Leadership - Craig Jamieson

Freelancing Creative Director Failure

My career has never been the norm, not by any standards. I did not get a matric, I dropped out of college, I was self-educated in design, computers, development etc and instead of joining an agency, I started freelancing from day one. But eventually I joined an agency and was quickly hired as a Creative Director and did a descent job of leading the digital charge within the Ad industry. But it was never smooth sailing and I have had to resort to freelancing again, with very little success. Now if I had the answers, I would at least have a fighting chance of understanding why after 10 years of successfully freelancing, I was suddenly unable to. So I have a whole lot of assumptions as to why, freelancing as a Creative Director is doomed to fail.

Before I start explaining, I want to apologies for the mixed use of CD and Creative Director, I simply felt it made sense to use one or the other as I typed it. It’s how I roll … deal with it.

Networking

Any good freelancer will tell you that one of the must have things you need to go it alone, is a pretty strong network. Well I have been a CD is some of the most respected agencies in the country, if not the world. I have successfully worked on many campaigns for multiple brands and formed relationships not only with my colleagues, but the clients too. I don;t mind saying I contacted everyone I felt comfortable enough to reach out to, but with very few people able to offer much more than encouragement. Which leads me to wonder, why that is.

Expensive

My first thought is that people may think I’m an asshole, it’s possible, but I can’t control what people think of me and I try not let that get me down, besides that would make a lot of people pretty two-faced, cause I generally feel pretty liked. So my next thought has to be that people assume I am too expensive. Truth is, I probably am too expensive. While I would not dare charge the rates an agency does, I do believe given my experience, I am worth a descent wage. Even if I wanted to work for less, I’d also have to be responsible and charge the type of money, I am used to earning, or what am I doing this for. I can;t exactly be a homeless CD, it just doesn’t work like that. Any CD would understand what I’m saying, firstly we don’t earn as much money as people think, we gave up getting rich a long time ago when we chose creativity as the main focus of our career, by joining the creative leadership team at an agency. It was a very conscious decision. The hope being that maybe one day we might be promoted into a higher earning position, get profit share or some day get our name on the door. The industry is pretty good at coming up with reasons not to give you the annual 5 – 8% increase agency folk might get, there is no pay for overtime and a world cup period where festive bonus cheques comes once in a lifetime, at least it did for me. But still, I believe I charge a fair rate, so much so that the number I had in my head is actually less than I earned, before I joined an agency.

Skills

You’re the big cheese, you direct creative, so your skills are probably a little rusty. Now I’ll explain this in detail next, but to be clear, you cannot freelance as a creative director, you are a creative director freelancing in digital. So it means you have to do the work, the teams you used to manage did. You have to design, develop, art direct, write and so on. And truth be told, there’s a lot of CD’s I know who were never very good at doing any of those things before taking on the CD role, they were good at brown-nosing the man who hired them over Friday drinks. But that’s not me, as I said, I successfully freelanced for a decade prior to becoming a CD, and given that I was self-taught, I made it a habit to constantly keep learning, so despite being a CD by day, I used to study at night. I admit my confidence in this area, was not as high as I would like, but that’s only due to the high standards I aspire to for myself. I was always a believer, that I need to know as much as anyone I manage, so I can make informed decisions. I am also quite a geek, and wanted to stay up to date and engage with colleagues in my industry who were doing big things, away from managing talent within agencies.

Director

The creative part of what I do, combined with the skills I have, means I’m pretty much covered. It’s the director part that I debate, even if it’s only with myself. Good CD’s lead by doing, they have the respect of their teams cause they lead from the front, but another important thing is relationships of mutual respect. If you think it’s easy to walk into an agency and actually freelance as a CD, let me tell you, it’s tough work. Creatives in agencies have mis-guided egos, so trust me, being told to lead a team is challenging. A CD is supposed to direct creatives, and depending on the agency, be responsible for not just the teams, but the direction creativity goes within the agency, but if you’re only a temporary resource, it’s not likely you will factor into the operational or drive the vision. It has been my experience that other than being a contractor, you are rarely ever asked the CD at an agency. Often I have been asked to help with campaigns etc, but I tend to fill the role of an art director or designer. Positions on a freelance level that are not a whole lot of fun for someone who has been leading creative teams for the better part of 7 years.

Conclusion

Freelancing is supposed to be about working for yourself, choosing when, how and what you work on. Waking up late, going to bed later. Sure there’s a bunch of challenges associated with that, but for a long time I did it, producing some amazing work, that spans a client base and a network across the globe. But then things were simpler, I had no education, so I earned enough money to pay the few bills I had, but it provided me the opportunity to free up my time to learn more, usually by playing. However now, as I furiously head towards my 40’s and I’m responsible for more than just myself, but now a 6-year-old kid and some poor financial decisions, I can no longer earn what I need to be a freelancer, yet alone a freelance Creative Director. I don’t know that I have explored this in it’s entirety, so perhaps there will be a follow up post and it might only be a play on words or my own understanding of responsibility, but you might be an art director, a designer or even a contracting creative director, but you will never be a freelancing Creative Director, it simply makes no sense and you are setting yourself up to fail.

Productivity & being chained to your desk

I spend a lot of time thinking about the in-efficiency, of what feels like, being chained to my desk in order to show how productive I am. I’m not only speaking for myself, this is an observation I have made for a really long time, at many agencies I’ve worked at.

Working in a open plan office already bothers me, I’m introverted and while I’m comfortable socialising in small groups, working in a communal space makes me terribly uncomfortable. I prefer having a space to work in private, I simply get more done. But that isn’t the issue I have with working in agencies, it’s the perception that by being at your desk, staring at a computer screen all day equals productivity.

I have to problem solve, whether it’s strategically finding an approach to a business problem or coming up with a new look for a brand, it requires me to think. I think all the time, in almost any space. I find open office spaces more distracting than coffee shops. So I prefer to be out. But I think in the shower, while pushing weights and most especially, while taking long walks. While I don’t always have a pen and paper near I do jot down ideas on my phone, which is pretty much always near me.

The unfortunate thing is that most 9 – 5 companies don’t seem to allow you to be in the right place to think, their expectation is that you should be at your desk or a space within the agency. I’m not really sure what thats about. I get we need to work with colleagues, as a leader we need to be available to staff we manage, for meetings etc, but hey, if it’s scheduled, I will be there. Otherwise, I’d prefer to be free to think and work at my leisure. If I need to work with colleagues, do I need to go in the office, hell no. Why can’t we go brainstorm in a museum ,at suitable coffee shop or over lunch?

As a creative in this industry, we have few rights, we are not paid overtime and the expectation is that we will drop everything for our jobs. The least agencies can do, is allow us to work at convenient times and places of our choosing. By choosing when we work, we can avoid traffic that wastes a lot of time and causes unnecessary frustration. I’m sure I can think of a whole lot of reasons the company can benefit, but thats a post for another day. So for now, what might I propose as a suitable arrangement?

hhhmmmmm, let me take a stab at this …

I don’t like my inbox controlling me, so I’d welcome the opportunity to check my email as few times a day as possible. Starting with a quick check in the morning to make sure there is nothing urgent, no crisis that is unavoidable. I would then make a to-do list and make sure I am aware of any meetings I might for the day. It would help if the rest of your team agreed to schedule meetings, say between certain hours every day. I’m drinking coffee, eating breakfast, reading email … thats work, so it should be done during normal hours, not before the sun comes up, but say 8am at home.
I’d like to avoid the crowds at the gym, so after 9am hit the weights, do some cardio and do some research while I drink my protein shake. All while thinking about the problem I wish to solve. Who doesn’t have some pretty great ideas while they’re in the shower, so while freshening up, I’d bet the best ideas are brewing.
Ok a light lunch with the team at a local restaurant to run through ideas, debate the merits of each and give some direction for each team member to action.
Back at the office for a new briefing, coffee with one of the team to discuss a promotion and an internal review with one of the designers and then off to a client meeting. This is all perfectly normal work for a Creative Director.
Ok time for an afternoon snack and a coffee, while going through new email before heading for a walk along the promenade, thinking about the new brief or how to solve other challenges yet unresolved. A quick meditation and it’s off to discuss some ideas with your boss over some sushi.
With a firm understanding of your seniors direction, it’s time to sit down and push around some pixels. So back to your apartment where you can spend some time with your partner, kids or dog before firing up photoshop and giving a design a good sprint.
A healthy amount of time switching off, unwinding so to speak before you hit bed, just remembering to put your notepad next to bed, incase you have any further ideas that pop up before you go to sleep.

To me, that sounds like a perfectly productive day, and I didn’t have to sit in that open plan factory desk like setup the whole day and I am getting the job done. Productivity should be measured by results, not the accumulated time you are perceived to be busy working. Ask yourself, whats your take on the perfect day being productive, without being chained to your desk?

11 Lives

I have been unsettled in my career for a while and I have been making plans to re-align my skills to get back to living the kind of life I choose to live. It’s easy to want to just stick to what you feel you know, but thats never been me, I always want to challenge myself, learn new things and grow, caring more for the love of the work I do than the salary I earn, despite being piss poor and in a world of hurt financially. So I was surprised to find a really great comic about life, that helped me understand my life cycles.

Basically it talks to the idea that we have several lives, not one and it is based on the theory that it takes 7 years to master something.

View the full length comic

So for me my lives went something like this …

Self Discovery: 18 – 25

I dropped out of college, tried many different jobs, travelled the world, partied hard and eventually decided what it was I wanted to do with my life.

25 – 32

I started designing club flyers, then websites, became a multimedia designer, interactive designer and every other name you can think of to describe what turned out to be an interesting life working under the handle Digiguru, where I got to collaborate with and design for a whole variety of clients/brands across the globe.

32 – 39

I wanted to use my skills to lead others as a creative director at some of the top local agencies including Ogilvy, M&C Saatchi Abel and Black River FC, expanding my skills into to creative strategy, ideation and integrated campaigns.

39 – 46

I’m onto my next life, which is looking to return to a more niche discipline, focussed on user-centered design, hopefully as a product and user interface design director. The jury is still out on the title, but I’m excited to get back to a more hybrid role as designer/leader.

What are you going to do when you die?