The Asset of Being You

One of the hardest lessons for me to learn, as a young art director, was that your personality and quirks often can prove to be an asset.

I began my working career at Target and Starbucks. Both are good places to work and both are pretty strict corporations that ask that you leave your personality at the door and put on the brand face. When taught to, on a daily basis, remove your personality when at work, it becomes difficult when asked to express myself regularly at an agency.

Although not every career expressly wants you to be yourself on a daily basis, no one wants to work with someone that is dull or rude. When interviewing for design and art director positions at agencies, I’ve found that the agencies that were always heavily interested in me were the ones in which I was very relaxed and simply being my normal, odd self. By being someone that is naturally happy and spreads humor to others I have an asset outside of my ability to create good work and pitch it well to clients, I have the ability to help create a stronger team through being myself.

Yet, the hardest lesson to learn for those that have radically different or unusual personalities is the necessity to do what I call, “Easing people into your crazy.” By with holding much of your personality initially to gauge others, find your niche and allow for your personality to gradually come out, you become a natural fit. On the other hand, being extremely out there from day one can often create apprehension, unease and the feeling of being ostracized from the group.

So in the end I’ve found the best practice is to show your personality, craziness and all; but, don’t jump the gun (ease people into your oddities).

The 3 Big Lessons of An Ad Agency

The best part about working in the ad industry is the constant need to continue to learn, experiment and grow to be successful.

I spent a lot of the past week looking back at my internship experiences at Campbell Mithun and MRM Worldwide along with my in class experiences at Martin Williams and Zeus Jones. Overall I learned a lot from each of the agencies; but, the three core principles include: keep it simple, collaborate and work pause work.

The biggest thing I learned from my agency experience is that, although the consumer isn’t stupid, they genuinely don’t care about the ads shoved in the middle of their shows. You need to keep it simple to stick.

Collaboration was never consciously taught; but, was always inferred at each of the agencies. The creative teams that were successful at each agency were incredibly good at collaboration. They had build an environment where failure is encouraged, that in taking risks you often won’t succeed; but, it’s worth it for the one time you will.

Work Pause Work is a system that many traditional agencies have perfected. The best creatives work like theres no tomorrow when they get a fresh brief absorbing research, throwing out the low hanging fruit and getting their creative juices flowing. They take the time to pause, have fun and let the ideas gestate naturally. Then when the big idea(s) hit, they take off running.

Each of the agencies had dramatically different structures and systems but these were the common three threads I learned.

A big thanks to everyone that helped me get to where I am today:

Nancy Rice/////Formerly Head of MCAD Ad Program, Rice & Rice and Fallon

Kindra Murphy, Jan Jancourt & Natasha Pestich/////MCAD Design & Print Making Professors

Kathy Umland & Julie Kuzinski///// Director of Creative Operations & CD at Martin Williams

Ed Huerta, Andy Anema & Gary Carter///// Creative Manage, CD & ACD at Campbell Mithun

John DuBois & Julie DuBois/////CD & ACD at MRM Worldwide MPLS

Brad Surcey & Adrian Ho/////Design Director & Partner at Zeus Jones

Bruce Edwards///// EVP/CD at FAME

Matt Wilson/////Lead Marketing Consultant at Evantage Consulting

Tim Brunelle/////CEO at Hello Viking

David Schutten/////CD at Bleakly & Schutten Advertising

And all of my close advertising and design class mates that pushed me everyday to be better.

Great Creatives Are A Dime A Dozen

"It takes two to make a very great career: the man who is great, and the man (almost rarer) who is great enough to see greatness and say so." - Ayn Rand

I ran across this quote again recently and was surprised with how much it resonates with me now more than ever. My perception has been altered after being fortunate enough to have experience working in three different ad agencies (ranging from traditional to interactive) and having in class experience at two more. From those experiences, no matter what the perception of the agency is to the outside world, I have found brilliant, extremely talented creatives at each of the agencies.

The impetus for agencies that are perceived by the industry to be more creative or cutting edge seems to stem from, not the creatives, but those with the gavel that allow work to pass onto the clients [ie creative directors & account managers]. The creative director is the one that has the chance to see the potential in any given budding idea or stamp it out before it becomes fully formed. The account manager has the power to sell the client into believing in the work and pushing back, when appropriate, to ensure great creative is born for the clients future success.

But the thing I learned the most from my experiences thus far is that when an idea fails or succeeds people pass the blame or clamor for the glory. I do think, to a point, that it is still the creatives fault too. If they can't properly sell their work to their superiors, what right do they have to demand them to buy into it?

The Start to an Interesting Career

Hello, I'm Taylor Snyder. I just graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design into the worst financial crisis since the great depression.

My career of choice, for the last five years, has been to be an Art Director in the Ad World. I graduated with a BFA in Advertising Design from one of the top design schools in the mid-west and was tutored by Nancy Rice (one of the founders of Fallon Worldwide). I am an extremely hard worker having worked full time as a Starbucks Store Manager and Noodles & Co. Assistant Store Manager (avg 60 hrs a week) while going to school full time.

I have worked in two agencies thus far including MRM Worldwide and Campbell Mithun. Both agencies wanted to hire me. Both extended my internship (MRM for over a year). And at the end of this week my extension will be over at Campbell Mithun.

It's most definitely an interesting time and this is for sure a start to an interesting career.