Creative Directors: what was your path to your role and what advice would you give younger creatives about getting there? What do you wish you knew those first few years into your career?

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I’m just speaking for myself, because I feel like every situation is different, but I found that making provable/penance contributions to your projects is essential and when you have enough in a row your higher-ups find they can trust you to keep their or the agencies vision intact when they’re not around to check on it all the time.

For example, coming from a writing background as a junior creative I was given a lot of banner work and while everyone else saw them as a chore I tried to write the best lines I could for them until people saw that I could 1. Actually write and 2. Wanted to be at the agency. After that I was able to get on some larger projects and while my ideas weren’t used a lot in the beginning I was the one who stayed late to apply polish or do deck work or whatever until people saw that I could have ideas. From there it was helping to present (started with deck work and later offering some emerging technology support from stuff I researched in my own time) then helping on production work. I could go on but the result was after a (long) while my ECD in a review said that I had proven that I had drive, could produce work, have ideas and sell them to clients. I was given a small project to run myself and when we shipped it I was offered the CD position. I’m sure there are more game-playing ways to get there, but I feel like I’ve earned the position and it helps me prove it when other CDs try and step on my clients!

Oh, and being nice to your team and helping them as much as possible is also important- I feel like more than ever peer review is very important if you’re trying to level up in your current agency

likehelpful

☝🏻 says the ACD

likefunny

Focus on doing your job instead of getting the next one.

When you’re just doing your job and you’re good at it you’ll wake up one day and you’ll know that it’s time and people around you - assuming you cultivate a good network of people who know how good you are - will know, too.

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It's not as hard of a job as I thought it would be and I wish I made the jump sooner.
Focus on building client relationships and figuring out how to get them to trust you and buy better work. That's a big part of the job.

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I like you, CD1 👏🏼

smart

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