This post was originally published on this site.
Adland and the creative landscape has transformed over the past few decades thanks to technology. With rapid developments thanks to AI, creatives need to embrace change, writes Guy Moore, founding partner at Creative Coalition.
Hands up, who remembers Cow Gum?
I can bet there’s not many people reading this who will be nodding their heads as if to say, ‘I remember that’.
That’s because it’s a generation thing.
My journey into advertising started in 1981. I was 21 years old and had just been hired by J Walter Thompson as a junior art director.
I hadn’t a clue what an art director was, but I was willing to learn.
From that moment I made a nuisance of myself.
I’d pop into people’s offices and ask to see what they were working on. Invite myself onto other creative teams shoots to see what it was all about and spent blissful amounts of time with my nose in every advertising, design, illustration and photography annual that I could lay my hands on.
Two years later I was poached by Tim Delaney at Leagas Delaney, then one of the hottest advertising agencies in the world and my understanding of craft went to a new level.
I suddenly realised that I hadn’t a clue how best to put an ad together, but I was willing to learn.
I became a whizz on the photocopier.
I’d watched Steve Dunn, a legendary art director literally creating incredible layouts on the photocopier.
Enlarging a headline by 3%, reducing a caption by 8%, a photo by 20% and then tearing them out and sticking them back down on an already heavily collaged piece of paper. Body copy, pictures, logos etc etc all held together by invisible tape, with the odd Tipp Ex blob eliminating unnecessary photocopy scuff marks. They were works of art.
I adopted this technique and along the way, happy accidents used to happen.
Headlines printed mottled and uneven when photocopy ink was low, making me realise that the headline needed to be woodblock printed to give an uneven finish to the final ad, and black marks became interesting graphic borders.
Final ads were cut up and prepared by hand. Artworkers in the studio would have mugs full of old scalpel blades as they chopped up headlines, kerning individual words, splicing copy and pictures and sticking them all in place with Cow Gum. A meticulous job done by incredibly talented people with a good eye.
A few years later, in 1987 came along QuarkXPress. It was basically a piece of software that eliminated the need for gum and dangerous blades and you could do it all on screen, enlarging or reducing bits and bobs with a touch of a button.
I remember vividly how this caused carnage amongst a certain generation who refused to embrace this bit of kit, believing the old ways were the best. Needless to say, after a lot of hullabaloo and people leaving (not all of their own accord), it was the new way of working.
This new found technology and software intrigued me, I hadn’t a clue how it all worked, but I was willing to learn.
After hours of practice, I got the hang of QuarkXPress and really enjoyed the creativity it offered, only for the next thing to come along and then the next thing.
All exciting or terrifying depending on which side of the telescope you were looking.
I loved it. Anything which could enhance my craft was welcome with open arms.
So, when you fast forward to 2022 and you get an invite to join something called Discord and be on their server so that you can create stuff with something called AI, I jumped in with both feet and I’ve never looked back.
I hadn’t a clue what ‘prompts’ were or what ‘SREF’ meant, but I was willing to learn.
Now it’s become another creative tool to sit alongside all the other creative tools I have to help me be the best creative I possibly can.
We’re currently making animated films for clients in a fraction of the time (and cost) of what used to be possible.
Creating logos, typefaces, presentation stimulus, mood boards etc etc is now so much easier.
It won’t replace my pencil or my layout pad. It’s not a substitute for my Nikon camera or my membership to the Tate Modern and their fabulous library. It’s just another thing to put on my artists palette when I’m creating, and I love it.
New AI stuff is coming at us all the time now. Every month, I struggle to keep up, but I try and embrace it. I’m willing to learn.
I know there’s a worry that AI will take over all our jobs, but I look at it another way.
AI won’t take over your job, but someone who knows AI will.