I received an email from a friend and former client of my from my days as a commercial photographer. He's probably in his mid-40s now, and when I worked with him he was a young art director at the hottest creative shop in town, if not the midwest (or even arguably the US). He was pretty good at what he did.
I thought his email had value for more creatives than just him, so I'm going to publish my responses to him. The reality is that if "veteran" art directors, writers or even account people don't expand their awareness about how to communicate with a targeted audience beyond the traditional "mass" means of doing so, or through print collateral, POS and the like, they're dead . . . and unemployable. Sad but true. Great ideas and mastery of the Adobe Suite are no longer all it takes to get hired and be a valuable asset to your agency and clients.
I've been hearing about funding out there for unemployed people which provides education for 'retooling' people's careers. From your vantage point, what would you suggest an overly experienced art director/creative director/occasional copywriter to do to make him more instantly hirable by generous and adoring employers?
I'm guessing web design is high on everyone's list of things they want - right along with "knows every program ever created, washes windows and bathrooms and speaks twelve languages." I've worked with a web designer and know how to design for the web but never got into the programming aspect of it.
If you're ever lounging around, give a yell and perhaps we can grab a drink sometime."
I'm going to ignore the part about "pushing unemployed creative types into job openings", because that is so far away from what retained recruiters do, that it's another whole blog post.
The questions posed in my friend's email could be written about in depth and detail. I'm going to take a "blogger's approach" and keep it simple, realizing there's just a lot more that can be said about this.
I don't think web design is high on a list . . . it's a given. So is online communication. The days of drawing a hard, bold line between design and programming is fading quickly too. While creatives might not be able to completely program a website, there's no question that the more you know about it, and I'm talking beyond simple "design", the better off your're going to be. There has to be a basic understanding of html, user interface and information architecture. You have to know the basics about SEO and designing a dynamic website . . . not just a pretty one. And yes, if you have a familiarity (at least) with other apps like Flash, Dreamweaver, After Effects, JavaScript and the like . . . there are dozens . . . you're also more valuable.
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