Dave Trott’s Blog

 

I started off at art school wanting to be a painter.

But my problem was the subjectivity of the whole thing.

How do you know if a painting’s any good, who decides?

Van Gogh was treated as a fool in his lifetime, and died a pauper.

Never sold a painting to a gallery and couldn’t get an exhibition.

Yet after he died the same paintings were suddenly considered genius and worth millions.

Who decides and how?

What are the rules?

Well, quite simply there aren’t any.

Whether a painting is any good or not is decided by a small, influential, group of critics and gallery owners.

So, if you’re a painter, their subjectivity decides your ability.

I didn’t like this.

It was like playing football with no rules, and the referee deciding who he preferred, on whatever grounds he chose.

So, when I went to New York, I switched to advertising.

I decided that at least, that way, millions of ordinary people in the street would decide whether I was any good or not.

And, while I was there, I made friends with a lot of guys studying Industrial Design.

We talked a lot about what they did on their courses, and I learned a lot.

I thought what they did was a lot closer to advertising than painting was.

Painting was a one-off object designed to hang in galleries and be viewed, considered, pondered over, and interpreted by the cultural elite.

Industrial Design was in three dimensions, advertising was in two dimensions, but both were about the mass production of an idea.

Both had to be able to work in the real world, not just an art gallery.

Both had to be about cost, and return on investment.

Both would be judged by how they performed against measurable criteria, not just whether they pleased half a dozen critics.

I’d never heard of The Bauhaus before these guys told me about it.

But one particular Bauhaus maxim flipped the light switch on in my head.

FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION.

The most important word being “follows”.

Written in a less alliterative way, that would read, “Every part of the eventual design must have a reason, or it shouldn’t be there.”

Suddenly, anyone could take any piece of design or advertising apart and analyse it.

I loved the anti-elitism of it.

I loved the way we could lift up the bonnet and demand to know why something was there, and what it did.

This became my mantra, and over the years I’ve never deviated from it.

And yet, and yet…

One evening I was discussing this with the designer Richard Seymour.

He wasn’t quite as black and white about it as I was.

He said to me “Yes Dave, but form can be emotional function.”

In other words, a pleasing shape can also fulfill a purpose.

Just by being pleasing.

I wasn’t having it.

But, because of how much I respect Richard as a designer and a thinker, it stayed in my brain.

I know I can learn a lot about what I do, just from listening to him talk about what he does.

 

And then I found this extract from the diary of a British colonel, who was amongst the first to liberate a Nazi concentration camp in 1945.

 

“It took a little time to get used to seeing men, women, and children collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived.  This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things: food and medical equipment, and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it; it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for those internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.”

 

And my world shifted a little bit.

It seems I was wrong.                                                                                            

Form can be emotional function.

 

 

I saw a really interesting TV programme a while back.

It featured the designers Richard Seymour and Dick Powell.

They had been asked to design a toilet.

Armitage Shanks, the manufacturers, had commissioned something they wanted to take pride of place in their new catalogue.

So Powell and Seymour did what all the best thinkers do.

They started upstream.

If they were going to come up with a better solution they needed to investigate, and possibly redefine, the problem.

So they found about the different sorts of waste matter it would have to shift.

The different water pressures that were available.

The amount of water that was realistically usable.

Then they looked at materials.

They compared pressure-forming against casting.

Metal against plastic, and both against ceramic.

They factored in hygiene, ease of use, cost of manufacture, installation, storage, longevity, and comfort.

At the end of the exercise they went to present to the management of Armitage Shanks.

They unveiled their design and explained all the benefits.

The management were horrified.

They said, “This doesn’t look anything like a traditional toilet.”

Richard Seymour said, “No, this is much better.”

The management said, “You don’t understand. This doesn’t look anything like a traditional toilet.”

Seymour said, “Of course not, you asked us to design a new toilet.’

The management said, “Yes, but we only wanted you to DESIGN it. We didn’t want you to revolutionise it.”

Richard Seymour went quiet.

Then he turned to Dick Powell an he said, “I think it’s a communication problem.”

Dick Powell said, “Yes. When they said they wanted us to DESIGN a toilet, they actually meant they wanted us to RESTYLE a toilet.”

Richard Seymour whispered, “Basically, what they want is a tarted-up version of the same old solution they’ve always had.”

So Seymour and Powell went away and put a few new curves on the traditional toilet design.

Making it look a bit more fashionable, but otherwise unchanged.

They brought it back to Armitage Shanks and the management were thrilled.

The client said, “Now that’s what we wanted: a new design.’

Armitage Shanks began manufacturing it.

And it received pride of place in their new catalogue.

So it was a language problem.

The client thought design meant the same as style.

But to creative problem-solvers, of course, it’s very different.

Redesign is fundamental and radical.

Whereas restyle is superficial and cosmetic.

We have the same sort of language problem in advertising.

No client can bring themselves to say, “I want the same thing everyone else is doing, just tarted up a bit.”

They obviously can’t say that, so they say, “I want a new exciting solution. Just go wild”

But of course, that usually isn’t what’s wanted at all.

Which is why we need an interpreter.

And that’s exactly what the best account men are.

They take a client brief and translate it into language the creatives cannot misinterpret.

The creatives may not like it, but least they’ll know what they’re supposed to be doing.

 

And a smaller argument with the account man at the beginning of the process is a lot better than a bigger argument with the client at the end of it.

 

 

Years ago, I was at an est seminar.
Someone from the audience stood up and said he wanted to declare something.
And, to make it real, he wanted to say it in front of everyone there.
Then he said, “I’m going to be the best actor in the world.”
Everyone cheered and he sat down.
The guy running the seminar said, “That’s two things. Which one do you want?”
Everyone stopped cheering.
The person who’d spoken said, “Pardon?”
The leader repeated, “That’s two things. Which one do you want?”
The person said, “I only want one thing. To be the best actor in the world.”
The leader said, “That’s two things, and you have to decide which one is more important to you.
Do you want to be an actor?
In which case you’ll do it because you love acting.
And, even if you’re not the best in the world, you’ll have spent your entire life doing what you love.
Or do you want to be the best in the world at something?
In which case you may have to look and see what the world thinks you’re best at.
And it may not be acting.”
I thought that was fantastic advice.
Personally, I’ve always chosen the second option.
I’m a pragmatist.
I’ve always started off with a vision of where I wanted to go.
But be prepared to change it quickly to get a result.
Originally I wanted to be a fine artist, painting in oils.
But I got turned down by seven UK art schools.
Then I got a scholarship to go to art school in New York.
Where I discovered advertising, so I switched to being an art director.
When I graduated I couldn’t get a job as an art director.
Everyone said my ideas were better than my layouts.
So I switched to being a copywriter.
At BMP I wasn’t the best copywriter there.
But I was better than anyone else with students and young people.
So I switched to being in charge of training.
I wanted to be BMP creative director, but they gave it to someone else.
So I quit and opened my own agency.
That’s how it’s always worked for me.
Find out what you’re good at, even if it’s not be what you wanted.
I think most youngsters have to learn this.
Around about second year at art school you have the Van Gogh conversation with yourself.
Van Gogh loved painting, it was what he lived for.
He was a great painter.
Years ahead of what the world was ready for.
So, although Van Gogh did fabulous paintings, he went unrecognized in his own lifetime.
He had a miserable life and died penniless.
But he’ll always be remembered as a truly great painter.
Now, what would you choose.
To have a miserable life, but be remembered as great after you’re dead?
Or have a really nice life and be forgotten when you’re dead?
There isn’t a wrong answer.
But you do have to choose.

 

I saw a young creative team last week.

They sat down and got ready to open their book up for a crit.

I said, “Before you do that, let’s look at the problem.

How long have you been going round getting books crits?”

They said, “About two years.”

I said, “So, two years of getting book crits hasn’t got you a job, and you want another book crit.

Do you think maybe you’re approaching this in an uncreative way?”

Naturally enough they asked what I meant.

They were getting book crits because that’s what everybody does.

Everyone does the rounds.

Everyone goes to see the same people that everyone else is going to see.

Who give them the same advice they just gave everyone else.

Which is how to make your book look more like everyone else’s.

So now everyone has a good book.

See, in the old days most books were crap.

The mere fact of having a good book was enough to make you different.

That isn’t true anymore.

Nowadays everyone has reasonably good books.

That’s entry level.

The numbers are simple.

Number of colleges with advertising courses, multiplied by number of students in each class.

Add last year’s students who didn’t get jobs yet.

Divide that into number of jobs available.

And you come up with roughly twenty to one.

Twenty people, with similar books, chasing one job.

Why does one person get it, and the other nineteen didn’t.

What makes that one person different?

Well the question is the answer.

They’re different.

New-media guru Faris Yakob wrote on his blog, “In a world of over-capacity, differentiation is everything.”

That’s how advertising works, that’s how advertising’s always worked.

There’s too much stuff.

Too much of everything, everwhere.

Which is why the first, and most important, part of the job is just standing out.

As Bill Bernbach said, “If no one notices your advertising, everything else is academic.”

So what’s the answer?

The answer always lies in one of two places.

What you’re selling, or who’s buying.

The product, or the consumer.

The ‘product’ is obviously the physical object.

The ‘brand’ is the impression you make on the consumer.

In the old days, your product (book) was your brand (impression).

A good book was what made you different.

But nowadays everyone has a good book.

So you have to find another way.

You have to work on the brand (impression).

If your product is the same as everyone else, how do you differentiate the brand?

You look for the answer in what you’re selling (yourself) and your target market (creative directors).

Research both thoroughly.

The first thing to do is work out what makes you different to the competition.

In this case, everyone else who wants a job.

I can’t tell you what that is, you have to work that out for yourself.

If you can’t work it out, make it up.

Try different things, see what gets you excited.

You can change it as often as you like

As long as you attack it with energy, a pattern will emerge.

And that will be your brand.

Then your target market: creative directors.

What do they want?

Use your common sense, what would you want in their shoes?

The truth is this: you are the most important thing you’ll ever have to advertise.

You are the product, the brand, the creative dept, the media dept, the client, account handling, and planning.

For the only time in your life, no one can tell you what you can and can’t do.

The good news is, you have complete freedom.

The bad news is, you have no excuses.

Everything you learned about advertising at college was a rehearsal for this.

This is the real thing.

And how you behave becomes your brand.

 

College starts when you leave College.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An account man came into my office and put some ads on the desk.
He said, “The client wouldn’t buy them.”
I said, “Why?”
He raised his eyebrows and said, “I don’t really know.”
I said, “Did you ask?”
He puffed out his cheeks and said, “I didn’t think it was my place.”
I said, “Well do you have any idea?”
He sighed, shrugged and said, “Not really.”
I said, “Nothing that can help us?”
He was getting really bored, he said, “Afraid not. Sorry.”
I said, “Okay thanks.”
When he’d left I called his boss in.
She sat down.
I said, “What the fuck is going on, on this account?
We can’t sell an ad, and we can’t even be fucking bothered to find out why the client doesn’t want it.
And yet it’s on brief and it’s been through research.
What are we, a fucking shop?
Do we just keep showing the client different ads in different sizes and shapes until he sees something he fancies?
Does the creative department have to keep cranking out ads as a substitute for account handling being able to sell them?”
She said, “It shouldn’t be that way.
The ad was on brief, I checked it before it went.
I’ll call the client and find out what’s going on.
I’ll get back to you with a reason why this one is wrong or a new brief.
And next time I’ll take it down to the client myself.”
And she left.
The art director, who’d been sitting there watching this, sat up.
He said, “I don’t understand. The account man, who got us into this in the first place, behaved like a prick and you were polite to him.
His boss handled it properly and she got a bollocking.”
I said, “He’s useless. He’s been here several months and everything we give him turns to shit. He doesn’t care.
He thinks he knows it all and he doesn’t want to learn.
There’s no point in wasting breath bollocking him. He won’t be here much longer.
But his boss, well she’s really good.
That’s how she got to be his boss.
It’s worthwhile having a row with her because she’s got a brain and she cares. She’s going to be here a long while and she’s part of this company’s future.”
A few years after that exchange, I read an interview with a famous American Football star.
He talked about when he was a rookie.
It was his first day at the club.
In training the coach spent all day reaming him out, non-stop.
He couldn’t do a thing right.
The kid was totally destroyed.
He went back to the locker room thinking his career was over.
He sat on the bench with his head in his hands.
One of the older players slapped him on the back.
He said, “Looks like you’ve got a great future ahead of you kid.
I’ve never heard the coach spend that much time chewing anyone out .
Normally, if he thinks they can’t improve, he just doesn’t talk to them. But you, boy, I guess he thinks you’re gonna be great.”