Most agencies spend a lot of time talking about themselves. Bigfish never really has. For more than two decades, the focus has been elsewhere: on the work, the clients and creating things that genuinely matter.
Behind it all is a team of creative thinkers, strategists, problem solvers and self-confessed oddballs who have quietly built one of Queensland’s most respected design and digital agencies. While Bigfish has spent years helping other organisations tell their stories, its own has largely remained untold.
So, we’re changing that.
Founder, Sheldon Lieberman.
Sheldon has never been particularly interested in doing things the way they’re supposed to be done.
He walked away from the traditional advertising playbook early, believing that honest communication, exceptional design and work that creates real impact mattered more than clever taglines and hard sells. That thinking became the foundation of Bigfish.
An agency led by designers. A belief that creativity and commercial outcomes should work together. Long-term client relationships built on trust rather than transaction. And technology designed around how businesses actually need to operate, including TANK, Bigfish’s custom-built CMS that has been evolving for more than 15 years.
It’s an approach that has helped build distinctive brands, digital platforms and partnerships that have lasted decades.
But ask Sheldon what he’s most proud of and it isn’t an award, a campaign or a piece of technology. It’s the people.
A small, deeply experienced team, many of whom have worked together for more than a decade, united by a shared obsession with creativity, craft and doing great work for good people.
In this interview, Sheldon talks candidly about the unconventional decisions, ideas and values that shaped Bigfish, why the agency has deliberately done things differently and what more than 30 years in the creative industry has taught him. We’ve spent a long time telling everyone else’s stories. Here’s a little of ours.