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Topic: Dirty, gritty, creative design
| Author | Message |
| designerbabe | Posted – 10/15/2008 10:58:09 PM | show profile I'm a 5 year magazine designer who's been working in teen titles and have gotten used to the luxury of being able to be super creative with the layouts I design. I'm now trying to get out of NYC (preferably to some place in New England), which pretty much means that magazine publishing is out, and I"m looking for another job that affords me the same opportunity to be creative, but i'm coming up with dead ends! Catalogs seem stagnant and boring, i don't think I have the know-how to work on the web, help me out with more ideas! Where can I work where I can just let loose, think outside the box, and not be bound by strict formats and templates? |
| WordyBird | Posted – 10/16/2008 10:54:02 AM | show profile Advertising. |
| AWC | Posted – 10/16/2008 11:55:21 AM | show profile You also might want to consider working in a university's publications office. While it's not as "super creative" as teen magazines, a lot of what they do is aimed at recruiting high school students, and your experience in this area would be of value. |
| fiddlestix | Posted – 10/20/2008 3:00:35 AM | show profile Teen magazines are super-creative? |
| writesonwater | Posted – 10/23/2008 2:28:45 AM | show profile | email poster I don't know what you're interested in / willing to put up with. THere are some challenges to doing regional magazine work, but if you're desperate to go do something else, might look into that. Doesn't pay as well as it should, I can tell you, as a general rule. Might look into advertising. NYC is the biggest market in the world, now that you're there, might try to make it go if you can. But if you're looking for lifestyle changes, your willingness to look outside the box should help. |
| WordyBird | Posted – 10/24/2008 11:30:58 AM | show profile Cre8tive, my father was in advertising for 40 years. It has always been a high-risk endeavor, not to mention ridiculously competitive. Sure, as an account goes, so goes your job--it has always been that way, too. That's the nature of the business, and today it's no different. Point is, if someone's top priority in finding job satisfaction is the freedom to be wildly creative, well, advertising is the most wildly creative atmosphere there is--and even then, you have to know the client well. |
| rulebook | Posted – 10/24/2008 1:01:25 PM | show profile "It has always been a high-risk endeavor, not to mention ridiculously competitive." True "Sure, as an account goes, so goes your job--it has always been that way, too." mmmm...kind of. Creatives (ADs and CWs) are more sensitive to the overall health of the agency, since creative teams are very rarely linked to just one account. If you're in the creative department, and you're good (or at least deemed "good" internally), and the agency is making money, then your job is relatively safe; if your primary account goes, you get assigned to other stuff. Management is the function most closely linked to any given account, and if your account goes (especially if it's a large account), it's big trouble. "Point is, if someone's top priority in finding job satisfaction is the freedom to be wildly creative, well, advertising is the most wildly creative atmosphere there is--and even then, you have to know the client well." Not for print design. Print design tends to be fairly straight-and-narrow in an ad agency, at least when compared to a design shop or similar environment. That's because the work is almost always more dependent on the creative idea than the design of the idea on paper, and is thus valued accordingly. |
| WordyBird | Posted – 10/24/2008 5:33:30 PM | show profile "For you to advise her to change jobs right now, especially in advertising, in my opinion, is not a wise move, strategically, on her part, given the fact that our economy is in the sewer right now and her changing jobs, especially in a high-risk environment as an ad agency, which she apparently has no experience with, could end up in her being long-term unemployed." Go back and read the first two posts in this thread. She asked. I (snarkily) answered. She's a big girl. She can make her own career decisions. What happens to her is her responsibility, and she is free to seek employment as she sees fit, with or without consideration of the advice of strangers on an internet message board. In other words, take a chill pill. You don't get to control what other people advise here. Oy. |
| rulebook | Posted – 10/24/2008 6:02:16 PM | show profile "Rule, good post, but I take somewhat exception with your statement about the design on paper from the AD. Without that fantastic creative design and execution on the part of the AD, the idea is worth nothing." Sorry, wasn't trying to guffaw over good design. I currently work at a design agency, and I totally understand the value, the nuance, and the craft of good print design. And yes, to do great work you need a good idea that is impeccable designed (and or produced, directed, coded, etc). But at an ad agency, the value is more on the idea, which is usually expressed in multiple mediums, print being but one of them. So by the constraints of time and space (read: the full campaign needs to be delivered by Monday), meticulously-designed, really cool print work is uncommon. You do get it sometimes, but it's usually a lucky-strike extra because the AD demands it and is capable of it, not because the ad agency culture is one that fosters "dirty, gritty" print design. Said differently, I work with designers now who agonize over layouts for days. That never happened in any ad agency I ever worked. And now that i think about it, it's not that an ad agency doesn't agonize over details as well as the idea behind them, but in my experience, print design definitely gets the short end of the stick. I've worked on projects where commas were agonized over for weeks. I've had 5 meetings about how many people should be piloting a boat in one scene of a stupid commercial in order to evoke maritime safety. But never print design. Perhaps that's because print is a relatively inexpensive medium, and clients and agencies tend to focus on the 1MM TV or the 100K website vs the design of the 10K print ad. Not sure. I'm rambling. Or, I'll give you this: at an ad agency, a great idea designed pretty well gets approved. A pretty good idea that's impeccably designed usually doesn't. |
| WordyBird | Posted – 10/26/2008 11:25:37 PM | show profile Cr8--pot, meet kettle. Some folks suggested something you disagreed with. That's fine. Your holier-than-thou attitude is not. |
| WordyBird | Posted – 10/26/2008 11:32:34 PM | show profile Oh, and? You just proved my point. Who are YOU to decide what is "out of line?" I don't see "mod" attached to your screen name. Please, stop taking the internet, and your own opinions, so seriously. |
