Trainees or intern as they are called are part of the responsibilities an art director has. I’m not talking about the bad habit of using trainees as regular workers, sometimes referred to as “precarity” or “underclass”, but about the trainees coming from schools doing a few weeks of internship to learn about the real work in an agency.
I had in the past problems finding the right jobs for the trainees as I was caught up in my daily routine and when they actually showed up at my desk I wondered what would fit. I therefore setup a routine for finding jobs around the year to have them ready. Find out how I did it and the 3 rules for successfully managing a graphic design trainee. …click here to continue…
Most of us designers and art director use systems based on DAM every day without noticing it. If you search for images on a website like Getty Images or Corbis you use the web frontend of a DAM. Actually every website has it’s own DAM where it stores the images. But what are the new capabilities of modern DAMs and how can they help you in your daily work. Here some ideas. …click here to continue…
Why should an art director be bothered with file structure, server setups and all this organization stuff? Isn’t this the business of the IT-departments? Well, yes if you are in a big agency and you have an IT-department and even then only for the “physical” part. At the end of the day you and you team have to work with the files every day, not the IT-department, so it’s time to get in charge. Here a few tips. …click here to continue…
Following rules is not often seen as something positive in design. “Break the rules” and “Be different” are more common to be heard. And while it’s true that design should be different and break the rules to attract attention, it’s advisable that you establish a few rules if you want to get along with you co-workers.
We had in the last weeks a few meetings in our department where we tried to polish our teamwork and we established these 5 simple rules:
Language - No tongue is discriminated and everyone can express thoughts, opinions and present in their mother tongue as long as all involved understand everything. If someone has problems to follow, everyone helps to avoid misunderstandings.
Feedback - We follow the feedback-rules for positive and negative feedback.
Information - We inform ALL members of the project team about changes, improvements, new ideas, conclusion and everything else concerning the project
Competence - We respect the fields of competence of the co-workers and believe that they are willing to do their best for the project. It is though allowed to discuss about the solutions and bring new input.
Reaction - We react promptly upon requests (from inside the department or from outside) by confirming that we have received it. We also give a statement on how we are going to proceed.
The first rule about the language is quite important for multi-lingual environments, in my case German/Italian. Sometimes firms tend to prefer one language over another, in most cases the smallest common ground, and cripple the interaction. You probably can express yourself best in your mother tongue and you may be even capable of transmitting your ideas in a simple way that foreign-language speaker can understand it. On the other hand if you are forced to use another language to express yourself you maybe miss the point without noticing it and misunderstandings are quite often.
Another good thing about allowing more than one language is that you can avoid the “YOU have to speak my language in order for me to understand you”. Everyone knows that he has to understand the other languages of the department – the more the better.
This approach, to start with the conclusion, works best for small design teams and firms that upgraded their marketing department with an art director. They reached a point where they feel the need to get to the next level – in quality and organization. Most of the times, the art director role is not full time. I mean by saying this, that the art director is not just directing, creating and reviewing, but is also part of the execution. He is not only part of the workflow, but he actually finishes projects himself. This is no limitation, and with time the execution part will become smaller and smaller eventually. This sets the art director on the same level with his team and this is even more true if this role is filled by a designer formerly in the team. This is very important and is one of the main distinctions between the two approaches I’m presenting here. The art director is not above the team, but on the same level and part of the team. So how does it work? …click here to continue…
Not every advertising agency or design/communication/marketing department of firm need an art director. But when they grow (in size or quality) they create this position sooner or later. At this point they will hire an art director or promote one of the graphic designers already on board. One of the main difference between a graphic designer and an art director is its “leading role”. This leading role extends into leading the graphic designers working with him on the projects. Team-leading and human-resource management is not usually taught in schools and universities – at least not in the design oriented colleges I know. They are sometimes part in post-graduate studies for managers. But how can you establish your leading role as an art director if you have been promoted or you are on your first assignment and have to lead a team? Here some insights from my personal experience. …click here to continue…
Brainstorming is the best known creativity tool, but still is one with the poorest result. Just because everybody uses it, doesn’t mean that anybody is doing it the right way. Even if you look around the web you will find no good source on how to get great results through Brainstorming. So let’s bring down some of the myths in order to use the tool the right way and get better results.
How many times have you seen a folder, website, brochure with poor text? How many times you read a headline and thought what is this all about? How many times did you stop reading a text because it was tedious to read? I’m sure many times. These texts are not written by copywriter but by the client himself. As a graphic designer you don’t care much about the text, it’s not your business – as an art director you must care about it. Here are some tips on how you understand if a text it’s good enough and how you convince your client that is worthwhile having a copywriter do the job. …click here to continue…
Every graphic/online/media designer nowadays calls himself an art director (or worse Information Architect). Even the Wikipedia, the new holy grail of knowledge states, in a little confusing manner. Find out what is the difference between a graphic designer and an art director and what it takes to become one. …click here to continue…
What is the job of an art director anyway. How is it like? And how to learn to do the things the right way in real life. I will present you here some insights and some tutorials about becomming an art director, not just a graphic designer. Tips & Tricks you won't learn in any school and normally you will have to figure them out yourself. So go ahead and start your lessons.
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