About Intents
& Purposes
Our Belief“As creatives responsible for mass communication and millions of audience impressions per minute, we’ve got a lot of power to make an impact.”
— The Conscious Creative
Creative with a conscience.
It means recognizing that every creative decision has consequences. For clients, audiences, communities, culture, and the people creating the work itself.
Responsibility isn't something we add at the end. It's embedded throughout our process across research and strategy to design, production, and launch.
Meet the Founder and Principal Creative Director.
Kelly Small is an award-winning executive creative director, designer, and author known for combining creative ambition with ethical responsibility.
As Founder and Principal Creative Director of Intents & Purposes, Kelly helps nonprofits, public institutions, and purpose-driven organizations turn complex ideas into clear, compelling brands, campaigns, and communications.
Before founding the agency, Kelly’s years in advertising saw them creating internationally recognized work that reached millions of people. Intents & Purposes grew from their belief that creative influence carries responsibility, and that ethics and effectiveness should never be treated as competing priorities.
Kelly is the author of the bestselling The Conscious Creative, a practical guide to ethics in the creative industries. Their research into responsible creative practice earned the Governor General’s Gold Medal following their Master of Design at Emily Carr University of Art and Design.
Their work and perspectives have been featured by CBC, The Globe and Mail, and Applied Arts. Kelly has served as a juror for The One Show, the Marketing Awards, and RGD, and has contributed to the industry through teaching, mentorship, research, and community leadership.
What we bring
Strategic rigour
Creative ambition
Responsible practice
Senior-level partnership
Thoughtful execution
Sector knowledge
Our principles
Creative carries responsibility
Get close before creating
Choose dignity over attention
Build on a strategic foundation
Design for accessibility from day one
Believe the process matters
The right fit
We do our best work with organizations tackling complex challenges, communicating nuanced issues, and who are committed to creating positive impact.
Our clients value strategic thinking, seek exceptional creative, and believe that how the work gets made matters just as much as what gets made.
“They listen to learn, compress complexity into simplicity, prefer collaboration to conflict, and then present brilliant creative solutions that are on brand and attention worthy.”
— Tony Chapman, Inductee, Marketing Hall of Legends, Top-rated podcast host, International speaker