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Too many people involved in advertising have no understanding of what art direction is, the job it's meant to do or the process of doing it. As a result there is a complete lack of respect for an integral part of the advertising process.
I have no unreasonable or unrealistic artistic agenda. That's not what good art direction is about. But I do aspire to make work that works. I aim to make ads that make people think and feel something about something and in some way become a part of culture. That's what the best advertising does. It goes from being a trite, tedious, annoying interruption, to something even the most cynical and media savvy amongst us will notice, enjoy, digest and act upon.
In advertising, art direction is the process of making a page look the way it needs to in order to attract and engage a specific audience or target market, so that said group notice, engage with, digest, retain and act on information being communicated to them.
But it often feels that the way a poster or print ad looks is no longer of any importance. The majority of work that's out there on the billboards and in the newspapers and magazines is all the evidence I need. (Aside from my experience of working inside several agencies and dealing with many clients.)
Art direction is as important in the advertising process as planning, copywriting, media placement or anything else. Why then is it always the first thing to be sacrificed? And why is it perceived that the more derivative and formulaic an ad appears, the better it will work?
Style and content in the context of good advertising are inextricably linked. Yet too...