Cibilich:say like you don't want to be the smallest account with the biggest agency you want because as you said it was the passion they saw something in you that you guys did that i wrote about fearlessness like it's when you and i think the parenting aspect is so guiding in a way because as as a parent you just have to get stuck in and you're working with the unknowns all the time and the unknowns change all the time because as someone once said like it doesn't get any easier it just gets different and it's very much applicable to the creative work it doesn't get easier it just gets different because if it gets really easy is are you really doing the right thing so if i may ask obviously you've been working with your husband what i'm looking at about 15 years from about 2010 right and you mentioned that he's adhd and we're getting to know and understand more about adhd we're getting more people with diagnosis we're getting more people with neurodivergent diagnosis because a few once upon a time as a society global society fooled ourselves that everyone's pretty normal some people do stand out a little bit more and that's the people we need to lock up because they're a little bit too mad and the more we understand about ourselves we're realizing that no one's normal we all go we are on the spectrum in some way so what i want to know is when you guys know that he has ADHD and how does it sort of work with your personal and working relationship because you've got you're connected in more than one way and how was it for you and how does it work because I think this kind of information could be really beneficial to people being heard and seen yes and I don't think there's any right way to do it or approach it or anything like that.

22:07This is just my story personally, our story. And we only, he only got diagnosed about two years ago, actually. And it was from, I'm not even sure I really believed in it before that. I thought we all just put it down to personality, I guess. Everyone has different personalities and I hadn't really looked into it, didn't give much thought. And then this, like a meme or something popped up or a video on my social feeds and it was a husband talking about his ADHD wife and I was just like wow every single one of these things that he does is what Raymond does I was like oh maybe there's something in this looked I googled it a bit got him to do an online test like ADHD New Zealand had a test online or something like that got him to do that myself as well and I just I don't know got like a one or something and he got really high scores that said like he's most likely ADHD and then from there he explored it but it took about two years for him to go through that process it was quite difficult here in New Zealand I don't know what it's like in the rest of the world but it took a few steps to get diagnosed and then from there he's tried different drugs at different times medication and stuff.

23:21Laura Cibilich:Yeah this is interesting so just before I get to the next question because you said it's personality sometimes you think it's just a personality it's a character it's something that you don't understand with raymond's diagnosis and the follow-ups like has it changed the nature of your work is there a way to utilize the diagnosis and do you now you know what it is does it potentially cause less friction do you see this as there any sort of benefits to it it's like could it be like a scene as a weight of your shoulders yeah there's kind of two sides to it having the diagnosis does help explain it and give a reason for why he's like that but then and this is more the husband wife thing sometimes he'll use it as an excuse of oh that's just how my brain works so I can't kind of thing and I'm like but you can just push through and do it so it's a love-hate thing I think he does think of it as a superpower and it has just while we're on that kind of journey of learning about it has helped definitely fantastic yeah because i think i mean it's i think we can go both ways there was a joke by english comedian who said hey like she said my friend was diagnosed with adhd but ellie i think you also are any adhd really it's not a pyramid scheme not just because like we're gonna get everyone diagnosed but it's i think it's really in a very it's the right adjectives to use i think privileged beneficial i don't know what the right word to use but i think we should be appreciative of the fact that we understand more about ourselves because we're talking about the history of new zealand like being 800 years and there is history of our world like you know being three four five six thousand years old yet it's 2025 and we are just about understanding what ADHD means like what is all of these little bits because I think it's what we need for us to understand ourselves and you get idiots from the right wing sides that be like oh everyone's no special no we're just understanding who we are how we work and how to use it as as a superpower as a benefit as a something that pushes us on yeah you just lean into it I guess and for him And I think he's lucky that he found advertising and it's perfect for him and how his brain works too.

25:44And I think it does work for him because he's constantly coming up with ideas. And that's the job that he has in advertising to come up with ideas as a creative director. So it does go hand in hand and he's naturally found that.

25:58Laura Cibilich:Excellent stuff. Yeah. And over time we've met so many people with ADHD now. And I think his conversations with people has even led to people being diagnosed and stuff. And we'll meet them later and they'll be like, oh, thank you for talking to me about it. I've realized this about me. I can explain why I think like this and things like that. So, yeah, it's good. So here you are on a podcast talking about history of New Zealand, talking about your husband. And we haven't really talked about what you do for work. So, look, you said earlier that you're a graphic designer, but you're not on tools as much as you used to be.

26:34Laura Cibilich:Let's talk about the growth because I want to get to talk about what you guys do as your agency, as your advertising and design agency, and what kind of problems do you solve. But your growth from the person who started the business, needing to go back into employment, getting things oiled up properly, now being in a leadership role as a co-founder and a design director, how do you see your own growth because ultimately as the theme of this show is there in creativity like you pushed yourself to keep growing and going forward so how would you say you were a different person to the person that started in 2008 yeah oh good question when i started i mean again very naive and you don't know what you don't know so just fumbled along the grew it organically without much planning or yeah thinking about it and then over time figured out what we're doing and what work we did best or what work we wanted to do more of and structured our values and I think that was a big thing for us once we had the values set and written down that really acted as a guiding star for us and we've still got really similar values today that was a few years ago when we well quite a few years ago when we kind of first got our first team member and yeah that guided us and then thinking to now it's a very strange feeling like being one of the few women founders like I think definitely in New Zealand and the world there's stats you hear of one percent of agency owners are female and things like that I'm not sure if that's accurate but it's just crazy and I do have the feeling of people look at me for that now as well and I have the weight of that and the pressure a little bit but also at the same time wanting to give back and share my knowledge and my story to help others hopefully pave the way for others and things like that so yeah hopefully it helps people it's the word values when the word values is mentioned it always makes me remember that I never have my values defined when I started I was very much more valuable.

28:48Laura Cibilich:It was like, let's do really good work and we work hard to rest, right? The rest will somehow slot in, right? But obviously you mentioned about values and how it guides you. And on your website, you said you are grounded in a more of values to benefit and enrich our clients and team. And it's such a guiding style when you talk about it. Like when you actually make it clear to yourself what you're going to do, what you're not going to do, and how you're going to do it, and how you're not going to do it. it's already 50 % of the battle solved because you know where you're going to hand them when you're not so tell me about your values like how you've got to form them how you got to inform yourself on those and how they guide you on the next journey on the next step yeah well again I think it may have come about when I was having kids as well like thinking of my personal values how did I want them to grow up things like that and then talking with there was three of us at the time with our first staff member talking as a group about the kind of work we wanted to do and the values we shared so grounded in te ao Māori values indigenous values while also being grounded in creativity and innovation too as a design and advertising agency and then just human values too open and honest being positive the way we we want to be growth and knowledge that's a big one for me like always constantly learning growing doesn't matter if it's a formal qualification or just life and life learning, going to things, absorbing as much as you can from everywhere.

30:19And family friendly, obviously, that's a huge one for us. We've grown an agency around our kids and responsible. That's not only personally being accountable, but to the environment as well, linking back to that Indigenous knowledge.

30:34Laura Cibilich:I am colouring in my lack of knowledge about the Amara Vaudis, and I just looked them up. And what I'm getting from this conversation so far, seeing what work that you do and looking at the actual list of values now, I'm like, okay, it makes sense now because you talk about care and hospitality, right? You talk about environmental guidance, you talk about kinship and relationship, self-determination, and I can't pronounce Aroha, love. You talk about that. And when you bring it down to the human level, i think like any idea of a bullshit goes totally aside because this is what cares i'm seeing this i'm new to this and i'm and i like having these aha moments with these conversations because i'm getting to know you i'm getting to know more about you what you do but seeing these values being ingrained woven into the tapestry of what you guys do it makes everything so much right i mean i would like to believe it makes everything that you do a little bit more grounded and simpler because you don't really know with those values especially when you say like when i was when i had my kids i have to change you know i had to understand my values now it feels so wholesome and so it feels like a hug for the soul yeah exactly you got it like it really does ground us and we've got a full-time pao aharao maori cultural director is her role and she likes to say maori values or indigenous values are just human values when you take it back to just people to people it's those human values and the way people are just being real and that's what it comes down to yeah strip strip away everything else it's yeah just quite pure did you have an idea that you would be appointed a cultural director when you were No way.