Coaching Creatives

Picture this: you’ve been contacted because you’re deemed top of your field. You’re being asked by some budding students for 3 pearls of wisdom that might speed their route to success. What would you say?

If you’re curious to know what some creatives in London said, then read on…

I came across this free advice at the beginning of last week – at a new 2 day conference for the creative industry called Futurising. As it’s aimed at budding creative professionals, I’d been invited to run some one to one sessions to talk through their ideas, signpost them and generally be helpful etc.

Once that responsibility had been relinquished, I wondered around the exhibition. In amongst the loud and hip stands, the glinting bowls of shiny sweets, the tables groaning under flyers, leaflets, course prospectuses, a stand caught my eye….

Now, remember this was a creative industry conference, so you can imagine the ferocious competition to have one’s eye caught. (I almost thought that there should have been a security guard on the door dishing out safe specs to prevent eye melt.)

However, this simple stall had a table with a girl and boy sitting behind it, no glass jars of pens or key rings, no brightly coloured backdrops, just lots of home-made looking booklets on their table entitled: Mind the Gap.

Intrigued, I flicked through one of them to find eminent designers, writers and managing directors each giving three pearls of wisdom to students. Now, given that you’re not a student, you might think that some of this advice won’t be relevant to you. And you’d be right. But some of it could be – which is what I’ve gleaned below. As a switched on professional, you’ll probably enjoy these little reminders…

Listen.

Be aware people skills and personality play a vital role in your career path. Never stop listening. (Saatchi.co.uk)

Communicate don’t decorate.

Make your work mean something. Get to the point. Tell it like it is. Don’t dress it up. Don’t set out to be clever, set out to be clear. The cleverest work is so bleedin’ obvious, so stripped to the bone, so beautifully done that you can’t fail to understand what it’s getting at. Remember people are busy. People are lazy. People are busy and lazy. They just don’t have the time or inclination to work stuff out. (Clearly a man after my own heart. (www.spencerdubois.co.uk))

Only advertise the type of work that you want to get more of.

Eventually people will be knocking at your door. www.thisisstudio.co.uk

Never be faux busy.

I used to work at a place where we had an account manager who started every sentence with “I’m soo busy…” whether she was busy or not. You know the type. We used to call this faux busy. Everyone has their personal definition of busy. Your busy is different from Barack Obama’s busy, but it’s still busy. Successful people have the humility to realise and respect other people’s busy and so never complain about being busy. (www.reallyinterestinggroup.com)

Satisfied…you shouldn’t be.

Anyone who is satisfied with their work is going backwards, not forward. The natural condition for the designer is constant questioning and unease. Only the terminally smug are pleased with their work. (www.shaughnessyworks.com)

Understand context.

Everyone wants to be a craftsman but knowing why you are doing what you are doing, rather than being stuck in the execution stages is very important. (www.irisnation.com)

No such thing as a bad job.

When projects go wrong, we designers tend to blame our clients or the budget or the schedule. But really we must ask ourselves why we didn’t turn the project into something good. Most jobs start as neither good nor bad; it’s what we make of them that determines whether they are good or bad. (www.shaughnessyworks.com)

If you are a student, however, then check out this site (www.mintheg-a-p.com) for the rest of the advice.