What is a creative director anyway?

Fair question. Even inside agencies, there could be a language barrier between creative, client-facing, and functional roles. Technical terms, shorthand, job titles. A glossary was always a good idea, for clients and new starters alike.

So here’s the lot. What a creative director is. Who else you might need. And what the words mean.

Where creativity meets business

You may have seen these two circles on the homepage. Here they’re wider. Business is everything the work has to achieve. Creativity is everything that makes people care.

Get one without the other and you have something sensible that nobody notices, or something ‘cool’ that sells nothing. The overlap is where business needs and audience needs meet. A creative director’s job is to make it bigger.

I don’t necessarily make things look nice. I make sure things get made, then identify which are the right things to make more of.

There’s something else: having someone there who knows what to make, how, and why changes how the business acts. You borrow their belief until you have your own.

“I’ve never seen it that way before.”

A creative director I used to work for said that’s the reaction you want to an insight. And, by extension, to a truly creative piece of work.

It means one of two things. Their mental perception has changed and they’re seeing something differently. Or there’s a visible shift that’s new to them, and they physically haven’t seen it like that before. Both are good responses.

And they come with a challenge. Not having seen something before can provoke an anxious response. How should I react to this? Is it… good? …right?

This often solidifies into “Will it work?” “How do we know?” “Has anyone done this before?” “How do we know?”

Then comes the retreat back to the safety of what is known. “We’ve always done it like this.” “We know where we are now.” “I’m comfortable with that.”

Creativity is about taking calculated risks, small bets – actually, let’s call them experiments. Cheap to try, and now and then one pays for all the rest. A bit like a scratchcard habit without all the annoying bits of silver grey gunk (what even is that stuff?).

The drawer of wonder

The job of a creative director, and anyone creatively inclined, is to be a mental magpie. Constantly looking for interesting things and storing them for later.

This often seems like “useless knowledge”. But it’s like the drawer of wonder in your kitchen. You know the one. It’s full of stuff that might be useful one day.

A creative mind is full of things that might be useful one day, just waiting for something to trigger a “hold on a minute…” response. To make a connection that’s new and different. That “might just work”.

So, to be able to say “I’ve never seen it that way before”, you need to have seen some stuff. To know your design history, art history, advertising history, as well as the latest trends. To be interested in ‘high’ culture as much as street culture. To have the rabbit holes you love to dive into, the few things you go deep on, as well as the interest in the world around you that gives you a working knowledge, or at least an awareness, of loads and loads of stuff.

So you rarely get stuck in business as usual. There’s just so much stuff to see and know and try and mess around with.

There’s more wisdom I’ve picked up along the way.

If we speak, connections will spark. I’ll be prone to go off on tangents. But if you go with me, I’ll arrive back at the point and give you the idea I’ve potentially spotted.

Some of it might rub off on you. You are ‘creative’ too. It’s got nothing to do with being able to draw, or sing, or paint. And everything to do with thinking, and problem solving, and saying “what if” and “how about” and “…why?”

Friends you haven’t met yet

So that’s my job. Collector. Translator. Connector.

Between creativity and business. Between why and why not. Between the job roles you know and the ones I can introduce you to.

Read on to discover the jobs that you might have heard of but not got the foggiest of what they do. There are many disciplines in the creative industry, this list is by no means all of them, things can get pretty niche. Scratch off the job titles to see who does what.

  1. You need someone to decide what gets made, and why.

    (Creative director)

    Sits between the creative work and the business. Sets the direction, keeps everyone pointed at it, and judges what’s working. Doesn’t necessarily make the thing.

    Ask them for: a direction, a plan for what to try first, a second opinion on work you’ve already paid for.

  2. You need to know who you’re for, and why they’d choose you.

    (Strategist)

    Does the thinking before anything gets made. Who the customer is, what they care about, what you can say that your competitors can’t. In advertising agencies this person is called a planner.

    Ask them for: positioning, a brand strategy, a brief for the people who’ll make things.

  3. You need to know how it should look and feel.

    (Art director)

    Owns the visual idea. Chooses the style of photography, illustration, type and layout, then directs the people who make them. In advertising, usually works as a pair with a copywriter.

    Ask them for: a visual direction, a photo shoot, a campaign look.

  4. You need the words.

    (Copywriter)

    Writes the headlines, the website, the name, the strapline. Often sets your tone of voice as well. The good ones take words out.

    Ask them for: website copy, a name, a strapline, a tone of voice.

  5. You need the thing made, so people can see it.

    (Designer)

    Makes the logo, the layouts, the pages, the packaging. Brand, graphic, web, motion and product designers are different specialisms. Check which one you’re talking to.

    Ask them for: a logo, a website design, a brochure, a set of social templates.

  6. You need something digital built.

    (Developer)

    Turns a design into a working website or app. Front-end is the part you see. Back-end is the part that makes it run.

    Ask them for: a website build, a fix, a new feature.

  7. You need pictures, film or movement.

    (Photographer, illustrator, animator, filmmaker)

    Specialist makers. Usually brought in by an art director or creative director for one job, to a brief.

    Ask them for: a shoot, a set of illustrations, an animation, a film.

  8. You need a film cut, or some writing tightened and corrected.

    (Editor)

    Two different jobs share this name. A video editor cuts footage into a finished film. A copy editor tightens and corrects writing.

    Ask them for: a finished edit of your film, or a clean, consistent version of your text.

  9. You need the project to land on time and on budget.

    (Producer or project manager)

    Books the people, runs the schedule and watches the budget. In some studios this team is called creative services, or traffic.

    Ask them for: a timeline, a cost, a single plan everyone works to.

  10. You need one person to talk to at an agency.

    (Account director/manager/executive)

    Your contact at an agency. Takes your brief in and brings the work back out. Inside agencies they’re known as “suits”.

    Ask them for: updates, costs, and what happens next.

In a small studio, one person often does several of these. That’s fine. Ask which ones.

Where each one sits

Business
  1. Account manager
  2. Producer or project manager
  3. Strategist
  4. Developer
  5. Creative director
  6. Editor
  7. Copywriter
  8. Art director
  9. Designer
  10. Photographer, illustrator, animator, filmmaker
Creativity

Nobody sits at either end. The closer to the middle, the more they have to balance the demands of both.

What the words mean

Creative people use these as if everyone knows them. Plenty of us don’t agree on them either. And, while we’re at it, how about an amnesty and you tell me what all of your acronyms mean. You do know, right?!

Artwork
The finished file, ready to print or publish. The design is how it should look. The artwork is the thing you send.
Asset
Any single finished piece. A logo file, a photo, a social template.
Brand
What people think and feel when your name comes up. You can shape it. You can’t own it.
Brand experience
What you do and how you do it. The reality behind the claims. It’s where brand really happens.
Brand identity
The look and the words that make your work recognisable as yours, so the good things you do get attributed to you. Logo, colours, type, tone of voice.
Branding
The things you do on purpose to shape your brand. Name, look, words, behaviour.
Brief
A short document that says what’s needed, who it’s for and why. A good one is the cheapest way to get better work.
Camouflage branding
Something you paid for that makes you look like everyone else in your category.
Concept
The idea behind a piece of work, before it’s designed. You should be able to say it in a sentence.
Deliverables
The list of things you’ll actually receive.
Guidelines
The rules for using your identity. Which logo, which colours, which type, how you sound. Also called a style guide or a brand book.
The mark that signs your work. One part of your identity, and a small one.
Mock-up
A realistic picture of how something will look, before it’s made.
Niche
Who you target.
Positioning
How they notice and choose you.
Proposition
The one thing you offer that a customer would pay for, said from their side.
Strapline
The short line that sits with your name. Also called a tagline. There’s a difference, but not for here.
Strategy
The decision about who you’re for and what you stand for. It tells you, or anyone, what to make. And it lets you trace back what worked and why.
Tone of voice
How you sound in writing. The same business can say the same thing warmly, bluntly, or like a bank.
Touchpoint
Anywhere a customer meets your business. Website, invoice, van, voicemail.
Typeface and font
A typeface is the design of the letters. A font is the file you install. Most people use both words for both.
Wireframe
A plain layout of a web page – usually just boxes and lines – showing what goes where, before any design.

Any business can use a creative director.

To work out how your brand should show up. To make things look the part. Or to question the “we’ve always done it that way” that settles into every business.

If you’re curious about what I’ll see differently, or you have a project you’d like to give shape, let’s put our heads together.

Let’s talk Ways to work with me