Direction or, The Type Of Creative Director I Wish To Be: Part 2
So as I’ve previously pointed out, my happy place is my own office, with my own desk and my own door that says my own name on it and ‘Creative Director’ underneath it.
It can also just say ‘Creative Director’ without my name. I’m not picky. I have very flexible life goals.
Aside from doing great work and earning my keep in the ad industry, I’ve taken to preparing for the CD role through observation of the many I’ve met and worked with so far in my budding career.
Approachability was the first quality I figured was important to have. The next one is an obvious one and almost goes without saying.
Direction.
To state the perfectly obvious, creativity needs direction like a burger needs a bun. Especially in a commercial industry where the message needs to be bold and more obvious than what you would find at your local modern art museum.
So if you’re a young creative mucking around with a brief, judging by the job title, you’d expect a Creative Director to look at your ideas and direct your creativity in the right direction.
I’ve had my share of meetings with CDs, where they’ve looked at the work and sighed a vague response:
“It’s not ‘there’ yet. Go away and come back later.”
Or something of the like.
What the hell is this ‘there’ place? It’s funny because I’ve talked to a couple of CDs who know when you’re not ‘there’ as if they know where ‘there’ is, but they’re not about to give you a map and a compass.
You go away from those meetings being just as confused as you might have been before and with no grounding to start round two of cracking the brief. And a creative who doesn’t know what they’re doing isn’t likely to produce some awesome work.
Now, I’ve had some absolutely brilliant meetings before. I was once sitting with a CD who was giving be a speech about pushing beyond the first thought after I showed him an idea for a campaign. Not only did he tell me to explore the uncharted territory but he gave me an example, he took my idea and said,
“What if you made it about [such and such] and said something like, ‘[blah blah blah]’. You know? That way, it’s not your usual campaign about [whatever].”*
My art director and I were simply inspired. There’s nothing better than coming away from a meeting with enough open windows to air out Buckingham Palace.
Another brilliant example is a CD I was trying to get a job offer from. I met with him and showed him my portfolio and he went through it, critiqued it and then we sat there and brainstormed for another 30 minutes or so! A CD who will give 1st rate direction to even unemployed creatives is absolutely top of my charts.
He even apologised that he had to wrap up the meeting and get back to work! Brilliant.
Sure, not every CD is like that, and not all CDs can be.
As much as I’d like to sit with my future creatives and nut out the brief alongside them, there may be times where I’m too busy or whatever.
But if I can at the very least leave them with a good starting point to come up with ideas that even I as the CD wouldn’t have considered, then I would consider my day’s keep earned.
*I can’t give all the details because it’s an idea I’m currently working on to go into my portfolio.
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