For the Love of Creating

Introduction

            There is always a question on what you would do for the love of your career. What would a creative do to properly manage and maintain their career in order to be successful? A creative director determines the creative vision of a brand or project and manifests that vision through digital, print and film installations. Creative directing can be an incredibly complex career. Majority of all the people that have chosen or are choosing to become a creative director are multi-talented. Some of the different lanes that they can explore are photography, graphic and fashion design, marketing, communications, advertising, media, music, and film. With all of these many skills, duties, and projects, comes also, with deadlines that need to be met. This issue not only extends within the last and/or the next 5 years of creative directing, but it will continue to be an issue that creative directors deal with. Current and aspiring creative directors need a way to be able to efficiently and quickly organize and maintain their projects and deadlines. Not only to be able to address these issues, but to be able to put a proper balance on the workload and stress that a creative director would typically take on when dealing with agencies that they work for or the teams that they are leading. An idea that would could be helpful for those within this career field, is to create an app or program of some sort that can easily manage this for them. Almost in the sense of planner, but with a more precise notification of each. Adding a strategic and computer analyzed plan to set up and organize the dates of all the projects and required deadlines. It would be able to set up these deadlines in a very organized manner, as well using provided data to connect creative directors with the right jobs for them. Being able to have a comfortable work environment, as well as being comfortable with their co-workers and employees. This idea would be beneficial to creative directors, their clients, and other businesses that can would be able to utilize it. Not only would an app or program like such be fast and efficient, it could also be a good way to market and build clientele. If potential clients see that there is high supply and demand of a certain respect and ethic for their time and companies, it creates certain bridges of trust. With each of these positive outcomes and beneficial reasons standing behind the idea itself, it would certainly grow to be something that those people within the creative community will appreciate.

Main Argument #1

Being the leader of a project, organization, or business, it requires necessary skills, decision making, and understanding to be able to properly assess and execute plans for an assignment. In order to be to properly organize and meet these project deadlines, a creative director must dedicate serious time and effort. For projects that creative directors are the creative heads, they are constantly juggling multiple responsibilities that are categorized in many different departments. Professionals in this field can experience amounts of stress that are detrimental. Some of these of responsibilities can be tough to manage for directors of the sort, but there are ways that it can be resolved, and there are ways that it could be turned into a negative experience.

            After looking into the profession, it was found that there are positive and negative ways about going to be a creative director. For example, a good creative director will assign and work together with their team. They know their responsibilities and leverage their team to their advantage. Making sure projects are evenly distributed and handled by the designers who will do their best job on the assigned project. (Brandpad) A good creative director can actively listen to their team. Teams are always filled with different opinions and ways of thinking. It is very easy for information and thoughts to be misconstrued. To be able to do a good job of managing these issues, a director will be aware of this. When overseeing a project, it is important to listen to their team. This will give their ultimate result more creative power. (Brandpad) With this information, a bad creative director will not listen to the overall plan and options that their team or teams have to offer. It will it always be a dictatorship of assignments that will cause their creative to lack their necessary drive and desire to complete said assignments. They believe that their knowledge and design skills are the only way to go. Rather than listening to their team and allowing them to inject their own ideas into the project, a bad creative director will negatively criticize and judge the team’s project based on their own methods. (Brandpad)

            There needs to be a very strict, yet open way of going about being a creative lead. It is very easy to come with a full ego of knowing everything that needs to be completed. Listening and working with the team being a major one. There should be classes or programs that provide training and teaching of skills that many creative directors may not be aware of being essential. Interpersonal skills and behaviors can be taught in a classroom but that does not mean they will be easily implemented.

Main Argument #2

Once a creative director has finally grasped a strong hold on being the best creative director they can be, the next step is learning to manage time. Time management is the process of organizing and planning how to divide one’s time between specific activities. (Mindtools.com) Learning how to manage time as a creative director can be the first step to great success. Being as though it is a creative leads main job duty to be able to juggle and manage different projects, people, and departments in order for assignments for clients and companies to go as expected. Benefits to having proper time management are greater productivity and efficiency, a better professional reputation, increased opportunities for advancement, greater opportunities to achieve important life and career goals, and most importantly, less stress. (Mindtools.com) Failing to manage your tie effectively can have some very undesirable consequences. These consequences include missed deadlines, inefficient work flor, poor work quality, a poor professional reputation and a stalled career. The worst consequence and main point of this argument is higher stress levels. (Mindtools.com)

Creating an online or virtual program that can better analyze the kind of people, types of work, and work environments that a creative lead will have the best matched potential to explore and extend their creative experience will only benefit everyone in the industry.

Some great tips for learning how to properly manage your time as a creative director in a means to eliminate stress are: mentally mature oneself, learn to respect the audience and the team, hire fresh graduates, let go of personal ego, the more diversity in a team, the better, treat everyone like individuals, team bonding exercises, let the team have some leadership, give a clear direction when working on projects, and never say ‘I don’t want to limit your creativity – you can do whatever.’ (Rebecca L.) Creatives are the spoilt kids in the jungle; they will yell at colleagues, disrespect clients and fail to show up at work on time. However, if you’re a creative person, you need to discipline yourself and force yourself to mature in a short amount of time (Rebeca L.) It is important to respect the audience first as if creatives are not in the fine arts industry. Creatives are a business, and advertising is just a creative solution to solve a problem. (Rebecca L.) All of these tips and methods are great ways to manage any type of high or low stress levels that could be obtained as a creative lead. The next step to be the creative director one can be is to choose the right the environment. Applying for and working the company and/or agency that best suits the creative director will be a great factor in future successes. 

Main Argument #3

The third argument that is being made to better help up and coming and current creative director to better manage their careers is that creative leads have issues with is if they are satisfied with the agency that they are working with. There are two different kind of agencies: In House marketing and Outside marketing. In house marketing is the choice of a company to produce their own advertising program. They have control over the advertising, cost savings, the people working within the team, the accountability and experience, as well as continuity that is being provided as a whole for the team. Outside advertising gives the control of the company’s advertisement to a different agencies department, people, methods, and even more, the costs that will be applied for the services being provided.

To be a creative director and figuring out whether the best fit for them and their long-term career development is a big deal. This is because it will be the beginning of if they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the agency that they are working for. If a creative lead is dissatisfied with their position, policies, the company, or the team, that they are working with and for, it can cause certain levels of stress that will block their creative process. This, in turn, will create time management issues and troubles with balancing out assigned project and adhering to the desires of the company that they are working for. This could easily create a downhill snowball effect for that creative directors’ career. On the other hand, if the creative director is completely or even moderately satisfied with their positions, they will be much more enthused to that work. They will be able to provide that needed leadership skills and directions to their team to be able to provide an above average result for their project. Not only will the performance of the creative lead and team be up to par, but the team’s and creative lead’s time management will hold the necessary balance to be able to withstand face paced projects that need to be completed in a timely manner.

To the resources to best match these new and current creative directors to their dream jobs, an app or website would greatly benefit their careers and the companies that will hire these creative directors in the future. It could only be beneficial and ever more so growing for the creative industry as a whole.

Refutation

Creative stress and disorganization are a common issue for anyone that is working within the creative field. This stress can be a factor as to why they may procrastinate. Creatives will hit a roadblock during their process, and this can cause them to postpone their efforts towards finishing the project that is due (marketing.com). Being able to organize all of their due dates and their projects would be an amazing way to eliminate stress with the creative space and the workspace.

Not being able to eliminate this creative stress could be the reason for a creative leader’s success is hindered. It is one of the five biggest mistakes that creative directors make within their careers. One problem that is made is admitting that there is an actual problem with having an over-abundance of work that is due within a close range of each other. If they had the proper organizational tools to rid them of these crowded schedules, it could be a great defense tactic against procrastination. This will not only fight against procrastination, but this will also take of the creative stress problem. The plan to get an app and/or website operational for all creatives and their creative needs, will be essentially killing two birds with one stone. It would be the first plan among many to hopefully follow to better the creative industry and the work that is being applied.

In the article read, the first step is to deal with the problem by admitting that one exists. Most of the tasks that they post pone are not difficult, but the longer that they put them off, the harder that they can become. Harder tasks, shorter deadlines, will only result in a significantly negative rise in creative stress for any creative lead doing so. While providing a complete file system for creative leads to easily and efficiently organize their work, they’ll be able to apply some very help tips to better their workload in the future preventing unnecessary stress factors that may occur. For example, breaking down a complex project into small tasks and begin to tackle each of them piece by piece. It is said that a good tip to also maximize their scheduled workload is to deal with the hard tasks when their focus and energy is at their peak. Their confidence will be at its peak and will be another asset to helping ensure their success as a creative lead for the company that they work for. (Marketing-interactive.com)

Being able to better manage stress when their a few organizational issues within their projects speaks volumes about that creative lead, but a creative lead means that they are the leader of a team. Having a team requires many attributes and qualities to be able to maintain and manage projects in a timely and organized manner.

Conclusion

            Creating an efficient, easy to use program for creative directors to utilize to better excel their success in the industry and expand their knowledge and potential would be a fantastic idea. Of course, like with any new idea, there will be many kinks that need to be worked out in order to ensure that everything will run smoothly for creative leads, teams, and clients alike. Once all the hard parts of data gathering, analyzation, and processing is complete for those who choose to use the virtual program, they will be able to move swiftly through the industry by finding the perfect company to work for, the perfect team to hire, and the right tools to help maintain their assigned projects and overall workload.

Works Cited

Staff Writer. “5 biggest mistakes you are making as a creative director”, marketing-interactive.com, https://www.marketing-interactive.com/5-biggest-mistakes-making-creative-director , May 06, 2015

MacLeod, Charlie, “In-House or Outside Advertising Agency?”, Smmadvertising.com, https://smmadvertising.com/house-outside-advertising-agency/ , January 16, 2015

Creative Bloq Staff, “Creative director: Pro Advice for snagging the top spot”, creativebloq.com, https://www.creativebloq.com/career/how-become-creative-director-11121363 , January 28, 2019

“5 Takeaways From the New Creative Director Report” , workfront.com, https://www.workfront.com/blog/5-takeaways-from-the-new-creative-director-report , May 07, 2018

Mind Tools Content Team, “What is Time Management?”, mindtools.com, https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_00.htm

L., Rebecca, “10 Management Tips From a Creative Director”, hivelife.com, https://hivelife.com/10-management-tips-from-a-creative-director/ , May 12, 2017

Talley, Jenell, “What Does a Creative Director Do?” mediabistro.com, https://www.mediabistro.com/climb-the-ladder/skills-expertise/what-does-a-creative-director-do/

Brandpad, “What Is the Difference between a Good Creative Director – and a Bad One?”, medium.com, https://medium.com/brandpad/what-is-the-difference-between-a-good-creative-director-and-a-bad-one-a3048be2ffb1 , October 16, 2018

Burns, Will, “Three Ways To Tease Out ‘Likes’ and ‘Dislikes’ Before Creative Development Begins, forbes.com, https://www.forbes.com/sites/willburns/2020/02/07/three-ways-to-tease-out-likes-and-dislikes-before-creative-development-begins/#7fb9e4c37d74 , February 07, 2020

Ward, Jared, “How to Become a Creative Director: Education and Career Roadmap”, study.com, https://study.com/articles/How_to_Become_a_Creative_Director_Education_and_Career_Roadmap.html , March 05, 2020