Nick Parry is a Digital Marketing Manager who runs C Digital, the digital agency side of Crockford Management, who look after a roster of artists, writers and producers.

Nick works across various digital and social campaigns for the management roster, as well as clients on the agency side. He’s spent 10 years working in digital marketing in the music industry, across labels & distributors such as Columbia Records, Black Butter Records and Believe. 

Our recent chat with Nick discusses his favourite campaigns and talks about the overlaps between visual creativity and music.

I’m currently working on Morgan’s latest single ‘ADCT’. Re-recorded and released after a resurgence on TikTok, we’re working the new version with artist-focussed content on TikTok, Reels and YouTube Shorts.

Making sure the new version is discoverable online is key as we bring in new fans to Morgan’s channels – so up to date imagery and branding across various touchpoints has been the focus, like the website, YouTube and Genius; the lyrics are a big factor to the track’s popularity.

I'M LOVING

Creatively at the moment, I’m loving Little Simz.

From a holistic campaign perspective, everything around Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is incredible. The music videos - especially the lead single Introvert - the artwork, photography, typography… it’s all so bold, colourful and ties in so well together. And to top it all off, she’s realised a short film to accompany the album! Musically, I think it’s one of the most interesting and creative albums released out of the UK this year.  

FAVOURITE VIDEO

One of my all-time favourite music videos is Open Eye Signal by Jon Hopkins.

Immunity is an incredible album and director Aoife McArdle created such a simple but visually-gripping video for the track. Just a guy skating, but journeying through cinematic landscapes which feels perfectly in sync with the track – so compelling!

I was made aware of Aoife McArdle’s work when I worked on James Vincent McMorrow’s Post Tropical, for which she created a trilogy of brilliant videos. She’s also just released a short film that looks interesting; All of This Unreal Time featuring Cillian Murphy with music composition from Jon Hopkins, and Aaron & Bryce Dessner of The National – many of my favourite people!  

BEST ARTWORK

I’ve always loved the album art for Four Tet’s There Is Love In You.

For me this album was a gateway into a whole electronic scene I loved exploring in my early twenties. The artwork, like Kieran Hebden’s music, is hypnotic, rich in texture and so easy to get lost in! It was made by his long-time collaborator Jason Evans who I read used discarded test film prints and a hole-punch to create it, amongst other clever photographic and printing techniques.

As well as designing many of Four Tet’s other album covers, he also created the artwork for Caribou’s Swim and Our Love, two more favourites of mine. 

RECENT CAMPAIGN

The most recent campaign I’ve enjoyed working on has been for Rudimental’s fourth studio album, Ground Control.

There was some strong video content to accompany the key singles, including a stunning music video for So Sorry, with some great BTS photography too. Along with this we worked studio footage and edits from live shows this summer into a host of content for socials, focussing on short-form cuts for Reels and TikTok.

On the design side, we’ve made sure the ‘dancing mascot’ from the album artwork feeds through a lot of creative, including Spotify canvas’ and some fun Instagram stickers! 

BRAND COLLAB

The most recent brand collab that caught my eye was Loyle Carner & Timberland.

There’s a nice ‘Nature Needs Heroes’ film piece which documents their project working with Croydon Council to create a green community space in a disused area of Thornton Heath. It’s always great to see brands and musicians working together to do something positive. Loyle Carner seems to be incredibly conscientious and compassionate with the things he undertakes – like his ADHD cooking school ‘Chilli Con Carner’ (brilliant for its name alone) – and this shines through in his music too, which is so refreshing, especially in the rap genre. 

CREATIVE VIDEO

For me, some of the most creative and original music videos of the past year have been for Jungle’s Loving In Stereo. 

I think there’s almost a video for every album track and they’re all part of the same set. Jungle have such a defined style when it comes to their music videos – the choreographed one-shot dance video.

They’ve honed them over their three albums and this latest set are as fun and visually captivating as ever and help bring the music to life. 

LOGO LOVE

I wish I’d designed the artist logo for The xx.

Super simple, but to take that initial design and build on it over their three albums is brilliant, adding texture and colour as they evolve as a band, I love continuity like that.

It’s central to their identity and runs through their artwork, marketing, live show etc. Then to extend on it further, Jamie xx takes a leg of that logo to create the identity and artwork for his solo work…love it!

GO FOLLOW

The one person you should follow on Instagram is Rachel Bungey.

She’s a good friend and such a talented creative. A graphic designer, photographer, and now exploring sculpture too. She’s done lots of great work in music, including some great stuff at XL Recordings, and she’s designed my wedding invites too, for which I’ll be forever grateful! Go follow her Instagram, you’ll never get bored scrolling.

ICONIC

The most iconic music photograph is the cover of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here.

I’ve always loved the album art of Storm Thorgerson – most famous for his Pink Floyd covers – I always remember being intrigued by my Dad’s vinyl for ‘Wish You Were Here’ and ‘Animals’ in particular, such striking but bizarre imagery. I love how you can easily identify a Storm cover – later in life discovering Biffy Clyro (‘Puzzle’ & ‘Only Revolutions’) and Muse too.