We caught up with LIONS Creativity Report Top Ten ranked Art Director and “rare breed of creative comet,” @virtueworldwide’s Christine Smith, on the creative landscape in Denmark, the importance of creativity, and her dog Tofu. Chrstine worked on Grand Prix winning work “Backup Ukraine” – an initiative with Polycam and UNESCO, engaging smartphone-owning Ukrainians to photograph treasured monuments and upload them into the cloud as a digital blueprint. This technology allowed citizens from Ukraine to preserve their culture digitally in sites decimated by war. Tell us about your role. I work at VIRTUE, the borderless creative agency powered by VICE, and my focus is on innovation, web3 and culture-first ideas. Why do you do what you do and what makes it worth it? I love that I don’t actually make ads; it’s more about innovative communications and the fact I can get people involved in driving change. I also like to make things that are well crafted. So I have two ways of working: driving change through innovation or taking the innovative side of craft and bringing that into the digital world. Tell us about ‘Backup Ukraine’. It didn’t start as a client brief. We knew the tech was out there to repurpose tech businesses for positive change, but what drove this project forward was getting UNESCO and people in Ukraine involved. It was an insane process that was turned around super quickly. The Polycam app had never been used like this before. What have you learned from your career so far that you’d pass onto other people? Stick to your gut. Whenever I have stuck to my principles, I’ve had the best results. What changes have you seen in the creative landscape of Denmark? More young creatives are going out of the country to learn and get more exposure, then coming back and that’s driving diversity. Which three qualities are most important to succeed in the creative industry? Be a nice person, share your ideas and give others space to succeed. How do you relax? I take my dog Tofu, the slowest, dumbest dog in the world, for walks. To find out more about the people behind this year’s winning work, check out the Talent Report via the link in our bio.