27.09.2016 (Week 5)
David Ho Ming Aun (0328394)
Advertising Principles and Practice
Roles and Responsibilities of an Advertising Art Director, In-class Exercise
Lecture: Roles and Responsibilities of an Advertising Art Director
The lecture slides started off with outlining the roles of an advertising art director, art direction, its position within the organisational hierarchy of an advertising agency, and the job scope involved. At this point, the lecturer gave us the in-class exercise and forgot to explain the rest of the slides. I proceeded to look at the slides when I got home. The subsequent slides show some examples on how art directors tend to borrow their ideas from a separate source, and recreates something new based off it. Again, the slides repeat the formula of a USP + something unrelated to creative a creative idea, and the usage of twisted headlines or images. The lecture ends with an uncredited quote: "Advertising is not art. It’s communications. We can use art (and things around us) to create good communications because creating good communication is art.”
Outcomes from the lecture:
- Roles of the art director
- Position of the art director in the organisational heirarchy
- The generation of ideas through borrowing from other sources
In-class challenge:
This is the brief provided:
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| Figure 1 |
A online news photographer was tasked to capture images of the mass demonstration known as BERSIH, which champions clean and fair elections. The movements signature colour is yellow. In one of the images posted online, a massive number of protestor is seen nearby a Digi Telecommunications retail outlet. Seeing that the colour yellow also happens to be corporate brand identity colour for Digi, the opportunistic marketing team at Digi has decided to leverage this scene to their benefit.
Your task is to come up with a slew of twisted headlines for the image attached.
I was grouped with Merry and Jessica. We came up with ideas in a rather systematic way by first writing down our initial thoughts and then slowly working on developing each one through mind maps. In the end, we came up with a few headlines for the image:
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| Figure 2: In-class exercise (1/3) |
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| Figure 3: In-class exercise (2/3) |
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| Figure 4: In-class exercise (3/3) |
Project 2:
Here is the embed to my Google Slides presentation:
Rough Sketches:
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| Figure 5: Week 5 Rough Sketches |
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| Figure 6: Week 5 Rough Sketches |
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| Figure 7: Week 5 Rough Sketches |
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| Figure 8: Week 5 Rough Sketches |
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| Figure 9: Week 5 Rough Sketches |
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| Figure 10: Week 5 Rough Sketches |
Idea Sketches:
Forum:
Question
Answer
Definitely. A creative director exists to create the overall vision of the project. A creative director is responsible for organising the creative team to translate the brief into a vision, idea or concept. He/she usually also tends to have the final say in approving a design before sending it up the red tape chain.
An art director, however, focuses on the execution of the creative director's vision, ensuring the visual style and nuances are delivered in an appropriate manner. He/she would be responsible for picking out the visual nuances that would help convey the vision of the creative director more effectively.
A creative director and art director share similarities in which that they both take on a role of organising their teams. As the creative director leads the copywriters and advertisers, the art director leads the designers and illustrators. In these current times, I believe that the line between these two roles are becoming more blurred, as the creative collaboration between roles within a studio is becoming more and more prominent.
An analogy: The creative director is like the body copy of a page, but the art director is the typeface, the visual voice of the content. Both work fine standing alone, but together meaningful design and big ideas can be melded into something wonderful.
Feedback:
Specific Feedback
Slides have a clear typographical heirarchy. The analysis looks detailed. There are conclusion at the end of every chapter, which all needs to be tied in into the strategy and the big idea. The strategy and Big Idea needs to be more clearly stated at the end.
General feedback
The lecturer said that for all our slides we are generally missing the BIG IDEA and strategy. We have collected all these information well, but we have not synthesized it, which is the main point of the exercise.
Reflection:
Experience
I felt that our time management for the sketches discussion was poor as we were unable to discuss the sketches of two of our classmates. I felt that the lecture slides weren't focused and could have been better. I enjoyed the in-class exercise, as it allowed for more collaborative thinking towards one idea.
Observation
I notice myself zoning in and out during the lectures, although I do try my best to maintain focus. I have been getting little sleep the past few days as well. I notice I procrastinated a bit more this week.
Findings
I should bring a whiteboard marker around to use in the X-Space classrooms.
Book of the Week:
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| Figure 14: Week 5 Book of the Week |
A Big Life (In Advertising) by Mary Wells Lawrence
This book is an autobiography of Mary Wells Lawrence, one of the few advertising giants of her time. She is also the first female CEO of a company that was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and also founded the advertising agency Wells Rich Greene.
I picked this book because it is rare to have insights as a woman in the advertising industry during the male-dominated mid 20th century. In the book, Lawrence provides very personal insight into her life in advertising, like an old friend chatting over tea. The emotions that come along inside the high rolling advertising line are made evident through Lawrence's strong writing. I was unfortunately unable to finish the entirety of the book, but here are some parts I found interesting:
- For most of the time, an advertisement is really much like a gamble, both for the client and the agency. Lawrence had to once hype up a press conference about an upcoming campaign for American Motors, trying to build up the hype, whereas in reality, she has never even personally seen the cars that are to be advertised yet.
- "Great advertising, the kind that works, almost always comes out of the product you are going to advertise or the product's world. You need to have an open mind, the nosiness of a detective and to assimilate all the information you can get from every imaginable source when you start to create advertising."
- "If, on the other hand, your product appears to be inferior to its competitors, maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but don't be naïve; it is always possible that the competitors' advantage is really just a way of looking at the product, a dream that some other advertising wizard had and presented in advertising so good it has been accepted as a vital truth.
- Lawrence had a very interesting view: on love in advertising. In this sense, she means that love in advertising is an attitude that should be present towards the product and also toward the reader and viewer, and most importantly between the product and the potential buyer.
Picture Credits
Figure 1 – 14
Personal Documentation
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