Last Thursday I attended Alexandra (or Alex as we are now to call her) Taylor’s D&AD President’s Lecture.
I had been looking forward to hearing what tales and advice she had to share after working under the wing of Paul Arden, the man whose inspirational books sit on my desk and are often read before big projects.
I don’t know quite what I was expecting as she took the stage but it certainly hadn’t been a royal telling off. According to Alex each attendee was supposed to supply a piece of work that had been art directed for her to critique on stage. This was the first I – and the rest of the audience – had heard of it but judging by her mood I doubt this would have been an adequate excuse. You could cut the air with a knife; I don’t think anyone dared breathe.
Thankfully this initial tension soon passed after she played an impressive showreel that contained clients such as the British Army, Castlemaine XXXX and Schweppes. The most impressive of which had been her work on the British Army campaign, which has now been running for a staggering 15 years!
It’s easy to see why she has picked up 4 D&AD pencils for The British Army campaign alone and 189 ‘in-books’ during her career. After watching a few more of the British Army adverts she took us through how the initial concepts became a reality. Alex explained her inner dialogue of constantly asking herself, ‘How can I make this better?’ and a clear example of this was the ending to the Army ads. Earlier on in the project the adverts simply ended on a black screen with the logo and copy left aligned. After going through her process, which often involves sleepless nights, the double foot stamp sound was added to act as a full stop to the advert. Perfect.
We then watched a series of other adverts, each focusing on involving the viewer by seeing the action through the eyes of a soldier. Instead of just watching a scene unfold you suddenly felt involved in it and began to appreciate the hard choices that many soldiers and officers meet.
Although we saw some great work the real point of the lecture was more about how to make your work better rather than most other ‘show & tell’ style lectures. Alex explained she got to where she is today by working with the best. When she first started out Paul Arden was, in her opinion, the best in the field so she made it her ambition to work for him at Saatchi & Saatchi. And she got there. It was here that she picked up Paul Arden’s mantra, ‘don’t seek praise, seek criticism.’ Her advice to us was when seeking criticism ask an Art Director you respect, not just one who is your friend and you know will give false praise. That way you will receive a truthful critique and you always have the choice to ignore it.
Often when presenting work to a client you’ll have to present it 10-20 times, so if you’ve not pushed it as far as you can and truly believe in your design, how can you expect the client to? It sounds like simple advice but I think the hardest part is being honest with yourself.
Alex joined the industry at a time when it was more about the craft, where print ruled compared with today’s technology-based design. I believe it is this insight and history that gives her the ability to think differently and deeply about problems, something that a new generation of designers starting out today can certainly learn a trick or two from.
The main image references Taylor’s work on the famous Silk Cut campaign.
Written by Toby, one of our design team.
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