His creative agency, Too Gallus, was named one of the hottest independent agencies in the world in The Drum’s Indie 100. Here, Reeves explains why refusing to tone himself down, staying rooted in Scotland but chasing global clients has all led to this point.
Barrington Reeves
‘A global creative agency, not for the faint heart’ is how Glasgow’s Too Gallus describes itself. That bold attitude stems directly from its founder, Barrington Reeves. While the agency officially launched five years ago, its roots were planted much earlier, growing steadily over the past decade. Now, it boasts clients including Chanel, Byoma and Royal Enfield, with a big announcement coming this Thursday on another heritage fashion brand.
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For Reeves, who also serves as creative director, the blend of art and entrepreneurship started very naturally in childhood. “My gran would always say that I was ‘too gallus’ for my own good, that’s where the name came from,” he explains of the unique Scottish slang, used to describe someone bold or cheeky.
“I used to draw Pokémon cards, I must have been seven or eight years old, and I’d set up a stall in the front of my gran’s garden. I was selling pictures of Pokémon I’d drawn for 20p up to a pound to all the kids around the neighborhood. My mum would say that is just so indicative of who I am as a person.”
As a young person, he had dreams of studying fine art in Edinburgh but admits he’s not classically the best at it. So, he studied graphic design for two years instead and then went into gaming design. At the same time, Reeves was working at the famous Glaswegian music venue The Arches but felt that the lifestyle and the gaming industry were like “chalk and cheese.” So, he ended up sticking with graphic design and began freelancing after college.
“Graphic design and advertising actually turned out to be the perfect blend of my entrepreneurship and being creative,” he continues. “As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned to love the crossover of how strategy can move the commerce of a business, and the role that creativity has on the commercial impact of a business. That’s what I find exciting. It’s not just, how do we make it look pretty, but how can we make something that looks great also perform well and connect with people and convey a message.”
Two of his favorite projects from his career are from those early years, the midway point between freelancing and launching Too Gallus. Both were for CBD brands, one called Hashtag Organics, where he helped build them from the ground up, naming products, building websites, making ads and designing packaging. “I felt the fire for my career coming out,” he recalls. “Those are the projects I love, when I’m so close to them. We actually picked up a Drum Award. We beat Impossible Foods to the packaging design award. At the time, Impossible Foods was valued at billions. And then it was me, in the studio myself, rolling my sleeves up, doing Hashtag Organics. Seeing those two next to each other and then getting that win – wow, that felt so rewarding.”
Much of the way Too Gallus operates is a direct derivative of Reeves’s approach to creativity and his no-nonsense way of commenting on the industry. Both he and Too Gallus are completely intertwined but that’s where he sees the magic of the business, and why clients (many of them outside of Scotland) want a piece. Reeves has never been afraid of being vocal about what he believes in, and he says that is something that “comes up” in the studio, but he feels it gives the business its “intangible” edge. “If I removed myself from it, it wouldn’t be the same studio. And that’s why I want to stay at the forefront,” he adds.
Having grown up in the Scottish creative scene, Reeves is deeply passionate about the industry’s realities and the exceptional talent it holds, but it’s talent he believes is too often overlooked or underutilized. “I think we’ve got to where we are because I’ve ignored so much of the advice that we’ve been given, particularly in the Scottish design scene,” he says. “I’ve always been told by other Scottish creatives to minimize myself. Calm down, take me out the business. Don’t be so outspoken. Don’t talk about politics. Don’t have an opinion on other people’s work. And that’s so not me.”
The agency leader believes that if he stopped being true to himself, he’d lose the passion that drives his work. At this year’s Cannes Lions, Too Gallus was invited to speak at Collins House, and now there are talks of a creative retreat in Scotland next year, possibly involving a castle and a journey through the Highlands. Reflecting on the moment, Reeves said that had he followed the usual advice to “minimize himself,” opportunities such as connecting with Brian Collins might never have come his way. In his words, he has “aggressively marketed” himself.
This week, Too Gallus was named one of the world’s best indie agencies. Reeves is delighted with that but says there are no plans to take the agency outside of its Glasgow home. He wants to keep filling the studio with Scottish talent. “If we want to change the industry, it has to start at home,” he puts it. “It’s really detrimental, this idea that if you’re talented, the first thing you have to do is go to London.”
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He believes Too Gallus is showing creatives that regional agencies can have big, global clients. Recently, the agency worked with Chanel on its Winter 25 show at Camden’s Roundhouse in London. Brought in quite last-minute, the team turned around visuals that encompassed a quick history of music through the CC logo in just two short weeks. It brought together a perfect meeting of worlds for Reeves, who has always run club nights and DJ’d.
Reeves is unapologetic about talking up his studio’s output. “People will be like, ‘Oh my God. You’re so cocky when it comes to your work. You really big up your work.’ And I’m like, Yeah, our name is literally Too Gallus. It means we’re fucking here. We’re going to do the best shit and we are confident in ourselves. It’s our whole ethos.
“It’s not enough to just do pretty work. You also have to be willing to back yourself, to promote yourself, to go out and hunt for business.” Creating culture, not just existing in it, is a huge priority for Reeves but it’s something, he says, that comes completely naturally.
“A lot of the areas that we work in, we also participate in,” he explains. “We just designed Ewan McVicar’s live show for Creamfields. It was a chance for us to make a real mark on music culture. We’re not just observing culture, we try and be part of it.” On Vicar’s set, Reeves says it was build to make people “feel something,” which is key to everything he does.
On the future, Reeves says he wants to keep scaling the caliber of global brands the Too Gallus team works with, without scaling the team too much. He is also in the early stages of launching a production arm, which will allow the studio to transition into video-based media. “I want people to take from this that you can be from a working-class background, you can stay in your city, you can just stick to your guns. You can do what you believe in. You can just do things your way, and you can be successful.”
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