AIGA Event: Your AD Here: Is Design Reshaping Advertising (Again)?
On September 27, I attended AIGA New York‘s sold out event titled “Your AD Here: Is Design Reshaping Advertising (Again)?” at FIT‘s Katie Murphy Amphitheater.
The talk was supposed to discuss design and it’s impact on advertising. Asking the questions of why so many advertising agencies are starting to hire graphic designers instead of traditionally trained “advertising art directors”, and why so many clients are turning to design agencies to create their advertising campaigns.
The moderator for the evening was Randall Rothenberg. He is the senior director of intellectual capital at Booz Allen Hamilton, the international strategy and technology consulting firm as well as an editor-at-large and media/marketing columnist for Advertising Age magazine. I was quite impressed with Mr. Rothenberg. He is obviously a seasoned speaker, very comfortable at the mike, and asked some poignant questions.
Unfortunately, he asked a question that the panel of speakers never quite really answered to his (or the audience’s) satisfaction. To the point the the question, or variations of it, kept coming up from both moderator and audience alike. The question was “What is the difference between a graphic designer and an art director.”
Before I get into the answers, lets take a look at the panelists. They included:
Brian Collins, executive creative director at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide where he leads the Brand Integration Group (BIG), the agency’s brand experience and design division, and creator of the Dove “Real Beauty” campaign. Dove.
Jane Hope one of the founders of TAXI and winner of numerous national and international industry accolades. TAXI creates print, radio, television and interactive work for Mini, Viagra, Jergens, and more
Neil Powell, who merged his graphic design/brand-building agency with Margeotes Fertitta and Partners to form Margeotes Fertitta Powell in 2005. Neil and his team received its third gold EFFIE award for the re-launch of Rheingold Beer.
Gary Kopke, founder of Modernista! where he creates campaigns for Cadillac, Hummer, Rockport, and more. Gary is another Graphic Designer who stepped into the world of advertising.
With all of this experience in the panel, I was surprised that the main answer to the question was “art directors work with concepts and designers make things pretty”. You should have heard the crowd boo! To say that a designer’s job is to make things pretty would be the equivalent of saying the job of the advertising art director is to write 2-for-1 ads.
In the reality in which I live, there are art directors in design agencies and advertising agencies, therefore the question should have been reworded to something like “what is the difference between advertising and graphic design.” To my experience most (not all) art directors in advertising agencies are focused on creating print and tv advertising campaigns that sell a specific product or service for the client while making sure that it fits within their brand image.
What does a designer do? They are the ones who create that brand image. We do this through researching the client, their industry, their competitors, their target audience to figure what typefaces, imagery and colors will best promote their point-of-difference and build their brand. We then roll this out through all their marketing materials, in-house communications, catalogs, packaging, and sometimes both websites and advertising. One product of all of this is the companies brand manual. This specifies what typefaces, style of photos/illustrations, and colors are used, and how to use them. This brand manual is then handed off to the ad agency so they can make sure their work fits into the global vision of the client’s brand identity.
Of all the panelists, Jane from TAXI seemed the most realistic, intelligent, and down to earth of the panelists. Unfortunately, due to all of the testosterone and larger egos in the room, she didn’t seem to get much floor time. I would like to see AIGA inviter her to host her own “Small Talk”.