Reserve or, Looking At Your Child With Indifference.
Iz Mady is the name of one of the most talented designers I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. He is the Head of Design and Art Direction at Lucideas.
He is a mark of true passion for the work. He gets good art direction and design and pushes until it looks like a piece of creative so sexy you want to buy it a drink.
Yet, I’ve never, in the time I’ve worked here, seen Mady get physically excited about work that he or anyone is doing. Not like I’ve seen with other creatives.
Ideas and executions that the other creatives, myself included, would be jumping around about, chatting excitedly about like girls at lunch, would be passed to Mady for approval.
He looks at the work with an expression of absolute impartiality and gives his opinion on how good it is and what it needs to make it better.
He’s an example of a great balance between unstoppable passion and immovable reserve.
The first post I ever wrote was about passion.
The single most important thing any creative person has to have bucket loads of if they want to have a hope of surviving in their chosen industry. How else are you going to keep yourself going? It sure as shit isn’t the pay (well, maybe not in the early years, anyway).
I have said before that a creative should immerse themselves in the work; bathe in it. They should love all the nuances and nuisances of the work like a bloke loves a cold beer after doing the yard work on a Saturday.
But it’s all about balance, as Mady has demonstrated.
As I’ve advocated before, love your work; look at the ugliest things about what you do and see nothing but sunshine and cherries. But know just when to keep a certain distance between yourself and the creation you just birthed onto the page with the movements of your hand, brush or Artline.
In my experience, there’s passionate and there’s destructively obsessive.
When you get too close to your work, you sweat the (embarrassingly) small stuff and it becomes a worry in regards to how you’re going to handle the impending rejection from the narrow-minded client.
I learned this the awkward way.
Last year my art director, Kishan and I were working at JWT Auckland. We were doing a small job for Nestle as part of a campaign for Milky Bar to search for the next Milky Bar Kid.
Our task was simple: do up some concepts for an internet banner ad to inform people that the top 10 kids who auditioned were chosen and it was time to vote for the winner.
We did a whole bunch, naturally, and two were put forward. One was a bland concept with straight copy using the stock campaign imagery. The other was a neat little animation about a classic western ‘baddie’ dressed in black coming out of the saloon, looking around and then jumping into a nearby barrel and the line comes up:
The Milky Bar Kid is gonna be back in town.
and then,
Choose who it’s going to be here.
Or something to that effect.
Also, there was little budget for this so, the illustrations I did would have to be used. The concept was funny, it was likable, and it meant that something I drew could get on the internet.
I was excited. The Account Director happily took it to sell.
She came back and said the client bought the safe, bland one.
“Arrrgggh!”
My chair shot back and rolled into the wall as I got up in a huff, cursed a couple of times and then stormed out of the office and stomped down the hall to go grab a drink of ice-cold water. I could see people glancing out of their own offices and cubicles to see what the noise was.
After I had cooled down, Kishan said to me,
“Bro, bit over-dramatic don’t you think?”
“It was clearly the better option! Why the fuck didn’t they choose it?!”
“Ah, well. It happens. Chill out.”
I wanted to slap him and make it about how he needed to be more passionate about the work. But he was totally right.
It’s going to happen time and time again: you’ll birth a cool idea, and someone will shoot it down.
If you’re going to be as passionate as I was about all of your ideas and clutch onto each and every one of them, you’re going to get a bit stressed and down trodden. That’s no way for a creative mind to be.
It’s why they tell us, kill your babies. Murder your darlings. Show no mercy nor remorse. Put the ideas that don’t work (for now) away and move on.
Just keep going.
Create an idea from your mind. Tweak it and nurture it. Watch with excitement as it grows into something viable. Shed a quick tear of pride as those around you admire and compliment it. Have it turned down by the client and without a second thought, cock you metaphorical gun and shoot it between the metaphorical eyes.
Simple.
A balance between unstoppable passion and immovable reserve.
I’m still working on this, by the way. Just last night the client insisted on using drab, boring copy that they wrote themselves on an invitation.
I wanted to break someone’s arm. I didn’t care who.
Then I let it go.
No ice-cold water required.
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