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I feel that way too bud
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2,000 animals can see you coming 🤔
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My partner brings more ideas, I bring more thought out ones. I help edit his brain dump, and then we decide which ones we hate the least out of everything on the table.
Yes. This is a good partnership. Make up for each other’s weaknesses and don’t fault each other for them. Just work together.
I’m a bit taken aback at how many writers here are fine with concepting separately. The reason why we have creative teams is that two heads are better than one. Concepting together makes a huge difference in the quality of ideas. By volleying your ideas back and forth, ideas reach an elevated zone that you can’t get to alone. It’s like improv comedians bouncing off of each other.
Page 44 of this link to *Hey Whipple* describes “.…a kind of ping-pong ensues, in which you catapult each other into an emotional state resembling a creative trance.”
http://pequenoguru.com.br/downloads/Hey%20Whipple%20Squeeze%20This%20-%20A%20Guide%20to%20Creating%20Great%20Ads%20-%200470190736.PDF
Pre-Bernbach, the writers did the concepts then slid the copy under the door of the dungeon that held the art directors. Please don’t revert back to that time.
I miss this. In my current role, I have no set partner for every project. Get passed around and most of the work isn’t that conceptual.
Plus, I have an easier time getting in that creative ping pong when it’s in person. There’s something about being stuck in a room with my partner that tells my brain “don’t leave until you figure it out”.
I’m new in the biz though. Started during Covid.
Why are you working separately?
Always concept together. It not only eliminates the problem OP mentioned, but the ideas will always be better. Sure, it’s fine to digest a brief or work on thought-starters by yourself, but it’s a sure path to mediocrity if collaboration consists of comparing “your” ideas to “their” ideas and then only working on the tweaks together.
For my partner and I there's no standard. We generally try to bring a bunch of stuff to the table our first few brainstorming rounds. The more we have at the beginning the better we generally feel. Sometimes one of us gets the brief more or one of us just has way too much going on, or one of us is slacking, those all change how many ideas we bring each other.
We're good friends on a really intense/fast paced account so maybe thats why. There's not much time for politics of who did more work, we just do our best because we want to succeed. And if one of us needs to do better it's not hard to tell.
I guess that's not super helpful for "typical" but that's my experience.
I have had the same partner for a long time. I am a fast processor and she is a slow processor. We always process the brief separately because of this. Again, we have been together a long time. Neither of us is married to our first ideas. Usually i have more ideas, but a lot of them are super surface level. A couple are good. And we just work out our separate thoughts together and make them better (or kill them). We rarely disagree in the end. This is the relationship I have had with 80% of the ADs i have worked with. There’s no wrong way to do it except not working together for the majority of the project.
Yes, has almost always been that way for me.
For the most part, yes, but with plenty of exceptions.
As an AD, I typically bring the concepts/visions and my CW helps form them.
No, you should each be bringing the same amount of input to the table. Some briefs or tasks tend to skew to either a copy or art lead focus, which can make it feel like one is doing more work than the other, or one of you may be better than the other at the blue-sky thinking while the other is better at honing down to answer the brief.
Partnerships can work in a million different ways, but you're both supposed to do your half of the work.
I’m currently paired with a writer who likes to ideate alone after the briefing and then come together after ideas are organized. I’m the type of creative that doesn’t like to leave a stone unturned, and I prefer to form ideas together at the same time so we’re both on the same page. I typically do as much or most of the ideation or conceptual thinking and write a ton of notes for both of us to sift through. I’m also super transparent about my thought process, I share everything from the beginning. I do this to show I’m not possessive of anything and that I’m hoping they will see something in my notes and it will inspire them.
I don’t view a writer as my scribe, and I hope they don’t view me as a designer that’s only there to execute their ideas. The conceptual process should feel like a fun game of tennis.
I’m trying to get my teammate to meet me halfway. It’s frustrating wanting to be a team when your teammate is more of an independent.
No. Or it shouldn’t be. An AD shouldn’t be expected to craft taglines or headlines (although they’re welcome to, and some are quite good at it), but IDEAS are everybody’s job. A concept is, like, “let’s say it’s like bringing a restaurant to your house,” or “the shirt that demands respect” something. (I didn’t say these were GOOD concepts.) It’s like when you’re writing a song: “What if we looked at the Civil War from the loser’s side?” Answer: “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” An AD is just as responsible for coming up with concepts as anyone else. Sometimes my partner and I would work separately for a couple hours, then come together and either help with each other’s concepts or, if we really didn’t have anything good, let’s stay in this room until
We’ve got at least three viable concepts, even if we have to stay here all night.
1000 percent yes
My experience has been that sometimes my partner is on more of a roll and has a higher volume of ideas, and other times it’s reversed and I have more.
It goes back and forth depending on the assignment.