As designers have started getting a seat at the table of many new businesses and as smaller startups and the freelance workforce grows, the need for a freelance creative director has become a reality. I wrote an article titled Freelancing Creative Director Failure a while back that spoke to how I was having little success as a freelance creative director. But interest in what I do has changed and new opportunities have presented themselves, so I thought I’d share.
Individuals, executives, and startups all require a little guidance from an experienced Creative Director as they navigate their brand, their product, and their teams through the design phases of their businesses. By offering my skills, I am able to be an adviser to these people in both a personal capacity and in a leadership as I mentor their teams and guide their creative vision.
Now you are probably asking what the hell do I mean, so let me give you an example. Most executives in banks, insurance companies, and the likes are not formally trained creatives, they are great leaders and their brilliance in recognising technological advances have gotten them to the top, but they know very little about design, creative leadership, and production processes. So I help inform design decisions, educate on how to manage teams and advise on production requirements just I have done inside agencies for the past decade.
My experience perfectly positions me to be the go-to-guy when an internal team needs structuring, recruiting the right talent, an outside opinion, design thinking and platform audits.
So the next time you are stuck trying to figure out if the design you are looking at is good, who to hire, how to motivate your team, how to approach a problem, then give me a shout, maybe you need a freelance creative director to help you.