mrsandok - Tumblr blog

mrsandok · 4 months

Text

What advertising?

May 26, 2022. 1 year, 7 months, and 8 days. 587 days total.

That was the last time someone called me Mr. Delfin. My official last day of teaching.

I was in a different place then. I had an idea that I wanted to work as a full-time creative in an environment that welcomes creative thinking. Advertising interested me knowing that's where the title of "Creative Director" originated from.

I wanted that. I wanted my background in teaching English and my passion for Art to a fulfilling career where I can work with like-minded people.

It's been a very confusing journey. In many, many, many ways it still is.

12 months ago I wrote, “I’m finally comfortable being uncomfortable with not having a definable career at the moment.

My desired career is definable. But how and why I fit with being a Art Director has yet to be explored or defined in my own way.

Hopefully, with this reflective post, I’ll be closer than I've ever been with how I’ll present myself to recruiters, interviewers, and creative directors I’m dying to work with.

I ended “Life After Teaching” with this:

“Meet EJ - The Idealist was written to remind myself that I have to define and chase an ideal in order to remain an idealist.

This post was written to give myself assurance that teaching may have been for me in my 20s/early 30s. But it’s not for me at this point in my life.

I’m tired of feeling angry, frustrated, and empty at a job that gives me money and health insurance.

I’m hungry for creating art and making meaningful connections with anyone I come across.”

Not much has changed. I’m still hungry to create art and make meaningful connections with anyone I come across.

However, that’s for me in my spiritual and personal goals–not necessarily my career goals.

As an Art Director, I probably won’t be making beautiful art or making meaningful connections all the time. More likely than not, I’ll be making boring corporate shit and working with people that are simply coworkers–not friends I share deep common values with.

And that’s OK.

One of the many stressful emails I sent my professors about how I fit in with advertising was met with this reply:

“Art and Art Direction are two different things that achieve different goals, but both can live in the same person. Art direction is a great job that pays the bills, but you're still selling stuff and it's all corporation, but it's fun. Art is art and serves many purposes."

I still reference this email all the time when I struggle with my artist goals and career goals.

I can do both. But it has to be sustainable to my happiness.

One of the ways I’ve done this was to reframe my DJ career.

Yes, it’s my main form of income. But that high from having a good set where many people are happy with my performance fades. I’ve had my fun. I’ve made my friends. I’ve left my mark.

I don’t really want to be a resident DJ playing the music I don’t want to play. I rather be in bed during the hours where people are supposed to be in bed.

Simply put, I rather put my creative energy in visual things rather than musical things.

This is especially true that my only talent with DJ’ing is having the ability to read a crowd and give them what they want. I’m not creating any original songs.

So…Why advertising?

I know I have a creative SPIRIT.

But I can’t get a job based on my passion or my dreams or what I’m going to do.

youtube

I've done a good job of not surrounding myself with people who release their dopamine with their dreams without any actual action. I'm getting closer and closer each day to making sure my spoken goals become actual achievements.

I was told this early in my career when I didn’t get a teaching job at HBHS:

“We can recognize your passion, but how are you going to teach the classroom? What does that look like? We didn’t get that in the interview.”

It’s still a hard question to answer knowing I have so many creative interests: DJ’ing, painting, illustration, tattoos, photography, woodworking, cooking, etc.

A jack-of-all-trades but master of none.

But I’m too cocky to accept the “master of none” title.

I only do these things because I’m passionate about these things. I’ll be damned if my passion doesn’t translate to good quality work.

This title of Jack-of-all-Trades should be celebrated in advertising, especially as an Art Director.

There are so many outlets where I can concept, collaborate, and contribute visually to.

Advertising is the perfect industry where I’m able to do little vignettes of creativity.

Social Media Print / Video

UX design where user’s interact with ads rather than just view them are great.

@redonadida is my biggest inspiration of how to interact with people

Traditional Print

Dynamic and Static OOH

YouTube/Television Commercials

Always Sunny Podcast

All The Smoke

Mobile Advertising

Extraordinary Pop Up / Activations

Guerilla Advertising

Public Service Advertising

I’ve stared at this list for a long time wanting to name brands the advertising I fuck with.

Truth is. Nothing comes to mind. Besides the Clippers.

The Clippers. They know they’ll always be second best with a legacy as deep as the Lakers. However, their rebranding during the Steve Balmer years has been strategic and effective.

Their media personalities, Hannah Cormier, DJ Dense, and Chuck the Condor give fans reasons to interact and engage with the team. The Lakers don’t need Kitschy shit.

Recruiting NBA fans that aren’t loyal to the Lakers is a tricky thing. Nevertheless, collaborating with artists like Mister Cartoon engaged the tattoo, graffiti, and lowriding community. They pivoted directions in a different way with Jonas Wood and their designs.

I think this is what an interviewer wants to hear. How I'm able to recognize a concept and a successful execution. Or a concept that could have been made better.

An easy list of successful campaigns include

Liquid Death

Snickers

Southwest - Wanna get away?

But those campaigns don’t define me as an advertising art director.

What speaks to me is beautifully produced fiction that have the ability to tell the truth.

TV (Fargo, True Detective, IASIP, KoTH, The Simpsons, Goliath, Workaholics, Frasier, Atlanta, Dave, Freaks and Geeks, Party Down, Law & Order, Nathan for You, The Rehearsal, South Park, Beavis & Butthead, Euphoria)

Film (Before Sunset, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Closer, Blue Valentine, Revolutionary Road, In The Mood For Love)

Music (Good Kid m.a.a.d. City, Mac Miller = Gen Z’s Tupac, Taylor Swift’s Generational Ethos)

I skipped literature knowing that’s literally not visual. Music, at least, has the performative or artistry in how the artist present it to the crowd.

What’s also true about me is that I hate the invasiveness, manipulative, and exploitive nature with advertising.

It’s creepy when it’s used in a wrong way.

But, a huge but, it’s beautiful when an ad moves you in a way to change your attitude or behavior.

youtube

This ad changed my views on Gen Z knowing that I’m just being a grumpy millennial hating on the next generation because their values don’t match mine.

I automatically felt disdain for them being clout chasers, never wanting to develop an identity that’s truly theirs. Simply to be seen and famous for all the wrong reasons.

I feel that disdain because I felt that my entire career trying to teach my students the importance of developing an identity that’s true themselves and only a select few would attempt to understand what I’m trying to teach them.

The Toyota ad was referenced by a team member when we were brainstorming ideas on how to reach Gen Z through an ad.

I like this ad because it was able to teach me, in 90 seconds mind you, that Gen Z is just like any and every generation trying to make sense of their life and future.

Everyone has a different journey and everyone has a period where they’re trying to figure it out.

We’re lucky enough to see Gen Z make sense of surviving a pandemic, be political and society active via social media IN A MEANINGFUL WAY (not the usual slacktivism I grew up to), and, most importantly, THEY’RE LEGIT CREATORS.

This 90 second ad put it in perspective that my nieces, my parents, everyone around me, are growing up and, like me, are trying desperately trying to figure it out for themselves.

Beautiful.

The road to becoming a one-of-a-kind copywriter is a bit more straightforward knowing you’re just dealing with words. All you need is a word processor.

I’m not saying it’s easier, by any means. Just a bit more straight forward with only having to deal with words.

As an art director…I’m trying to bring ads to life visually.

The “how” to do this is limitless. However, my skillset is limited.

I can take photos. I can do custom lettering. I can illustrate via ProCreate. I can paint B&W portraits.

I can do graphic design with instructions of what’s expected or following a template.

I struggle with being “original” knowing there are tons of graphic designers I look up to but do not aspire to be.

I like making reels based on timelapse projects. I wouldn’t call them good or professional looking. But they’re fun to make.

“So, what would bring to _____ as a junior art director?”

This is why I’ve been sitting at my computer for the past 5 hours: figure out how I can sell myself to future ad agencies.

Creative Vignettes

With my various interests and skillsets, I’m not inclined to focus on just one thing like being a graphic designer or working on a single prolonged TV or film project.

I like to stay busy. I also like to stay busy with multiple projects. I stay creative through these multiple projects because…well. I get bored if I’m only doing one thing.

I thrive on challenges. I thrive on different challenges. I thrive on stress. The way I stay busy and relax while keeping the creative juices flowing is by starting and completing passion projects.

Social Media

I hate the toxic and manipulative nature of social media; nevertheless, I do like how it connects like-minded people including artists like myself.

It’s necessary and can be swayed in a non-toxic way if advertisers and customers respect the platform. A wishful thought but so have been many other campaigns such as getting Texans to stop littering in the '80s.

Bringing Ads to Life Visually

I appreciate art in all forms. Art is a feeling. Ads are talked about and shared when they’re able to make you feel a certain way.

Aesthetics are important to me. I’m not always trying to strive to make my viewers “feel” a certain way; nevertheless, it has to look pretty. It can’t be ugly while having my name is attached to it.

Ideas and Concepting

I prided myself in shaping my lesson plans to be engaging for my students because, well, I wanted to be engaged in the material as well. I wanted the discussions and writing to be topics I was genuinely interested in and the classroom would organically flourish from there.

Fail fast to get to the good stuff. Kill your babies that you’re initially in love with first. The bad ideas lead to good ideas. Don’t wait for feedback. Criticize yourself and trust the swings you take to an extent.

I’m able to pull from the various interests I surround myself with. Music, TV, film, comedy, animation, contemporary art, photographers, etc.

Collaboration

I foolishly started my transition to advertising was going to be straight forward because my creative spirit gave me a false confidence. My old thoughts were:

I know what good writing is, maybe I can do copy myself.

I care enough about aesthetics, so I can create all these ads myself

NOPE. I may have a good idea. Maybe a B at best, but without anyone to check me on it, I’m speaking to myself and patting myself on the back for creating an OK ad.

I thrive on collaboration because I recognize that my initial ideas are essentially that: a beginning to an end. It’s not the idea until my team builds on it.

Passion

I’m part of the great American resignation knowing that my creativity was in an unhealthy place as a teacher.

Creating something with a team, especially a team with a budget and talent to create assets is incredibly exciting to me and I'm excited to start.

I wrote this post after a pretty big falling out with a friend I lost contact with. I had no idea how much my absence in her life affected her on top of the other things in her life stressing her out.

I'm sorry that it happened.

But I have no idea how to focus on myself, without well...dedicating myself to learning the craft at all times?

I'm still sorry it happened.

#artdirection #Youtube

0 notes