Pann Lim is the creative director of Kinetic Design and Advertising. He graduated with a Diploma in Design and Advertising from Temasek Polytechnic in 1998, where he was inspired by mentors such as Lim Chong Jin, Hon, James Na and Iskandar Jalil. He started work at DDB Singapore and Batey Ads. In 2001, Pann was invited to start up a creative agency, Kinetic, with Carolyn Teo, Roy Poh, Adrian Tan, Sean Lam and Benjy Choo.

Pann’s portfolio of work is a hybrid of visual design, interactive design and advertising. He works on these disciplines independently. To him, there is no distinction between these disciplines, as they are all tools of communication.

He believes that design and advertising start with an idea. He has devoted his time to creating ideas that have won him over 300 industry awards including a D&AD Silver nomination and a Silver for Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2012. He was awarded Singapore’s Most Influential Creative Director by the Institute of Advertising Singapore in 2012. He is currently ranked tenth in Australasia by Campaign Brief.

Pann is also involved in nurturing newcomers, as a way of fulfilling social responsibilities. He is a founding member of The Design Society, a Singapore registered non-profit organisation, which aims to educate, proliferate and archive graphic design in Singapore. He has been actively involved in teaching and mentoring for prestigious awards such as Noise and Crowbar. He was chairman for the Crowbar Awards 2011 and head of Jury (activation) for Creative Circle Awards 2012.

In 2011, he started Holycrap.sg with his wife and two children, an art collective focusing on the arts. To date, they have had two successful exhibitions featuring the artworks of his children. Pann spends most weekends with them, working on projects, as well as exhibitions. He maintains that their works are not for sale, because he wants them to enjoy the process and not be caught up with the commercial benefits of the endeavour.

Pann handles projects by understanding the brief, ironing out the facts, needs, budgets, deadlines and objectives of the clients versus the needs and objectives of the agency. He works with like-minded partners, who believe that every project should serve the best interest of the client without compromising the creative integrity of the agency. For Pann, design is most meaningful when it makes sense and makes one happy. Every project is different, but needs to be based on the insights to the problems or situation. The agency operates like a family, with a strong culture of kinship. It is a healthy eco-system, where the best scheme is adopted via a voting system. This way, everyone who works hard gets a chance to be recognised and gets to do good work. To him, everyone needs to learn to deal with disappointments in life positively. His best life lesson is to constantly learn from others in order to accelerate one’s own learning. To him, learning is a lifelong affair.