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I’ll say it: art directors are less conceptual. Not all, but many. The number of copywriter CCO’s far outweighs art directors. Gerry Graf, Jeff Kling, Tor Myhren, Rob Reilly, Alex Bogusky, Eric Kallman etc. If idea is king in this industry, more often than not, writers are coming up with them.
I’m an ACD/AD and I think SCW6 is correct. It’s not because art directors aren’t conceptual, though. It’s because agencies are hiring designers, thinking they hired ADs. Too many people in charge of hiring confuse the two roles. The role confusion has penetrated so deep that many designers actually believe that they are ADs. So now anybody and everybody is an “art director,” and nobody can tell the real ones from the imposters unless you truly scrutinize their books or ask damn good trick questions during the interview, to check if they just lean on their CW partners. If you have an AD that “isn’t conceptual,” then you don’t have an AD. You have a designer.
This is all hard to read. You’re either a good art director or a good writer and will get paid accordingly. If you learn photoshop that doesn’t make you an art director. And if you wrote some headlines/scripts that doesn’t make you a writer. Be great at one and learn your craft. If someone tells me they’re both, I just laugh and walk away. 😂
I would never tell anyone I was interviewing with that I was some sort of creature blob super hybrid capable of art directing as well as I write because I’m not stupid and I understand how that comes off. But I art direct as well as I write. And I’m a pretty damn good writer.
We not only are requested to come up with solid ideas, but also be good designers, have solid knowledge of print processes, understand video and photography principles, web design and development, etc. We need to know how to use multiple design softwares. My copywriter usually spends like 20 minutes coming up with a headline and then I spend 4 hours tweaking that headline in my layout. I feel that the balance of work on both areas is quite different. PS: I know this question won’t be popular among copywriters :)
If you were paid based on how much work you put into something, coal miners and ditch diggers would be rich. Think of the directors we hire for $60k a day. It’s not about how hard you work, how late you work, how much you work, it’s about what you can deliver. Some people can deliver in 20 minutes what takes someone else 5 days.
Children... quit fucking arguing this shit. It’s idiotic. I’ve worked as both, AD and writer. You can’t live without each other. Just fucking face it. Even those of us who can be switch hitters, need the other half to work well. This is a team sport. It’s like trying to say that the QB is more necessary than the receiver. Well, if nobody catches the fucking ball, it doesn’t matter how far you throw it. And no matter how great at catching you are, you ain’t catching shit unless someone throws it.
There are brilliant writers and others who are pretty useless. Same with ADs. The conceptual aspect is not exclusive to any one side. Not by a long fucking shot.
I find both roles equally challenging, but in different ways. Depending on the agency, client and project, most times I’ve found the writing work to be a little less of a pain in the ass. You need to constantly justify every fucking choice as an AD. As a writer you do too sometimes, but I’ve found is not as much.
As far as money goes, I’ve made the same in both roles. It all depends on how good you negotiate and how bad they need you.
Another ACD here who’s done both. ACD6 is right. Both roles are equally hard in their own way, but the art side gets poked and prodded a bit more.
Lol. I think you do you, negotiate as best you can and make whatever money you can make. Sometimes you’ll make more and sometimes you won’t. I have twice the experience as one of my ADs, so I make more (I also bring a ton of soft skills to the table he doesn’t have. He can barely present or talk in public). It’s not apples to apples
Great attitude, buddy. I feel bad for your partner.
Years ago when my current partner and I started to look for a new job together as a team for the first time I discovered he made 20K less then I did. Despite us having similar experience levels. I’m a women and an art director he’s a man and a copywriter so I’d say at least in our case we are breaking some conventional assumptions on that front.
To the argument who works harder the art director or the copywriter...I think it solely depends on the partner relationship. I’m lucky to have partner I’ve been working with for years and my writer would and has said it’s definitely 50/50. We’ve actually discussed this specific topic a few times and the way we see it at the beginning of the process it’s more on the writer to do some heavy lifting because ultimately they have to take the mass of scribbles and notes from our brainstorm or the occasional Kerouac chunk of a script outline I wrote in a google doc and make into persuasive and entertaining write ups and tight scripts and rewrite and rewrite round after round. Sometimes through that I don’t even need to change my comps bc my writer is getting most of the feedback as it relates to writing tweaks.
Now when we get a design project or 100 versions of a something or into the meat of a video production that’s where an art director is doing the heavy lifting, whether it being making a million decisions in a preproduction or managing a team of designers to or whatever it may be involves multitasking like a fricken’ octopus and some serious stamina and obsession with detail. At the back end thats more of a grey area like post? Take an edit...That’s 50/50 too, we both have thoughts on a edit, but then the art director runs a color session, writer runs a VO mix and has final say on VO talent. We both have thoughts in finishing.
The point of my rant is all of you saying one type of creative has more creative weight then the other is bullshit, that’s your personal partnership experiences. I hope you all find creative partners someday where at the end of a project or even a year of work you can’t tell who had more of a hand in your wins. Your a team. There’s creative partners for a reason - no one person could do all these jobs especially with the diverse media landscape we all work in now. It takes diverse strengths. You should be leaning on each other throughout the entire process and recognize some projects and parts of the creative process are more work for your partner then others ✌️
SAD3 I compleettelllyyy agree. This has been my personal theory as well. Partnerships that will start on equal ground at the concepting phase. The writer will have the heavy lift at the beginning of the rest of the process then a tag team hand off where the AD does the heavy lift and eventually meet up and lift together at the very end.
I’ve always called art directors “writers with extra skills,” but tbh, of the many ADs I’ve worked with (perhaps 20?) only two consistently came up with solid ideas. It wasn’t because the rest were busy doing art director stuff; they just weren’t as conceptual. I don’t know why that is.
I feel you, OP. However you failed to mention we’re expected to write scripts, and occasionally contribute headline, tag line and naming options in branding assignments.
It’s definitely a polarizing topic, but one worth talking about.
Saying someone is a Photoshop whiz is akin to saying someone can type 120 words per minute in Microsoft Word. Neither software reflects the skill level of an AD or a CW.
In my experience, copywriters typically make about $10k more than art directors, mostly because there seems to be less copywriters out there, and they are (typically) considered to be more conceptual.
I’ll just say: the amount of time it takes to digest the necessary information and go through the process of writing good lines and all the supporting copy is vastly underestimated by everyone in this industry.
Or maybe I’m just slow.
Vastly.
Here we go again @SC6. If you’re working with ADs that can’t concept you’re working with bad ADs.
ADs are not there to make your ideas look pretty. Honestly, with the egos that CWs have, I’d rather be paired with another conceptual AD who can actually come up with ideas WITH me AND split the work.
I agree. I’ve worked with fantastic ad’s. Some who were better than me conceptually and some who could write better than me, too. I’m just saying on average, there tend to be more ads who are not great conceptually than there are writers. Maybe it’s because if you’re a writer and you aren’t good conceptually than you pretty much bring no skills to the table, so that skill is a must.
I’ve always made more than my CWs. And I’m way more conceptual than most of them. And I can write scripts too.
Sure. The ones with questionable morals.
My partner who is not only a super talented art director but designer as well admits I’m stronger at thinking of visual solves than he is. But being a good partner means never standing up and exclaiming, “That was my idea”. For this I’m afraid I’ll never receive recognition for my visual concepting abilities, but that’s the game we play.
I feel like your salary is usually based on what you have the leverage to negotiate and not much else tbh
I’m aware that this isn’t fair, but in my experience I’ve typically made more than my AD.
I’ve just always seen my partnership with my AD as 50/50. That might change later on though.
I’m a conceptual AD and have run rings around some of my copywriters (I’m also a published novelist.) Then, I’ve worked with CWs who run rings around me conceptually. So sometimes this part is a matter of chemistry IMHO
Yes!
I’ve never known an AD to make more than a CW in senior levels... I’m sure it happens...
I made more then my writer at a senior level (both of us with 6+ yrs experience at the time) our first gig together. Also I’m a lady and he’s a man, so there’s a double whammy of convention breaking 🙌 for the record we make the same now since we moved on to new agencies together we now negotiate together. That first job before we were permanent partners I guess I just negotiated for more at the upfront then he did 🤷🏼♀️ so it happens!