After more than 10 years directing ads, Fredrik Bond cites his insecurity as a prime motivator behind what he considers one of his best years creatively.

"Anytime I go into a shoot and don't feel 100% about what I'm doing, that to me is a risk. For a director, the ultimate challenge is to never get lazy," the 37-year-old Swede says over the phone from Prague, where he's prepping a seven-day shoot for a Volvo campaign destined for roughly 80 markets. "A big part of this year was trying different tonalities and getting out of my mold. I've always strived to do varied stuff because it's so stimulating to try different genres, and I think this year in particular I really dared to do that."

His best work wouldn't exist, he says, were it not for Sonny, the production company he opened in London early last year with former Gorgeous EP Helen Kenny. As an entrepreneur, he wants to create a supportive, creative environment in which directors share and give feedback on each others' work. A little more than a year later, he's added six directors to the roster, including his increasingly busy understudy Emil Möller and Therapy Films vet Guy Manwaring.

Highlights from the past 12 months include the single-take "Effortless" for Brylcreem, for which he used MySpace to cast the principal leads, and Carling "Out" and "Space", which blended epic sci-fi and adventure with nonchalant, British humor. Four commercials for footwear brand New Balance added a touch of drôle realism to a diverse reel that also includes the family adventure web series "Get The Glass" for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and the cinematic storytelling of JCPenney "Aviator".

What have the past 12 months been like?
The past year has been one of the best so far in my career. I've been re-finding my passion, if I may say so. As we build Sonny, the goal is to make ads we really care about. With that comes a lot of work, but the reward is so much greater than if you're doing work with your left hand.

You ran your own company back in the '90s, but it closed. How are you able to run a company now and still find time to be creative?
Opening my own company was a way for me to get started, but back then I didn't have the experience. The most important thing for me then was to break into the business, but I wasn't ready to run a company. It was called 'Bond' - very dramatic! It was an interesting process but I was not ready for it - none of us were ready for it.

Helen is basically running Sonny and I get to do what I love - talk about ideas and be creative. I'm actually more creative than I've ever been before. When you're surrounding yourself with creative people, especially directors, you can feed off each other and inspire each other - it's a chain reaction of positive energy. The most important thing is to keep the company as a place where people are willing to take risks and push themselves, whatever that might involve.

Why was Brylcreem "Effortless" a risk?
Brylcreem was one of those mad journeys where we were finding our path as we were going along. We didn't have any real script, we were developing it from a principle of how we were going to find the lead: on MySpace. And we were going to develop the script together with him. It was a very collective, hippy-dippy process where everybody had their say. The rehearsal - I think it was four weeks - was really intense. You really need a client that is flexible enough to embark on the evolution of the idea and see that it gets better.

We found this guy named Sam [from East London] and he was living and breathing these tricks. I was totally fascinated by him. On the surface, you might think it's stupid, but for him it's an art form and not something that he had a gift for. He was extremely disciplined and it was fascinating to watch him work things through and find his timings.

Do you have a MySpace profile?
I will eventually. I'm a little bit afraid of it because I think it could consume most of my time. I'm an obsessive person so I tend to dig into those things quite hard. I'm starting to really force computer environments away from me right now because I find the creative process is a lot to do with talking to people and not being interrupted by technology. Everybody has this little escape of digging into a text message or the computer and it always interrupts a creative process. This manic texting - it's an amazing tool but you need to be even more disciplined now. You really need to be in the moment with people.

Have you ever answered a text while directing a spot?
Absolutely not. That would be devastating.

Really?
I have done it, but I felt like a whore.

INFORMATION
PRODUCTION AFFILIATIONS: Co-founder of Sonny, London, which reps him in the UK and Europe. He's on MJZ's roster in the US and with Industry Films for Canada.

WHY THE NAME 'SONNY'?: "Nicolas Cage took a great risk and made a movie - his directorial debut - called Sonny. I don't think anybody saw that movie, but I thought if we did a little bit better than that movie, we'd have a success story. I kind of like the movie because it's very dark and I don't think many people get it. There's something very sweet and tender about the movie. It just had a nice feel to it."

Sonny, London http://www.sonnylondon.com
MJZ http://www.mjz.com
Industry Films http://www.industryfilms.com