How to think like an Art Director with Maria Lee -- r/Advertising School #105

told you it was gonna happen i knew it was gonna happen here's my false start okay welcome back to week five of our advertising school this week we're talking about art direction we have maria lee queued up to share some knowledge with us she is an associate art director at goodby uh she's worked at 72 and sunny she's worked at google she's worked at a bunch of of shops you you've known and whose work you've loved i think she's got some really interesting and unique experience that will hopefully help us kind of understand art direction not just from the agency perspective but in terms of kind of overall responsibilities what it's like to be on the client side so start thinking about your questions um quick announcement before we get into it just a reminder that next week class is on tuesday instead of monday uh given that it's like the fourth of july weekend um we wanted to kind of break up and and not be right butted up against the holiday um so we will be on tuesday next week uh july 7th um we're also going to distribute a survey to you guys uh obviously like this is our kind of first time trying to host anything close to kind of an online learning series like this so we would love some insight from you guys in terms of what's been interesting so far what's not been interesting so far um where we're where we're missing where we're hitting um any any of that kind of feedback is super helpful because you guys probably have a lot more experience uh kind of going through online classes right now than than any of us on the our advertising school team have um we also have so dan greener uh edward king and neha gurya from our advertising school team on today uh they're gonna be in the chat helping answer questions as usual if you have questions comments feel free to raise your hand um as questions come up like feel free to drop simple ones into the chat uh where it makes sense i'll unmute people as usual uh and let maria answer and share her knowledge with you as as we have questions we'll have a dedicated q a session at the end um i think with all that said uh maria we would love to learn about art direction from you all right let's do it um hi guys my name is maria and it is so nice to meet you all um thank you joe dan neha and edward for having me here and um yeah let's get into it just gonna quickly share my screen can you guys uh see my screen yes go into present mode all right well we're here um week five i think you said um to talk about art direction um i think just quickly before we go into um the lesson just wanna you know kind of talk about my experience a little bit um definitely want this to be conversational so if you guys have any questions just you know raise your hand and and let me know feel free to stop me at any point um i am a an associate creative director at goodbye silverstein and partners and i put a photo of myself and my dog in here because i always feel a little awkward um if i'm just kind of the only person in the photo and sharing it live for some reason so this makes me feel a little bit more comfortable um so yeah just a little bit of about my background so um it's actually in design um i was trained as a graphic designer and i went to rhode island school design where i made zero ads um in fact when i was there at the time i was a lot of my professors were these kind of old school traditional um graphic designers that were uh that came from europe so they were very much in in in the um sort of this like bauhaus and like um swiss avant-garde that kind of clean sort of style and they believed that design was much more superior to advertising because design is pure and ad basically lie um ads will make up lies to kind of get you to like buy your product or believe in your brand um so i kind of you know it was a little bit um i think to this day i can't really explain how i ended up in this business but um i think i fell in love with like the storytelling aspect of advertising um and here i am i could be silverstein partner is making lots of ads and to me so kind of you know combining my experience in design with art direction and in between um sort of my agency jobs i also spent some time on the brand side at google i'm learning a lot about ai machine learning ar vr and um so for me there's like there's a really interesting intersection between design art direction and technology um so for me personally design is all about solving problems whereas the art direction is all about telling visual stories and technology is the thing that provides tools so you can connect with your audience and effectively communicate your idea and a lot of you know some of the most talented art directors that i've met um in my career really excel at all three of these and i want you guys to kind of keep these things in mind um because something that that i really want to emphasize is that no one should pigeonhole you um and make you uh seem like you're only just good at one aspect of our direction as you will see later on an art director has a lot of responsibilities um so you have to be able to kind of adapt to different situations be able to solve problems like i just said and effectively communicate with all parties so i put don't panic here because like i said there's a lot of responsibilities for an art director and this is kind of like very industry standard right so there are different types of art directors um but for an advertising specific one so first you're um you often partner with a copywriter right and you guys work together as a team and oftentimes you'll consult strategy to come up with an idea for a campaign so you'll be doing a lot of concepting work in the beginning and then in the next phase once you have a clear idea it is your job to set the visual tone or a look and feel which is the common industry term that gets thrown around a lot and then from there you're able to um you have to be you know able to like present your idea to your creative director in order to get their buy-in and from there once it's approved you then have to present it to the clients to sell it through and let's say all things go well and you're able to sell your work and um clients say i love it let's go make it that's where the real fun begins so now you're you know stepping into production right so from that point on you're going to oversee all visual aspects of your campaign so whether that's design um maybe sometimes you'll be doing it yourself or you'll be working with a designer and you could be doing anything from print production or you know maybe you're making huge out of home billboards or it could be a photo shoot you know maybe with a celebrity um it could be a video shoot maybe you're filming a spot um somewhere in mexico for your idea and all of these things um also encompass um a lot of production related um elements such as props like you have to be able to select props um for shoots and things like that including wardrobe what is the talent going to wear in your video for instance you have to approve lighting storyboards so like i said all visual aspects of the campaign have to go through you you have to approve it and aside from that your job is to basically work with different parties or different departments that are involved um in this campaign for instance you'll be working with accounts to manage the project and timeline um you'll also be working closely with production so your producer to select the appropriate production company or partner that's going to bring your idea to life and i think you guys already had a class in production so you're familiar with how that process works and once you are in production and post-production you have to again oversee all aspects of it to make sure the work gets truly you know elevated to the level that you're looking for so you have to be heavily involved in the edit process color if you're you know working with video or film um adding any kind of visual or sound effects or motion and things like that um to eventually launch the campaign so i know that that was a lot but you know an art director um like i said needs to be a jack of all trades and be able to handle these things um but today i really wanna just sort of focus on one thing that truly sets you apart as an art director this is something that like no one else can do and this is where you really get to shine which is setting the visual tone or look and feel for your idea and the assignment i'm going to give you guys um after we wrap up um is basically on how to develop an aesthetic for a campaign or for a script so once i provide a simple script um you'll get to create a mood board to establish this look and feel that i'm talking about and what i mean by a mood board is that it's basically a collage of images that you pull from all kinds of places on the internet you don't have to worry about where it comes from and this collection of images are going to basically help visualize how you see the script or the idea coming to life and this is incredibly important because you know how people say um pictures are worth you know a picture is worth a thousand words and that's true you know oftentimes you don't have to speak the same language you can show a mood board and instantly it's able to connect with your audience because they get to feel something and they know by just looking at these images what you're trying to convey but first you have to consider the following and you don't have to necessarily go in this order um but one of them is really think about like what's the tone of your idea or your script or the thing that you're trying to make is the idea playful and provocative like this viva la vulva work um for those of you who are not familiar with this you can watch this video later um but it was done for a brand of feminine hygiene brand and they created this delightful music video that basically celebrated um uh women's body parts and they were trying to kind of remove the stigma around periods and um it's it's wonderful you guys should absolutely watch it because they're able to pull so many amazing visual metaphors for a woman's vagina and it's done really well um or is the tone you know something more a little more quirky and curious like this once anderson's uh moonrise kingdom film you know you will hear people referencing wes anderson a lot because he's got such a unique style but these are some of the things that you want to consider how do you want the audience to feel when you when they see the idea in the mood board and the next thing that you want to consider is what's the context right so when and where do you see this idea taking place or what is featured you have to kind of you know walk your mind through all of these um questions because that's going to help inform the the the choice of visuals uh that you make is it a virtual library in minecraft for instance there was this amazing campaign called the uncensored library um it was for uh reporters without borders as you know certain countries do censor um certain types of information so they created this amazing library in minecraft so that anybody from all over the world can access it so then your visuals are obviously going to look a little more digitized pixelated right or is he is the script about maybe a couple living in an old haunted house in the 60s then that visual is going to be drastically different from this minecraft world right and speaking of a haunted house um so this was a couple years ago um i got to work on a really fun project where we did this sort of live experiential um project at the uh at the largest most haunted house in america and um it was super fun pretty nuts and scary but um as i was kind of developing the look and feel for this project i found myself very drawn to american horror story i don't know if you you know maybe some of you um have seen it and i'm a huge fan um and the thing that drew me to their posters was that like they're not putting like you know crazy scary monsters and ghosts and things like that right but when you look at these at a quick glance something feels off there's something unsettling about these images can't quite pinpoint what it is and it draws you in through the use of texture color um the way the type works and so when you start to kind of look closely at the image i'm looking at the one on the left for instance then i get i start to see these like weird things right like her eyes are scratched out it feels like such a violent act and that conveys an emotion and that starts to give me some goosebumps she's holding a voodoo doll oh oh there's a snake coming out of her dress you know it's kind of weird right and then let's go to this image um a second uh from the right in the bottom row it's like oh it kind of looks like a maybe a family portrait like you know kind of old school style and then i look at it even closer and there and there are like these two kids sitting way up there it's like how do they get up there wait there's a guy burning he's on fire in the back where there's a maid she's trying to get blood out of the carpet wait and there's a random ass dude just you know basically hanging from the ceiling what is happening here um so anyways these all of these elements were really effective uh for me personally because it just started giving me goosebumps and i'd start to get really scared by just looking at them and that's the purpose of this mood board right so then i took some of those learnings and as i was kind of walking through this haunted house my photographer and i were kind of looking for some of these moments and i said to him like hey like there are these like retro looking wallpapers that are just kind of ripped from the walls and that to me just feels very like strange um provocative can we get some of those pictures and then when we walked into one of the many rooms in the house there was like a sort of like a hanging um like a clothing line and there was like a what it looked like a nightgown just kind of like hanging there and this gust of wind suddenly blew right past it i don't even know if the window was open and the the nikon started kind of you know swaying and that was like a very scary moment and i said take a picture of that thing right now grab it and then from there we were able to kind of you know digitally manipulate these photos and then even like for the chandelier one for instance it's like what if we turned off all the light bulbs except for one is that going to do something and these weren't final images that you know that we ended up using in the campaign i think we ended up kind of um doing more work and then and and publishing them as posters but the i wanted to show these to you guys because it's it's all part of the process right you wanna experiment a lot you want to look at a lot of inspiration um and then and try it and just you know try to translate what you're seeing and what you're inspired by into uh something that you can really own and another thing that you guys want to keep in mind is considering your audience who are you trying to engage with your idea is it kids that love ice cream or adults that need a lot of ice cream and um if you haven't check out uh this work by halo top by 72 and sunny they're very simple spots but so funny comedy is just like spot on so halo top is ice cream um that's got i think low sugar and and it's got low calories so it's ice cream for adults and in these spots there's always an ice cream truck in a suburban sort of setting and these kids all run to the ice cream truck saying like yay ice cream ice cream but the dude who works there is always sort of like pointing out at these adults that are nearby who are clearly miserable whether they hate the job that they have or they can't get a date or whatever it is and he's like i think that person needs it more than you and he hands the ice cream to these adults and it was just such a um like a kind of like quirky but engaging way to sell your a product and they've done it in a way so that like even if you're a kid watching i mean who doesn't want ice cream right um it's very appealing to both sides and i thought that was kind of interesting because sometimes you don't necessarily have to choose one or the other there is a way to kind of you know aim at both so all of these things that i just talked about um are going to help you guys sort of determine the overall art direction um so from color style to typography to like i said before props location and even edit style so that you start to sort of make sense of it all and speaking of style i want to show you guys two spots um that are both that are you know from journalism or news outlets so the one on the left is um from the new york times and the one on the right is from the guardian hey joe am i able to play these videos i was just wondering that let's uh let's see all right let's just uh check oh oh okay i think it's going to work let me just use my volume you know what i'm gonna exit full screen and try it again [Music] cool and then this one is a little bit longer it's about two minutes little pig little pig third little pig is now being taken into custody so the spotlight is once again shown on the grey area of homeowners right to protect their properties this isn't right the three little pigs are the victims sit down two houses there's no reason why those two houses one magical straw the other from wood should have collapsed not even a healthy wolf stuff could bring them down conspiring to commit insurance fraud framing the wolf in an attempt to cover their traps their motivation was financially as they struggled to keep up with their payments [Music] everything all right so two different spots from journalism and use outlets and they're very different right it couldn't be further apart um in terms of style so the one from the new york times it's very much editorial it's simple just with type they're making a point that there is gender inequality in sports and they're kind of presenting it to you as a fact right and they don't show you very much but with sound words and then at the end some editorial images they're able to get the idea across and to me it's just as powerful as the other spot that was much of a bigger production right it's much more cinematic it's um it takes place in this sort of semi fantastical um you know world and but that does a different thing right it's giving you this sort of message that they're the guardian is all about giving you the whole picture 360 degree journalism so you get to hear different opinions and really look at something from all angles so there are two different viewpoints and the way they brought this to life is very different and that sort of goes to show that there is no right or wrong way of doing something um or creating a mood board as long as it conveys your message and makes you makes the audience feel something you've done your part so kind of keep this in mind as you guys are you know working through the process sorry let me just go back to uh full screen and so a lot of art directors will say building a mood board is basically like building a foundation for your idea you lay the foundation and you invite your teammates your clients production companies to look at it and say ah i see what you're saying i see what you're visualizing yes let's go so it's a very important step now i'm going to show you a few mood boards and i want you guys to kind of you know participate and then tell me um certain emotions that you're feeling or certain keywords that pop up in your head so when you look at this what do you think it's about you guys can either type stuff in chat or if you want to share a perspective would love for people to raise hands maria are you able to see the chat people are saying like girl power gender equality empowerment feminism intersectional identity feminism feminism yep yep i mean it's pretty pretty obvious right um but what let's say you're just looking at one of these images for instance um the one in the middle with like colorful silhouettes kind of drawn around this woman if you were to just look at that you're not going to get feminism or gender equality or any of these things that you guys just mentioned right and that's the power of a mood board you're able to quickly pull these uh swipes or visual references and then as a collection it gets your idea across so then you know you look at that but then you look at the poster next to it with the hands uh fists in the air then it starts to get closer and closer right and then you kind of expand and look at the rest of them and you go ah i see what you mean here's another one and that one was very sort of loose and kind of chaotic this one's you know messy to a certain degree but it feels a little bit more controlled right as a mood board because there's a sort of like this common color scheme happening what do you guys think this is about and he says acid trip [Laughter] that's a pretty good one actually magnesium who is uh is this oh this is grace kim grace kim you gotta you gotta mute i just muted you for you uh yeah dating creativity letting loose going crazy sorry that's that's from grace that's fine no problem grace um yeah so this was a mood board that um one of my art directors put together um for pandora so it was all about how music makes you feel something and it was actually about a mood board about moves um but you can kind of start to see certain people like to sort of you know start to manipulate these images to create a tighter mood board and i wanted to kind of show you the the difference between this one and the last one you saw here's another one now this one's very much more sort of you know cinematic right big budget production um and you know there's a sense that um something is wrong like the world is ending um you know we're seeing planet earth with like flying uh in space there's a guy wearing sort of like a ventilator mask cars are you know flying in the sky um there's a lot going on here um we're getting a lot of uh apocalypse dystopia exactly we'll post the postcode nice nice alex yep yep exactly and there's even like a reference image from what looks like a black mirror episode right so when you're looking for these um you know inspirational images you can really go like everywhere you can go to film you can go to a designer's website um you can just do google image search if that's your thing um pinterest instagram there is no limit because what you're trying to do is just quickly pull as many as you can so that you can hand select the best ones um that will communicate your idea in the most effective way maria would you say that all the examples you showed are equally effective or were there some was there one that you felt like was was kind of the star i think they're all equally just as effective um they're just very different styles right and i just wanted to show you guys sort of like the range um so that you know if you're thinking about the script as in so you know as being filmed in a very um sort of uh big cinematic way then this would be the type of mood board that you put together you would be you know you're more likely to go to you know netflix or a director's reel to a screenshot some of these images but if it's something like this where it's more like illustration driven or graphic treatment driven then um you might go to a place like design inspiration um or pinterest um so you can kind of start to think about like okay what is the the the tone that i'm trying to establish and then what are some of these resources um or sites that will give me the best um in return this is a normally i'd wait and ask you this at the end but that's relevant just right now how long should you spend making a mood board um i think that you should spend as much time as you want um i think it's literally like it can be you know an hour for some people or literally like three days for others um just keep going until you're happy because you know oftentimes i'll find myself like i'll be like okay i have about like 20 images on the slide already but are they really like exactly what i'm looking for um so then i you know i don't feel very satisfied then i'll continue my search um so there's really no right or wrong answer here and then relatedly is there a number of is there a minimum or maximum number of pieces or like artworks that ought to be part of a mood board or is that again kind of subject to the the piece the taste yeah it's totally subject to you know i think the scope of the work like the campaign the idea um you know you don't have to limit yourself to just one page of images you can create three pages if that's what you're looking for um let's say you're creating a two-minute film versus a 30-second spot that will obviously require more um swipes um and a lot of times um i've seen some creatives do this as well where instead of reading the script they just show full bleed images so think of you know kind of taking each image that you see on this slide and then going full page and then they just read the script in the background and they click through so that from the client's perspective they're able to clearly visualize what you're saying while listening to the script um which is another effective way of selling work so don draper very don draper all right any other questions before we move on no i think that's that's most of the the questions for now i'm sure there's more at the end for you but that thank you super helpful yeah cool um and uh here are some more tips um like i said try as many things as possible um it's all about experimenting um just keep going until you're like wait i find that really interesting or inspiring how can i take that and then like try to you know do something with it and then you'll as you're a research team you'll come across another inspiration that might be you know totally different from what you've been kind of trying for the past like two days or something um then you switch and you just have to kind of again not limit yourself um and enjoy the process you know like whether you're spending hours on it or you know trying to find something that's exactly what's in your head or comping comping images so that you know it's a little bit more detailed just enjoy the process and don't be shy to ask your copywriter partner to help you um and you know another thing that um makes an art director a really successful creative um is that you know for instance like neha and edward um they're very much well-versed in a variety of tools beyond photoshop and illustrator so even if you kind of like know the basics um around you know how to use premiere or after effects you know or other you know creative tools it allows you to um give better directions and feedback when you're working with say a motion graphic artist um or a post-production company because you have some of this background knowledge already um so you can kind of you know better explain what sort of technique it is that you're looking for um and as an art director you're not just again limited to creating visuals you have to be really great at verbal and written communication skills um again it's not just you know creating beautiful images and then saying like oh here it is you know you have to stand uh up there in front of the room be able to persuade them present well and again when you're working with your teams give clear feedback and direction and um you know don't be shy to uh again approach your partner copywriter partner and say hey can i take a stab at writing some scripts um if you have a good partner they'll welcome that um don't you know but that doesn't mean you know pretend you're better than them at copywriting that's not the point right it's just like it's all about collaboration and sometimes um when you're creating a mood board for a script you might come across an idea that affects the writing and you might you know say like hey what if we instead of this scenario we tried something like this that could be really interesting so the script has to be you know constantly evolving and growing and the work is never done until the day you finish it and ship and it's out in the real world um so yeah i mean you know when you guys get your assignments um when i give you the simple script um i really want to encourage you guys to not just stick to what's in there um feel free to kind of you know write it in your own words or you know interpret it a little bit differently um i kept the script very simple for that reason so that you guys can again take it and make it your own in case you know um if you need more resources in terms of where to put pull these images um i love designers like jessica walsh um who has been just kind of you know leading the charge in the branding world uh the past decade um she's really really interesting she's got a very unique bold iconic like colorful style um pablo rocha is um uh someone that i also really um uh i guess just like um look up to um because he's able to kind of take um what's culturally popular and just like turn it on its head and just find ways to really entertain people in super unexpected ways so i highly encourage you guys to check out his work as well um because again when you're looking for inspiration um it doesn't mean that you have to go to all these awards show sites like you know the one club or adc and things like that check out other people's work and useful resources like film grab you know they they have basically every screenshot of you know every film out there you can look at a bunch of directors reels um i linked this to a word doc um where i listed out some of my favorite uh film directors that are very visual in style um and there are tons of production houses that you can get inspired by um the mill being one of them you know they've done so much work and again you know there's a bunch of other sites that i'm sure you guys are familiar with but um just keep exploring and um on that note i'll just end with this quote from bruce lee uh be like water um this is probably one of the best advices you're gonna get um on how to be an a successful art director you have to be very fluid you have to be able to adapt to different situations you have to wear multiple hats jack-of-all-trades now there are certain people that want to hone in and focus on one specific thing pablo is actually a good example of it he was able to really own the style that he's established um but in advertising a lot of times you know the brief that you get today is going to be really different from the brief that you got you know a couple weeks from a different client so you know how do you adapt to situations like that um yeah so on that note you guys have some questions i'll open it up to some q a session actually i want to put one that came at the beginning of the chat um i think it was uh demetrius and he asked if all art directors begin as designers so i think it might be helpful to explain the different ways that people become art directors and maybe the dichotomy are like kind of the difference between what designers do and what art directors do and how they work together yeah that's a great question um no not all our directors first um become designers that's just the path that i happen to take um i've seen you know some students you know just through but you know going to add school that's art director that's what they wanted to become and that's sort of like the path that they took i've seen some graffiti artists first start in sort of like the streetwear graffiti type of world and then eventually make their way into becoming an advertising art director um sometimes uh really skilled illustrators will also um uh follow that path as well um and you know i've seen like people who were first lawyers you know doing that for i don't know like 10 years and then they eventually decided like this i can't do this anymore you know go back to like portfolio school for instance um and get into advertising um or you know back in the old days like um an assistant to someone like you know jeff goody or rich silverstein maybe that's how they kind of learned art direction and the craft of advertising from being an assistant to their um to these you know ad gods um and that's how they got in there just so many different ways um but yeah it's uh you know if you're able to kind of again have sort of like an eye for design art direction visual storytelling and have a passion for technology especially in this day and age that's important and able to kind of embrace those three things um yeah i would say anybody can become an art director you don't always need to have traditional sort of like formal training that's super insightful um will you uh unshare so that we can yeah and then guys if you have questions uh please do feel free to raise your hands um and i'll unmute you i think we got another oh here we go kevin's always got a question there we go cool can you hear me yeah okay so you were talking about or i posted in the comments about back-facing mood boards versus front facing mood boards do you go in with a mood board or you do you go in with two or three mood boards or can you just kind of briefly discuss on if you're confident in the moving board are you trying to persuade people to that point or are you scrapping it and putting another one in like how does that process work for you yeah um i mean again i think it's a constantly evolving process um so for instance i'll be you know i could feel very confident about showing just one page of um images so a single mood board but then you know an hour before the client meeting i might come across something that i find really really interesting and i go in there and then swap things out or decide that one page isn't enough um the maybe the script is again you know for a longer sort of narrative so then i add another one and um so it really depends on the type of project that you're dealing with and and also your your audience as well if the clients um really need a lot of hand-holding in terms of visualizing your idea or the script you might benefit from showing more than less i think that makes sense and so specifically when you when you're taking a mood board into a client like do you do you come in with backup options in case they react poorly to the first one or do you you kind of come in confident in your one and you're like if you hit it we'll go back yeah it's the latter i mean there's there's time to address feedback i don't think you should feel sort of you know nervous about them not liking your idea um just sound very enthusiastic and show them that you're passionate about this style that you're about to show and if they don't like it i mean that's kind of their problem and then you say hey let me go back to the drawing board figure something out and then i'll come back to you um so you don't have you know just be confident and and trust in in what you um envision this uh coming to life and um i think that's the beauty of being an art director is that it's your vision it's no one else's yeah uh katarina asks uh kind of a follow-up question there would you use a similar mood board creation process for developing a brand identity versus developing the campaign the process is exactly the same i would say um again it's kind of being mindful of those three things that i mentioned um and you know obviously for something like say um a tv spot you might be mixing some static images with some like motion stuff maybe there's you know type involved and it could be a variety of style um what types of images but if it's more focused on brand branding and identity then then you might be able to just uh pull some color swatches some typefaces um so yeah really depends on what you're working on but the but the process i would say is the same that makes sense um what's something that would surprise people about your day-to-day my day-to-day um you'd be very surprised i think as an acd there is very little time to actually do the work and i love being hands-on so i like to kind of help my team by actually doing the work and not just you know giving directions but during the day i'm just constantly in meetings jumping from one zoom call to another that um by the time i get to actually making something it's already like eight o'clock um so yeah i know i'm just trying to give you guys paint the the real picture here is that uh um an art director has a lot of responsibilities that i think that puts it mildly um from the perspective of an art director what makes an account manager good to work with what makes one not so good to work with i think uh an awesomer account director um really understands how long the creative process takes and they're able to be understanding and really empathize with the art director and sort of like the burden that they have on their shoulders um so they'll always come to you and say hey clients are asking for this or you know we have to um you know address this comment when do you think that we should go back and they'll always kind of open it up um to you and it's never like hey we need to send this into ours and give you sort of like that ultimatum i would imagine also going to bat for you in a client meeting right where like you go ahead with a client and and there's always that kind of like awkward like oh who's going to step in and it's like the good account person like comes in with a thoughtful argument and articulate some point you know and doesn't that's actually a really good point yeah i mean a good account person um is able to be a bulldog with the clients and kind of bully them sometimes you know and like you said give a very sort of solid rationale behind why the work um is effective and why the team believes in it and be able to fight for your work um the worst uh kind of uh account person to work with is somebody who just wants to who's one side and just wants to please the clients all the time right that's not how it works it's a it's a relationship yeah i think that ties super well to maggie who was our account uh kind of lesson earlier who was kind of talking about the the kind of dual hats that good account people wear between like understanding clients perspective and making sure that that's related articulately to the creative team but also when the creative team is presenting when you have to go to bat on behalf of the agency that you're an aligned team you're together creative team is with you um alexa i'm gonna unmute you here hi thanks so much for the talk my question is about when you're working with a partner so i'm a copywriter and when working on portfolio pieces and once the copywriter hands over the copy to the art director how can the writer support the art director in that period that's a really great question um [Music] i think that uh oftentimes um copywriters kind of make the mistake of saying like well here it is so you know you gotta put some visuals to my words and um if you're able to kind of you know work with the partner in such a like a collaborative manner so you say hey this is my first step at it but what do you think and invite them into your copywriting process that's like super ideal because um a lot of times this you know for instance the idea changes uh quite a bit as the art director is doing sort of this visual exercise and you can also offer to help just you know find images um it is a pretty long process um sometimes you know when you write very specific things in your script um you you can't really find it just by doing like a quick google search right so yeah i mean and also i would say offering to uh to stay late at the agency with your partner oh man that shows it's it's such a um like it goes to show how much you care about them which means a lot a lot of times great thanks there's um in the chat before it gets lost uh what do you look for um an aspiring art director's portfolio that's uh um i would say i think i really value idea but at the same time i think an art director needs to be able to bring that idea to life in a in a visually compelling manner so the things that i look for are like what's the idea and how did you visualize it so that you know obviously goes back to design and sort of visual storytelling right and um an art director who is skilled um in design so like the very fundamental um uh skills of you know say like graphic design for instance because it involves like typography like you guys learned with han um last week they're very important um and so i wouldn't i would definitely spend some time kind of um sharpening those skills and uh make sure that there's a balance that you're not just kind of like a concept heavy art director or more of a design um heavy art director try to find a balance there are two questions here that i'm gonna i'm gonna kind of combine into one uh so one being how do you work with columns planners and another being how do you work with strategists to create the brief do you connect much with them if so like how do you kind of interact with with strategists generally yeah um i think one of my favorite uh steps in this sort of like creative process is actually sitting down with the strategy team and writing a brief um it's really exciting because again i think it goes back to sort of like the designer in me where design is all about problem solving and a brief starts with a problem right and you kind of you know chat with your with your strategy strategy team around like what is the insight like what's the audience inside what's the cultural insight you have to pay attention to what's happening in the world um and um you know kind of ask them like what is sort of like the um where does the brand stand on this issue and you because you have to take that into consideration too um so there's a lot of different elements but um and then with the with the comstrat team so that if that's more with the brand strat with the comstrat team then you have to sort of help them plan um almost like a a roadmap right so from the moment the the campaign launches what what are the channels that you want your creator to live in um and that's super important because again depending on who you're talking to who your audience is if you're talking to gen z maybe you know doing something on tick tock makes sense um or if you're talking to sort of like older millennials um maybe facebook is a platform that they're more you know active on um so you want to make these sort of um choices um and you know you know invite again invite the teammates um to help you uh make these important decisions it's not just on you it should always be like what do you think is best for the creative as an old out of touch millennial i take offense to the facebook note but what is uh what's one thing you wish somebody would have told you before you started uh in your current role and i think that means more art direction than like specifically a good bee you don't have to um i wish someone had told me to um to be louder like early on in my career um when i first started my career advertising was i mean it's it still has a i mean it's improved a lot over the years but back in the day it was very um there was no you know gender balance in terms of like the you know male to female ratio um at basically the majority of agencies um and it had a very uh toxic sort of culture and me sort of being this you know kind of introverted person um i thought that if i just kind of keep my head down you know work hard and just do my job and then and stay out of drama then that's enough to kind of propel my career that's not the case um you have to stand your ground fight for your work you have to be loud you have to kind of you know be aggressive and be assertive when it comes to you know whether it's like getting on you know good briefs or you know getting the opportunity to present to clients like fight for that kind of stuff and i hate that yet i have to use the word fight for it um but at the same time no one's gonna hand it to you um so yeah you gotta gotta be loud stay loud that's great advice and i think it's especially funny because most of our questions are coming in chat right now so guys come on raise your hand um i i'm selfishly curious if you have any ghost stories because you talked about that a lot and you're talking oh my gosh um neha you're not gonna bring me into this maybe this is the perfect thing is into it neha says she can see spirits me maria and our team were like on a on a team's chat at like midnight for an hour just talking about ghosts that's just the context upload that uh after the class um yeah i mean i personally have not seen any ghosts um but it seems like i'm surrounded by people who are able to see ghosts like neon for instance um my brother my mom saw a figure that apparently 30 years before they did my grandmom saw the same ghost in a different place which is kind of crazy um i'm yeah i'm very fascinated with this whole like paranormal investigation or activity kind of type of shows that are on tv um but yeah i i don't know i've never personally experienced any of it so it's always just a just a simple curiosity kind of thing yes sam i've never seen any ghosts um okay i think this is probably the last question then we can wrap up um best pieces of advice that you've received other than be like water do you like water um yeah and other than stay loud i think um the best piece of advice that i received was uh be a selfish creative and i think that says a lot um i think it kind of goes back to everything that i just said which is like you gotta advocate for yourself you gotta fight for your work and you gotta sort of stay loud um to make sure that your idea um sees light and um if you're if you care a lot about your work and you're able to sort of act in a selfish manner it's going to be mutually bad you know beneficial so it benefits the agency it benefits the clients it makes you um [Music] you know really valued um as a creative and you know everyone kind of is able to put their best foot forward um so yeah yeah i think that's that's super strong advice and especially you know like going from either being a student or being in one discipline and moving to another uh joining you know a new team and a new industry can feel super intimidating but they're paying you because they've your perspective to be worth paying for so i think it is important that you know you you put your perspective out into the world um with force and i think the the flip side of that is when a decision doesn't go your way that you remain part of the team and you you find ways to make it work right exactly yeah yeah um yeah go ahead i thought you had a i thought you had to follow up yeah no i mean you know you have to know you know when to stop pushing right so use your best judgment um you don't want to come across as like an creative that's not what i mean being selfish also means you know um being being kind to others and being a collaborative team player totally um there's one more straggler here kind of related to the strategist question but are there qualities and strategists that you particularly like um what are the what are the best strategies you've worked with like what kind of stuff do they provide to you to help sure um i think some of my favorite strategists uh come up with a ton of dot starters i love dot starters um some amazing campaigns have been born out of like a single line of strategy you're not you when you're hungry by snickers beautiful line and and it just kind of wrote itself right like i mean that's that's the work and um a a creative strategist is able to bring the team lots of thought starters so that you can tackle this the problem from all different angles um and i think you should kind of strive to to do that it's not just like here's a problem and and here's an insight um you know let's figure it out and like you know a few um sort of like inspiration or whatever um spend a lot of time doing research um i think even in this same goes for the creatives as well like do a lot of research on your on on your own um whether that's on the audience or the brand or the product or just like a cultural insight it's going to make your work stronger yeah i think you've alluded to this just in the way that you talked about working with strategists and we've heard this from a couple of the other folks who we've we've heard of teach lessons so far but i think there is a sense that there is a traditional strategy process which is like write the brief done hand it off and then don't talk to the creative team anymore and i think consensus is on both sides that does not work well um so finding ways to continue to add value and to like talk to those creative teams throughout the process like maria is sitting here telling you it is valuable it is valuable exactly even after the client like approves the strategy you guys might come across something that just i don't know completely contradicts what you already presented and then and don't be don't be afraid to go back to the clients and say like hey actually we like this better prove your case and and they'll love you for it um just being very honest is is key too totally well that was super enlightening um thank you so much for sharing all that insight i thought that was i was like she had such a great kind of perspective on the difference between how designers work and how art directors think um normally there would be an outpouring in the group chat right now i'm sure people are just get like absorbing all of your knowledge uh thank you so much for for joining us this week um here there there now it's starting uh getting the cascade the um uh do you wanna do you wanna just like run through the assignment real quick and then we'll make sure that as usual we get we post that within the subreddit um but just wanted to kind of like make sure we we state that out for the the class here yeah absolutely um so i'm going to provide a very simple uh tv script and um you know if you guys want to uh just kind of stick to what's on paper like that's fine um but your job is to create a mood board that again does the three things that i told you about before and creates um or you know communicates how you see this coming to life um so yeah you can stick to the script that i provide or you can tweak it if you want that's totally fine too cool well this has been awesome thank you so much for your time and uh we'll see everybody in the subreddit that's good thank you guys so much for having me thank you bye everybody see ya

Channel: rAdvertisingSchool

Views: 13,759

Keywords: advertising, education, portfolio, resume, marketing, pr, public relations, design, art direction, copywriting, creative, advertising agency, strategy, account management, college, graduation, job

Id: HrBqqFYb2m4

Length: 66min 0sec (3960 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 29 2020