Ron Collins was a young art director at CDP.
He’d just done an ad for a bra.
It showed a beautiful young woman from the waist up, naked except for the bra.
Ron briefed the photographer that he wanted the model to have wild windblown hair, like Boticelli’s “Venus”.
The photographer said “Who’s Boticelli?”
Ron had been trained at the Royal College of Art.
In his head he had a huge bank of visual cultural references to draw on.
2,000 years of graphic art that he could use like a library.
He couldn’t believe someone earning their living in the visual mass media could ask a question like, “Who’s Boticelli?”
You’re a professional, it’s your job to know.
John Webster was the same.
But he didn’t keep it in his head.
The walls of John’s office were full of visual ideas and techniques that he was going to use one day.
When he did his gangsters’ campaign for Tic Tac mints, he wanted a ‘noir’ feel.
So he chose the visual style of an American cartoonist from the 1940s.
Milt Caniff who did the terrific strip, “Terry and the Pirates”.
And when John wanted a ‘cool’ feeling for the polar home of Cresta Bear, he chose the style of Jules Feiffer.
A satirical cartoonist from the sixties, who used lots of white space for a cool, intelligent feeling.
When John did Courage “Gercha” with me, he used a book of photos of pubs in the early1900’s.
He’d had that book lying around for ages, knowing he’d use it one day.
For his brilliant Bank of Scotland commercials he used moving sculptures inspired by Giacometti.
20 years ago John had Saul Steinberg (the New Yorker cartoonist) drawings on his wall.
I knew he’d use them one day.
A couple of years ago he used the style for Compaq computers.
Al Waldie was the same.
When he did his seminal Benson & Hedges campaign he looked beyond what was happening currently.
He got inspiration from Salvador Dali and The Surrealists.
From all these people, I learned the lesson that the worst time to look for an idea is when you need one.
So I used to leave things around to inspire the creative department.
I left a book around for months on Archimboldo, the Renaissance artist who made faces from fruit,
Eventually Dave Waters used it as the inspiration for the Nurofen commercial: a woman’s face made up of other women.
When Dave Cook and Dave Waters wrote the line, ARISTON AND ON AND ON AND ON, we decided to use the artist Red Grooms’ technique for the visuals.
I’d seen Red Grooms merging 2D and 3D in dioramas in MOMA.
The first commercial was for dishwashers.
So we used the style of the Japanese artist Hokusai’s ‘Giant Wave’.
As well as leaving things around, sometimes you have to get up and go out to see things to inspire you.
I sent the creative dept to see the film, “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”.
I think everyone had a go at writing it up for Holsten Pils.
But Steve Henry was the only one who could make it work.
I think the point is that there are 2,000 years of graphic arts out there, from all over the world, that we can use.
We work in London, one of the two most culturally exciting places in the world.
Outside our doors there are more art galleries, bookshops, alternative cinemas, and cultural events, than in most entire countries.
Why do we sit in our offices, at our desks, and wait for inspiration?
We need to be constantly looking and collecting ideas and techniques.
Before we need them.
And if we can’t find it here, we can’t find it.
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Your note is very encouraging, Dave. For years, I’ve amassed all kinds of books and CDs. Guessed I learnt it from my 1st ‘interesting’ brief. It was for wines. and being Chinese, I don’t drink, well, not reds and whites anyway. What made it worse was not many Chinese drank either so the brief was to educate them - by suggesting what went with that. For that, I have my then CD, David, a British guy in Asia to thank. Next brief was long copy for cheese and butter. again, to middle class Chinese in the 80s, cheese was just cheddar. Trouble with keeping references is, others who are too lazy tend to ‘nick’ what you’ve kept. What’s also annoying is, I spend my money on books and CDs. They spend theirs on drink. Then when they need something, they come to me.
and the worst place for an idea are advertising annuals, you might add.
I have my pile of these things as well. really handy.
without Boticelli’s Venus. that’s suppose to be common knowledge.
I love the links to the actual images/paintings/comics. Way to go Dave!
Not sure about that Riki. Once told a junior about THE Charles Saatchi fly ad and he asked “what Charles? What fly?” Also, maybe juniors need award books - how many times have they run up, all excited with an idea, only to be told it ain’t original.
Dear Dave
I concur. It’s amazing how our seemingly unconnected experiences seep through. Hours spent watching Star Trek, The Sweeney and Yes, Minister, in my formative years, inspired some of my thinking. Some potential springboards around at the moment are The Art of Osbert Lancaster at the Wallace Collection and The Cold War Modern Design exhibition at the V&A.
Any personal inspiration that has influenced your work that you can share?
Is there anything you can recommend seeing?
Al.
knowing advertising should be in job description. I believe it’s creative’s responsibility to know what’s happening or the milestones in the world of advertising.
but I was talking about going through annuals when in panic. always counter-productive.
Good idea for a post John, thanks.
Thanks Riki. I agree about the job responsibility bit. I think standards of ads in the D&AD Annual have fallen. Yet I remain amazed at D&AD’s policy of selling the Annual only to winners and members. Rather reminds me of the D&AD Advertising Concepts Workshop years back. You had to pass a test to be admitted. Good thing Dave came along with his rejects course.
Dear Dave
Just saw that there is an exhibition of Saul Steinberg’s work at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. See you there?
Dave, i feel like giving you a standing ovation right now, no one is looking i think i will do it.
Bravo!
I wish all ad people feel the same, i worked in Berlin for 3 years and the creatives here think if youre not sitting on your desk infront of your computer youre not doing any work. Its crazy.
I call them monkey macs.
Some agencies here apparantley lock their doors if you are 5 min late in the mornings.
I once suggested to my ex-fellow creatives that we should go brainstorm in the coffee shop down the road from the office and they looked at me like i was Che Guevara.
They said, what? why? Whats wrong with the conference room?
Most of my ideas come in the middle of the night, in the shower, walking to work…it can happen anytime.
Account people can stop thinking after work but we never stop thinking.
Dear Dave,
Taking up from John, any books you can share? Your fountain of anecdotes about advertising and beyond impress me. And although I don’t read as much as David Abbott (2 books a week), I manage about 80 a year. I used a read a page a day from Bartlett’s. Now, I read a page a day from about 20 books. Topics include art, jokes, useless information, poems, haikus, dictionaries and whatever I fancy. And still, I’ve only heard of about 40% of the stuff you mentioned today. So maybe the trick is knowing the right books to read? Lastly, ever noticed how many good commercials came from jokes? Thanks again.
Dear Dave
There are some places where the set-up doesn’t create an atmosphere of information sharing.
A work place of one-upmanship where everybody is guarded. Is there any chance of a post as to how you motivate your troops? How do you instill a belief in their capabilities, work ethic, commitment to the cause or do you you take that as given before you employ them?
Burn after reading is a great film by the Cohen brothers. The posters are really cool too, like Saulbass. Really nice. Great post dave! I’ve been collecting album artwork
On books, The Advertising Man is fiction, and while Rothenberg is good, the best non-fiction book on advertising is (IMHO) Is There Any Hope For Advertising by Howard Gossage, University of Illinois Press, 1986. Another wonderful book is Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie, Viking/Penguin.
Chaps and chapesses, I’m quite surprised about this. While I’m in total agreement with Dave’s post, I’ve hardly ever come across a creative who doesn’t soak up inspiration from everywhere. I’ve worked at some great agencies and some pants ones, but I’ve found it pretty much the same everywhere: writers pressing novels into my hands and recommending plays, art directors raving about albums and exhibitions, CDs insisting that I see such and such a film or TV show. I find it very odd that someone who isn’t a cultural sponge would be a creative. I’m an advertising annual nerd, but I’d go as far to say it’s not really possible to do this job without inspiration from outside of advertising.
couldn’t agree more. who was it said “originality is determined by the obscurity of one’s influences”?.
i’m off to the Jenny Holzer exhibit at the chicago museum of contemporary art now!
“We work in London, one of the two most culturally exciting places in the world.”
what’s the other one?
Charles Eames said “True creativity is never revealing your sources.”
Christopher.
I assumed it was too obvious for me to say.
From 1900 to 1963 it was this city plus Paris.
From 1963 to present day it’s this city plus London.
But, just out of curiosity. what would you say it is?
new york?
though i’m quite partial to L.A. it’s still just a teenager in city terms.
Hi Dave and Christopher, sorry to interrupt but I think the second in my opinion has to be New York city
…and there was me thinking it was Manchester…Manchester, England!
If you ask a European what are the most exciting cities they’ll say something like, New York, London, Paris.
If you ask a South East Asian they’ll probably say New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo.
If you ask an American they’ll say New York, Chicago, LA,
If you ask a South American they’d say, New York, Rio, Buenos Aires.
You get the point.
but i thought you worked in london - so what does “this city” stand for?
i know nothing of culture having been born and lived primarily in los angeles.
however i would have assumed ny, paris, london and tokyo.
Still to get to Tokyo, Chicago, Rio and Buenos Aires on that list.
Sorry Christopher, I’m not being clear.
Every country has its own capital city, but it seems to me that, certainly since 1950, New York has been the capital of the world.
That’s why they put the UN there.
Chicago always felt, to me, like the capital of America because New York was too international for most Americans.
So all I meant was that the most important cities are always New York and somewhere else.
New York is the only one consistently on every list.
Culturally, it used to be New York and Paris.
Nowadays it’s New York and London.
But it’s always New York.
In case I’ve been too obscure try this.
In the 1960s, when the CEO of Avis was looking for an new agency, he asked a dozen ad agencies which were the TWO best agencies in New York.
Without exception, everyone said their own agency and Doyle Dane Bernbach.
So he gave DDB the account.
That’s how I feel about New York.
I was only jesting about Manchester in terms of the usually considered leading lights but in terms of a creative buzz you can pretty much find it in any major metropolis. I mean look what came out of Detroit, music wise.
Dear Dave
I recall a conversation I had in Basle with a native of Switzerland who was convinced that Zurich was more important than London in the context you refer too!
Sorry, I mean ‘…refer to!’
Hi John.
We took the kids to Basle once, we spent two days going round the Tanguely museum.
He’s one of our favourite artists and they have the best collection of his work anywhere, it’s a great museum.
But we had trouble finding anything else in Basle.
How about Toronto?
Been there a few times.
I like that it’s American in terms of culture by British when it comes to manners.
Alas, as I often ask of Canadians, name 2 good Canadian advertising campaign - they can’t.
In terms of quality of work produced, London gets my vote. In terms of climate and quality of life, Toronto gets my vote. Americans are too insular, I find. Being Asian, I find the sterling conversion way too steep for me to live long term in the UK.
during a creative internal in my agency, one of the writers was asked to talk about his concepts. he spoke with confidence, i thought he seemed proud of himself for having a grand total of 7 elaborately-crafted stories. though i was annoyed that his inspirations were movies that have little appeal to me (i.e. GI jane). around the 6th concept, he said “this is inspired by ET…” at which point, our exhausted CD exclaimed “God what is this, a film festival?”
Ant Melder, i don’t agree that you have yo be a ‘cultural sponge’ to be creative…
every year when the Nobel Prize for literature was announced, i didn’t need to be a news-freak to know who won it….
a copywriter would usually be carrying a copy of the winner’s work
lots of creatives just want to be seen as people who are culturally aware… look at their work and you wonder, “they are more culturally aware than anything else”
Dave’s blog got me thinking. Since he’s from London and I’m from Singapore, I was wondering - what if we set up an exchange system?
There are stuff from Singapore that might be hard to get in London. Shaw Brothers’ kung fu shows spring to mind.
Similarly, some things are hard to get in Sin and I don’t mean chewing gum.
Following the D&AD Workshop, some London friends used to ask me for Chinese calligraphy books and Bruce Lee DVDs.
The wonderful thing is, 1 quid is about 2.5 Sing dollar. So, the exchange rate actually works to London’s favour.
Dave suggested I put the exchange programme idea on his blog.
So, here I am.
Being ‘creative’, haven’t figured out payment, though.
Excellent posting Dave. Maybe my age is showing but I’ve noticed a distinctly generational difference when it comes to looking for inspiration. The more, ahem, ’senior’ people like myself and my partner rely on sources other than advertising. He - being art-based - buys sh*tloads of magazines. I - being more copy-based - read about 2 books a week (on a bad week). We both check out different movies every week. But our younger colleagues (say, about 10 or more years younger) seem to rely on awards annnuals and, of course, Scam Monthly - sorry - Archive. Of course these days we all use the internet (probably more than we realise) as a source.
But another great way to get the brain moving in a different direction is to seriously take up an entirely new hobby - preferably as unrelated to advertising as possible. It seems that I manage to do just that about every 5 years or so… learning how to play the guitar… opening up a small coffee shop… My next initiative is to take up a Personal Training course in the new year… Every time I’ve done something different like this it appears to recharge my brain and I suddenly start thinking in very different directions when it comes to ideas for ads.
Desmond, fair enough, I take your point that you don’t HAVE to be cultural sponge to be a creative. I just think that if you’re not – and all you’re immersed in is ads – your work will be inspired by/in the same vein as…other ads. And that’s no way to get your message to stand out.
I’m not quite sure I get your point about people wanting to be seen as ‘culturally aware’. Do you mean that you find some creatives a bit pretentious and that for all their supposed cultural awareness, their ads aren’t any good?
Melder, yes I’ve seen lots of pretentious people in this business.
But interestingly, these days the millenial creatives, at least those in India, are less pretentious. Wonder why.
Perhaps the internet has brought about an honesty in this generation, so if you’re a half-arsed thinker, you’ll get told that.
of course, you can persevere in your pretentiousness and then, beyond a point, people will actually believe you are creative.
That is when, may be, “The Perception becomes the Reality”, as Reis and Trout said.
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