Anomaly has appointed former Urban Outfitters CD Kevin Lyons to design director, to bring what agency co-founder Carl Johnson calls "real world perspective" to its design initiatives.The four-year-old agency has always touted its holistic approach to branding for clients and has undertaken its own product development and design projects, so Lyons' role is intended, says Johnson, to inject the shop with "the pragmatism of retail" that will root its entrepreneurial endeavors in the truths of the market.

"Anomaly needs creative people who understand brand development beyond communications," Johnson says. "[Lyons'] experience in the retail/apparel world will be valuable to a company with a financial stake in its work. He knows how product innovation provides customers value and the ultimate pressure of sales numbers, in an ad world unfamiliar with those concepts."

"I am the balance between creativity and the practical application of creativity," Lyons says.

At youth-flavored clothing and household items retailer Urban Outfitters, Lyons led design projects ranging from retail environment to catalogs and apparel products. He's also worked as Tokion magazine's first U.S. art director, Stussy Worldwide design director and a Nike senior designer. Lyons has served as an assistant professor of typography at the Pratt Institute and has produced two clothing lines and a book, "Pussy and Papers Poetry Power and Pistols."

While Lyons has freelanced for high-profile agencies in the past, this is his first staff position in advertising.

Anomaly has a number of entrepreneurial projects in the works; the most recent being EOS shaving cream which has just launched in Target test market stores.

Andrew Kibble, one of the agency's original partners who had served as design director, departed the agency last July.