When I was about 17, I started doing A level Art.
We weren’t allowed to draw nudes at school.
So I signed up for the life drawing classes at East Ham tech on Saturday mornings.
I had an image of life-class being about learning the structure of the human body.
So I thought we’d get fit, healthy specimens to draw.
I was the youngest person in the class, and eventually this grumpy, sixty year old naked model came and sat on a stool in front of us.
At first I wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman.
It had purple-dyed, bouffant hair like old ladies.
Plus makeup and sagging boobs.
But also a little posing pouch like a man would wear.
And a pot belly and stick-like arms and legs.
I was quite innocent, so I thought it must be a hermaphrodite.
It certainly wasn’t one of the Greek gods and goddesses I’d expected.
Years later I found out that grumpy old model was Quentin Crisp.
The subject of the TV programme, ‘The Naked Civil Servant’.
Sting even wrote a song about him, “An Englishman in New York”.
But, at the time, I was just disappointed we didn’t get a perfect body to draw.
Anyway, I realised if I was learning structure it didn’t really matter what he looked like.
All the bones underneath were the same: arms, legs, head, hands, feet.
So I started to draw structurally: starting with the core balance line.
Usually one foot is taking all the weight: work out which one, then draw a straight upwards like an armature.
In a sculpture this would be the rod attached to the base, that everything else hangs off.
Then the directional lines for pelvis, ribs, chest shoulders.
Then relationship lines between ankles, knees, hands, elbows.
The same with the face: core tilt line for nose, directional lines for mouth, ears, eyes.
And I’d just keep building structures until a form appeared out of the mass of scaffolding.
That’s how I’ve always drawn, structurally.
Many years later I married an art director and we had children.
When they were about 13 we decided it was time for them to start life classes.
So we booked up at a little art school in Hampstead, and on Saturday mornings, all four of us would go.
Then I noticed the way my wife drew was exactly opposite to me.
I started from the inside out, and drew structure.
By the time I’d got to the surface I wasn’t really interested in the outside appearance.
So I started another drawing, investigating structure again.
My wife was exactly the opposite.
She wasn’t interested in structure.
She started on the surface and drew in every detail, in perfect light and shade.
All her drawings looked almost photographically like the model.
I thought why is that?
Then I thought, probably because she’s an art director and I’m a copywriter.
Art directors are right brain, copywriters are left brain.
Right brain is sensory and emotional.
Left brain is rational and logical.
Right brain arrives at a solution holistically and instinctively.
Left brain arrives at a solution incrementally by a process of deduction.
Which is how the best teams tend to work.
Copywriters work out what we’re supposed to do, art directors come up with exciting ideas.
Art directors have flashes of inspiration, copywriters keep the whole process on track.
Which is also why they work better together.
Left to themselves, art directors would be exciting but wrong.
Copywriters would be right but dull.
I thought that was fascinating.
But then I would, I’m a copywriter so I’m left brain.
RSS Feed
Twitter
Email
Brilliant story and description of Quentin Crisp.
But I’m not so sure the left/right brain thing is as cut and dried as that. Are these slogans really so ‘rational and logical’?
“Go to work on an egg.”
“Guinness is good for you.”
“Beanz Meanz Heinz.”
“Just do it.”
Surely all good creatives use BOTH sides of their brain, regardless of their discipline?
http://ex-blank-page.blogspot.com/2009/06/in-reply-to-daves-great-posts-52.html
Was that East Hampstead Tech?
Jo John, that was later when I became middle class.
We were so rich we had fruit on the sideboard when no one was ill.
Didn’t watch the show but read the book and also the ‘how to be a virgin’ book.
Re: art directors and writers.
Just curious - what about the ‘ambi-talents’ like Frank Budgen?
Who are as adept being an art director as a copywriter?
Since more and more, ads make less and less sense and relevance, would you say that the art directors have taken over the asylum?
Thanks.
How about a cartoonist like Gary Larson?
I have a fond affliction for that aphorism Dave.
I’m a hammer of sorts too. I went from Oldham to Hampton.
first time comment, this post intrigues me, i’m think i’m leaning a bit more to the right though…what i wanted to ask is..how did you know when you were cut out to be a copywriter and not and art director.
regards.
Hi mark,
I think everyone must use both sides of their brain.
It’s a matter of which side you tend to use more.
Each of us has to find that out for ourselves.
If you don’t agree I bet that’s because you’re right brain.
Hi Michael,
I trained as an art director, but found I got bored with the details of execution. Art Directors need to be real fusspots and love detail, staying hours after the copywriter’s gone to check if the copy should be 8pt or 10pt.
I don’t think copywriting is about writing, I think it’s about thinking.
I realised I was a better writer (thinker) than an art director.
Dave
I am a better thinker than dealing with the execution although I can turn my hand to it. How does one cross the bridge from art director to copywriter seamlessly? What stops it being a bridge too far?
Dave - “If you don’t agree I bet that’s because you’re right brain.”
John,
What I did was write (and art direct) my own ads until I found an art director who was better than me.
Then I switched to being the writer.
Graham Rose did the same thing at BMP.
He was Graham Collis’s (and then Chris Wilkins’) art director.
Then he decided Dave Christensen was a better art director than he was, so he became his copywriter.
Chris Bardsley did the same thing at GGT with Dave Cook.
Paul Grubb switched as well.
Prose:
‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’. Is it really better than ‘I walked around a bit on my own’?
Right. Find someone one better. That won’t be hard then. Thanks, Dave for the insight into how those other dudes did the biz.
I think the other thing, John, is don’t confuse being a copywriter with writing, it’s much more about thinking.
I’ve always thought ‘the best copy is the least copy’ because I was trained as an art director.
Some of the best ads I’ve done had no words at all.
For me, CopyWriting (cap C cap W) is very old fashioned.
Thanks again Dave.
If I never asked and nobody told me I’d be in the dark as to some of your best ads with no copy. Can you give me an example?
Interesting - and, to me, correct - point that copy writing is more about thinking than writing.
(Except when it comes to writing brochures, of course.)
Trouble is, with this thinking in mind, these days, many ‘copywriters’ can’t even write.
What you said about thinking makes a lot of sense.
My concern is, more and more, copywriters are unable to express that thought properly in words.
Dave’s best visual ad is the Victory mints one with the Magritte visual.
I couldn’t read until I was 8. All the words were jumbled up and I couldn’t make sense of them. Then one day, a switch seemed to turn over in my head and I could suddenly read everything perfectly. I literally went from being illiterate to being the best reader in my class in a single afternoon. After a while, all that reading inspired me to write and I soon became the best writer in my class. Then I saw that one of the other guys could draw really well and was getting a lot more admiration for his drawing then I was for my writing, so I started drawing too. This won me more praise then my writing so it was hardly surprising that I ended up going to art college and entering the working world as an art director.
7 years after I graduated as an art director I came to Singapore and, due to a severe shortage of writers, I ended up writing again. These days I find that while I can play the role of an art director, it’s just that - ‘playing a role’. I am much happier writing.
What I find is that there seem to be some days when I am very right brain in the way I look at problems and other days when I am left brain dominant.
BTW Dave, whenever I tried to draw in a ’structured way’, I would get the usual art teacher reprimand of “Draw what you SEE, not what you KNOW.” (It’s actually pretty good advice!)
Thanks for that Gordon. I know that one.
I have always had a problem with dualisms. Folks often argue from symmetry, I do it myself, so I have no truck with people doing so. But a 1-2 taxonomy of left/right, or Jung’s even numbered psychological types, or the 2 to the 4th categories of the standard corporate Briggs/Meyers evaluation (what is it? Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, Judgment/Perception, Introverted/Extroverted?), etc. etc. all leave me feeling a little underwhelmed.
Not to mention what this kind of thinking does with politics! Us/Them. Like there could be symmetry to political solutions.
And what happened to the “small prime” taxonomies of 3 or 5 or 7 genre? Is this some modern reaction against Catholicism and earlier “unreasonable” systems?
Is asymmetry bad?
I suspect the odd numbers will make a comeback in some future era and they will look back and wonder at our worship of the beautifully balanced even numbers, and their sole prime.
And why couldn’t there be 4.5 or 106.782 types of personalities? I just don’t think whole number taxonomies have been all that well thought out and betray a prejudice for a certain type of order. We should be questioning our naïve dependence on integers is all I’m saying.
These personality tests all just too neat for me; good for an initial triage of the emotional landscape but only good as a map at best and a silly piece of paper blocking the view of the terrain at worst.
My two cents.
p.s. Conor, I couldn’t speak a lick until I was five years old.
Hi John,
I think the point is ‘less is more’.
You always try to do it with the absolute minimum possible.
So no copy if possible. Maybe no picture.
Ultimately if you can do it with nothing at all, that’s what we’re aiming at.
Neil Godfrey was always proud of a Sugar Puffs (I think) ad he did with no body copy, no logo, no packshot.
George Lois was similarly proud of a Coldene ad he did without any of that, even a visual.
At GGT we used to do lots of LWT ads with no words, just pictures.
Like I said, for me being a ‘writer’ has nothing to do with writing.
I catch yer drift Dave.
Reminded of the old, “There are two types of people in the world. Those who believe there are two types of people in the world, and those who don’t.”
Took me years to understand how design solutions - so often illogical expressions of the brief - were often a more correct solution to the problem.
They managed to skip easily through the convolutions of the argument and arrive at the right emotional message.
And my writer’s rational mind can’t help feeling jealous.
We all have different skills.
I guess the art is bringing them together in the way that’s best for the brand at that time.
Hallo Dave
I found your ‘being a writer has nothing to do with writing’ fresh - and disturbing.
Fresh because these days, even though I’m a copywriter, the work I do usually involves minimal writing.
Disturbing because:
a. suddenly, many art directors who can’t even write a resignation letter, proclaim themselves writers.
b. these days, fewer and fewer writers can write well.
I think there is still a place for copy/writing.
Especially for more ‘emotional’ clients - like rape centres, Samaritans.
Not every ad can be just a visual with a tagline, I think.
I agree that writers are more ‘thinkers’.
But if a writer can’t put his thoughts into words clearly, then s/he’s little better than a suit who can’t express the client’s comments.
Maybe because I spent years looking at Delaney, Abbott, Brignull, Wight and Rutherford ads.
So, even though writing may not be so fashionable or common these days, it remains an essential skill.
Thanks.
Hi Robin,
I agree writing is a craft-skill, as is design.
I just don’t think writing or design should be a kneejerk response to a problem.
I think thinking should.
Sometimes the answer might be just body copy, no pictures or headline.
Sometimes pictures without words.
But you should start with thinking about the question.
Not with e craft-skill as the answer.
I think the lack of copy in current advertising often reflects shortened attention-spans and the rapidity with which a modern audience ingests information…LOL etc. The upshot is that long copy ads have to work really hard to be both justified and effective. It’s true as you say Dave that, particularly in the past, they’d reach for a long copy solution before even considering the communication. But they are still out there. Recent excellent examples including the Wispa ad from Publicis, Fallon’s Tate ads and the Barnardos ads from BBH (Nick Gill?).
I need a Gordon.
Comstock or Smith?
Dave.
did you see Cannes outdoor winner?
here it is: http://adsoftheworld.com/media/dm/the_zimbabwean_newspaper_money
it’s really similar to what you’ve done in the past.
Hah. Well spotted Riki.
Dave,
“George Lois was similarly proud of a Coldene ad he did…”
But, did he do it? Interesting piece from This American Life (a terrific radio program
over here), check it out here:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=383
Recorded by Julian Koenig’s daughter, with comments from Carl Fischer,
Fred Papert, Ron Holland, all seminal characters from the sixties. Certainly George L.
wasn’t absent the day they were handing out egos. Amazing art director, but it’s possible that his memory might be suffering from overload.
Ciaran
Hi Ciaran,
I heard that programme and emailed it to George Lois as follows:
“Hi George,
You may already have heard this radio programme.
The link is circulating on Twitter.
It’s made by Julian Koenig’s daughter and concerns his disputes over the authorship of your (joint?) work.
On the other hand you may be bored with the whole thing.
My apologies for sending it if you are.
Dave Trott”
This is his reply:
“Dear Dave,
Thanks for the email.
Koenig is embittered because I left PKL because I was unhappy, and then they went kaput.
What can I tell ya?
George”
Dave,
He might have told ya whether or not it was
even “joint work” as you asked. As Groucho
said once “Are you going to believe me or your
own eyes?”
All out of step except our George.
Ciaran
Ciaran,
This is a really interesting question,I’m going to have to write a post about it.
I think they’re both right, but there’s too much for me to get into a comment.
Hallo Dave
I’m afraid you’re right.
For a while in the late 80s, long copy BECAME the answer.
So, from cars to shoes to banks and fashion, writers with a lot of stamina just did an “ariston” - “and on and on” “and on and on” they wrote.
Well writ? Yes.
Would I buy the product? No flipping way.
Smith, Dave! No offense to any other Gordons.
Rachel,
At the Charge of the Light Brigade, Lord Cardigan led the actual charge through the Russian guns, then turned and rode back.
Apparently, he didn’t see it as his place to stay and fight alongside the men.
Read ‘copywriter’ for Lord Cardigan and ‘art director’ for the men.
I may be a writer but I always stand by my men Dave!