By ArJun Mukherjee, Bates 141, Kolkata
There’s suddenly this great divide. Art Director vs Designer. It has almost come to the point where it feels that each is a specialized area and one of them is not supposed to delve into the perimeter of the other. Every other day we hear good art directors starting up his or her own design agency frustrated with the cuffs slipped around their hands that limits any creativity whatsoever.
Who’s the culprit? The agency and the system of course. Hand on heart the scope for experimentation has hit rock bottom in ad agencies. Expect for some patli gali work any brave effort draws jeers and in this hard times it is best encouraged to stick to the tried and tested. On an average print work is unpalatable and indistinguishable. Mediocrity dominate the white pages and the less said about logos and fonts the better. Talk about brochures and even interns find it an unglamorous thing to do and web… hey isn’t that the digital agency’s job anyway. So what does the art directors do? They slog away, following templates, following last year’s successful campaign, following what the strategy head says and following the client’s scribble on the layout.
Check out the websites of the biggest advertising agencies and see the amount of drabness which sticks out like fish bones. Except for some great films which in most cases are the legitimate children of good production houses there is nothing to talk about. On the other hand Indian design agencies are having limitless fun and it’s reflecting in the cutting edge stuff you can see in their portfolio. And mind you all of them are released work, done for an actual client who is happy about it, have backed it and paid for it. Vivek Sahni Design, Lemon Design, Fisheye Design are creating eyeball bouncing stuff not to mention the path breaking canvasses by biggies like Bosedk Designs or Ray and Keshavan.
There’s no overnight solution. Ad agencies have to look inwards to create great work and one of the steps is to put the zing back in the art person’s life. Give him the freedom, appreciate when he breaks out of the box, recognize his analytical brain when it comes to understanding a brand and more importantly don’t disassociate him from the designer in him. These are the same guys who slam down their resignations one day to start a design house of their own…firstly it’s a shame to stand back then and say ‘wow this guy was good’ and most importantly it’s a loss which advertising can’t cope up with.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Every bit of this article is true, Arjun.
Thanks for writing this!
December 15th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
The problem extends beyond just art-directors and designers. It is sure to spread to Copywriters and other Creatives too. Clearly, it is a leadership problem. Higher-ups need to understand why people take to these professions in the first place, and dont become bankers or software experts instead. Risk taking has to be embedded in some part of the agencies’ DNA.
Its a bit like Dhoni letting Sehwag have his way, soaking up the criticism when Sehwag fails, and smiling his assured, victorious smile when he gets those massive double-and-almost-triple hundreds.
December 16th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
agree with vikramjit! its a leadership problem. the creative directors and perhaps branch managers are not grooming the young ones properly. dont understand your cricket analogy., but it seems that the number of awards won (irrespective of patli gali) is all that everyone is after.
maybe they should pin the real released ads on the creative director’s softboard as a constant reminder.
December 18th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
An ad agency-is all about making quick money and fooling & boring the public to death with banal forced horse shit from hell.
And the audience are getting smart. Hence they record programs/watch them online/ fast forward thru the ads-or channel surf each time there’s an ad-thus moving so far on-that they forget what they were watching to begin with.
Or maybe thats just me!
I don’t know cos i dont watch tv or read newspapers anymore-or should I say even less than ever before…! Because unlike most other people I don’t have a desensitized bullshit filter that I can wear before I expose my hyper sensitive super zen mind to any of the royal pathetic-ness that they’re usually so full of u know…?
Yes. write about design studios and entrepreneurs.
It’s about time too.
They work much harder.
Are much cooler.
And create much more award worthy, ‘from the heart’ creatives than the mind numbing ad agencies.
And they talk much much less-which is SUCH a lovely change from the rapid talking carpet chewing suit wearing, cheap bollywood loving critters (45,000 name droppings per paragraph..aakh..choke choke… )
This is in fact the reason why quite a few ad agencies are opening design cells within-to combat the small studios etc.
However-what the ad agencies need to first figure out IS:
whether they want to actually come in to do some good work?
OR……?
Hit on the hot trainee who was hired at random to add ‘face’ value to the otherwise boring office? (in a competitive heated rush-before the other dude gets in the way!)
Or…..?
Pull each other down-peer over each other’s shoulder trying to either copy from the other / out do the other/ or just plain feel like crap cos the other team cracked a better idea (AGAIN! Damn the favourite ass licking team from Bullcrapville!)
OR ?
focus on superior complex strategies on psychotic office politics and worsening ethics of the copy paste era-and make them work till they have no hair on their head-type scenarios.
Or better still—-to actually sell something that actually deserves to be out there in the market with a worthy face to it-in the first place.
These are just some of the issues…..
from just the top of my head….
I could go on….but then a lot of young excited unsuspecting little people may never join an ad agency after reading this i suppose….so!
But on the other hand…. I love minding my own business…which i do best…so off i go now then B-)
December 21st, 2009 at 9:45 pm
cheeze@pickle! you are so right. so is saumya. the released work is so pathetic. dont feel like even looking at a print magazine anymore…
December 27th, 2009 at 8:47 am
cheeze&pickle, i agree with much of what you are saying. if you are an art person in agency you are looked down upon since the copy person is alsways ‘supposed to write the scripts’ and is sent to the all important ‘comemrcials shoots’, because TV has bigger ‘reach’.
HA.
anyway, there is a lot of work to be done to imrove the quality of everyday creative. we suck at that and we know it.