Inside the Job: What everyone ought to know about Creative Directors.

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Over the years I’ve come to understand a common and misplaced perception among audiences about Creative Directors and what they do. Having played the role, I can tell you that whether you are a client, a designer, a programmer or even a Labrador retriever, you’d have a better chance of grabbing a beer with a German leprechaun than getting a clear definition of this job from everybody.

What is a creative director?

Wikipedia defines this job as the position within an ad, media or web development firm that ensures that the client’s project is executed in such a way that it fits their requirements, strategy and vision. While I will certainly agree with this, there’s much more to add into the mix.

A CD takes on the role as a liaison between the clients, their company, your own company’s interests and your employees. As a sort of creative “negotiator,” the CD develops and proposes creative approaches and treatments that align with that sensitive balance between all parties involved. Another is to kick off innovative ideas for and from everyone involved in the creative process. So for example, if a client comes to me and asks “can we include a product catalog of stuffed baby llamas and categorize them by color of their hooves?” I will have to take the following into consideration for this hypothetical scenario:

• The Client – would prefer this feature and has not included this in their company’s marketing plan.

• Their Company – The goal of their website is to sell tickets to a Jai Alai event. (Wait, what? Really?)

• My Company – It would take my team 5 more days of development time. This scope creep was not originally included in our proposal and would affect development costs and profit. Additionally, there are currently 3 other upcoming project milestones for other clients in the pipeline.

• My Employees – Would have to design and develop a database structure that would accommodate the client’s assets of stuffed baby llamas so that they can be dynamically pulled through SQL statements when a user sorts them by hoove color. Also, they are currently within the last phase of this project’s development and a change such as this should have taken place during the third phase of development.

• Solution – Vomit (just kidding). Regurgitate. Recommend and inform the client that the risks involved with such a request would garner an adjustment in development time and additional costs. This change would not yield any results for their website’s goals (which is to sell tickets to Jai Alai) – therefore propose an alternative solution; to rethink the use of stuffed baby llamas for a Jai Alai game and suggest the use of say… Jai Alai team noise-makers within an online shopping cart. This would make the client and their company additional revenue by including relevant products on their site that users can take with them to the games (more fan participation – Holla!). This would cut development time for my employees and company by a third by using an out of the box solution instead of a custom programmed database.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Just multiply that scenario by the number of requests (such as those) a CD would receive during a project and take the result and multiply that by the number of projects a web development firm tackles during a given period. “PPhewww.”

From Designer to Creative Director

There comes a point when you transition from just a designer to a designer and manager that needs to be able to focus on leadership, vision and hope more than your design ability. In a weird way, the higher you climb that career ladder, the further you get away from what you love and what brought you into the industry in the first place.

As a manager of designers, programmers and online marketers, you almost have to develop a second level of intuition – “Yes, it looks good, but will it work?” or “Yes, this text is nicely kerned, but does the piece accurately represent the company’s brand?” This is where the “director” part of creative director comes in.

You also have to take into consideration the qualities that it takes to gain respect from the notoriously rebellious mindset of a creative. This is not an easy task. However, techniques like constant failure and even fighting can be used as essential parts of creating great ideas and running a successful creative group. The asterisk that should have appeared at the end of those statements is that those two techniques are only possible if the group has enough respect for each other that they are able to make those exercises work. If you don’t have that respect then those exercises won’t work because you don’t respect the talent of the designer next to you enough that you think they can come up with the right or better solution.

Oftentimes, you’ll find yourself challenged by a creative that has more skill in their craft than the CD. This will be a certainty, as there are a lot of brighter minds out there. However, technical skill has little to do with guiding the communication output of an organization. This would go hand in hand with having respect for yourself and your own creativity enough to have the confidence to tell people the truth and to stick to what you say. No matter how clueless a CD may be interpreted, in terms of design or whatever (probably why its important to find time to keep up with your design chops), there is always plenty to be learned from those who have worked their way up. Being able to run marathons about design, layout, code etc, doesn’t amount to a hill of beans if you do not speak the language of marketers, have big ideas, know people, know how to sell and finagle new business, upsell existing clients, develop project strategy and so on.

Beyond the above, a good CD needs the intangibles: confidence and security. They understand and exude the fact that they control the creative output, workplace criteria, and general business comfort of their team and act as such. Which means being a grown-up: confident in making decisions but secure enough to continue learning and taking suggestions. Remember, all this pretty design stuff we do is only part of a bigger puzzle for those who pay for it.

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