Creative Direction as a Service
Let’s talk for a moment about Creative Direction as a service in the business world.
In my experience, art direction and creative direction are imperative to establishing a consistent and strong brand voice. These titles are often used interchangeably in small businesses either out of unfamiliarity with the nuances involved or because in many cases their budget is really more conducive to hiring an art director, but the company may still expect the perks of having the full creative director responsibilities wrapped into a hybrid role. This happens ALL. THE. TIME. Creative roles are often lumped together into what equates to a group of magical, often-mysterious, sometimes-odd geniuses in the corner who simply ‘make things prettier.’ This could not be a more unfortunate case of mistaken identity (not to mention an opportunity lost).
I say this, not to create further division between roles in the workplace, but to shed light on the fact that when set up with a reasonable amount of resources, and when tapped into and led appropriately, a creative team is a strategic asset to any company who intends to create memorable, impactful interactions with their brand, specific to their customers.
Ok, so...what is the difference between the Art Director and Creative Director roles?
Well, this does vary, but in a fully-developed group, an Art Director attends to the design team, sets direction and keeps an attentive eye on the art output, analytics and impact, getting down in the nitty-gritty of the details of start to finish, human-centered problem solving, design and production for many mediums or interfaces, with team management and vendor relations, etc. as a key element as well. Together, they and the Creative Director, should partner together and the CD will have their eye upward and outward, on the full, global picture of the impact of all elements of the artistic output, to include utilization of audio, visual, video, photography, writing/comms, experience design, and designing of systems to achieve their business goals and goals for the end user.
