Creative Minds: How Katrina Alvarez-Jarratt went from scrubbing blood to being an ECD

Name: Kat Alvarez-Jarratt

Place of origin: Wellington, New Zealand

Places lived and worked: Wellington, New Zealand, and Sydney, Australia

Pronouns: She/her

CV:

Executive creative director, TBWA Sydney, 2021-present
Creative director, TBWA Sydney, 2018-2021
Associate creative director, TBWA Sydney, 2016-2018
Senior art director, Clemenger BBDO Sydney, 2010-2016
Art director, Clemenger BBDO Wellington, 2008-2010
Copywriter, Y&R Wellington, 2006-2008

1. How did you end up being a creative?

When I was four, I drew 3D portraits of my parents. All their arms, legs, heads and strands of hair were drawn separately from a bunch of different angles, cut out and then pasted into one insane collage. I think at this point they decided that there was no way I’d ever end up as an accountant or an engineer and enrolled me in art lessons pronto.

2. What’s your favourite piece of work in your portfolio?

I think it has to be Classify Consent for Consent Labs. It changed the way people think about consent education in Australia reframing it using familiar film and TV references that couldn’t be ignored. It’s just the kind of work I love making—brutally simple, culturally relevant, and very brave.

3. What’s your favourite piece of work created by someone else?

I know this is a bit of a throwback answer, but I have a deep and unconditional love for HBO Voyeur. Mostly because it broke every rule of what advertising could be, but also because the storytelling was so rich and the degree of difficulty so high. I love the overall audaciousness of the whole thing. 

4. What kind of student were you?    

The nerdiest. I loved school and I still love learning. I was the kid that other people asked to do their homework for them, and because I’m a people-pleaser I would actually do it (and with great enthusiasm). Anyone who knows me well knows I’m chock full of strange general knowledge.

5. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?

I’ve done a lot of crazy things, mostly by accident and almost always on shoots. I have swum in crocodile-infested waters, chased a train in a helicopter and almost fallen off the side of a mountain backcountry skiing. But I think the craziest thing was attempting a shoot in a mosh pit with 20,000 tomatoes flying at my head—a project for Heinz Pickle Ketchup. We took a person in a pickle suit to La Tomatina last month—it was genuinely wild.

6. What career did you think you’d have when you were a kid?

When I was five, I wanted to be a landscape gardener. At school we had to make hats with what we wanted to be when we grew up written on them and I remember the teacher trying to talk me out of mine as ‘landscape gardener’ was quite long in terms of characters and my head was quite small. The message did not fit the media, art directors can relate.

7. Tell us about the worst job you ever had.

I was an operating theatre orderly in a hospital for a while, it was actually both the best and the worst job I’ve ever had. Best, because there were free biscuits. Worst, because after cleaning up a blood-spattered operating theatre, you weren’t always into a snack.

8. Do you have any secret or odd talents?

I can read upside down. It’s a great party trick in a client presentation.

9. Extrovert or introvert?

Huge extrovert with introvert rising. I love a chat, I love a room full of people. But I also love daydreaming by myself in my garden.

10. Do you work best under pressure or when things are calm?

I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie and I kind of love the pressure. I find it very energising. Does that make me a total psycho? Maybe. Either way it seems to have worked out for me given this job is mostly 100 miles an hour.

11. What would you do on your perfect day?

A swim in the ocean, a really long lunch and then a party with all my best people.