Back in the day. I got my second job at CDP, it was the mid-80s, when CDP was all upper case and still a great place for a creative to ply his trade. (No offense Dentsu, but even you must admit, cdp is not what it was.)
Anyway, an endless line of creatives would pass through on placement, stay two weeks, if they were lucky, a month, and then leave. During this time, nearly every one of them would work terrifically hard in their little office and never venture out to play pool or go upstairs to the bar for a drink, believing that hard work was their key to employment.
And so, I can hardly remember anyone who passed through at this time. Occasionally, very occasionally, someone would be employed and, other than a tiny little bit more money, nothing much would change, as they were fed a stream of briefs and told to crack them.
At the same time, account graduates would join but there introduction to the company was different. They would spend 2 wks in the creative dept, 2wks in production, 2wk planning, 2wks media buying. Only then they would start their job as an account manager.
And CDP wasn't any different to any other agency in that respect.
And today, nothing much has changed. I don't know of one agency that believes a creative would benefit from understanding the other jobs in the agency. Which leads to an arrogance from the creatives about whose work it is and who is working for who. And the idea that creatives aren't serious about business problems/solutions, so keep the real work away from them.
It is this legacy that is now giving the industry such big problems.
On the several occasions when I've run departments, I've always implemented a very simple philosophy. It you touch a piece of work then you must leave your finger print on it.
By that I meant, you had to be able to show how you improved anything you worked on, regardless of what department you worked in. Likewise, creatives would be responsible for improving briefs and working on presentations. And it made a massive difference in getting an agency to work together.
Definitely the independent style is the fingerprint everyone, more designers, can leave on every piece of work they do, I would love you to check some of my articles and designs Professional Website Design Creation
Posted by: flash web design | 08 June 2009 at 05:45 PM
Sure, as you mentioned in here creativeness is so important in life, no matter your area of work, is our footprint on the work we do, it make it original and why not useful. In my life creativeness is the key of success, I am a designer and I create microsites and so on.
Posted by: Anny Cambel | 17 April 2009 at 03:20 AM