What’s the Deal with Celebrity Creative Directors?

Last December, RadioShack named comedian and actor Nick Cannon as its chief creative officer. Cannon is one of several celebrities in recent years to assume a creative leadership role for a business brand. As a designer, one question was on my mind: What signal does it send to designers, art directors and creative directors who have climbed the corporate ladder at marketing and advertising agencies when celebrities like these are appointed to these roles?

But let’s answer this question first — what exactly does a creative director do?

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Bridging the Client Communication Gap

Chances are you’ve worked on a client project that didn’t go as smoothly as you would have liked. This could be due to a number of things, but more often than not communication is at the core. Designers need to have a little empathy to understand what it’s like to be a client who wants the world but also be knowledgeable enough to rein in expectations. So here are some things you should tell your clients to fill potential communication gaps in your projects.

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Why I Work for Free

We’ve all done our share of free labor in the past; on occasion, I still do. Even at this point in my career, I’m not above working for free under the right circumstances. Here are four questions I ask myself before taking on my next unpaid project.

Do I care about this company’s mission?

If I don’t feel an emotional connection to the purpose or the mission of the company, then I’m probably not interested in doing work for them. For me, there has to be a level of altruism in the product or service they’re providing that I want to be associated with. This is first on the list for a reason — it’s the main deciding factor.

Will I still be interested three months from now?

This is important for me because I tend to have “shiny object syndrome”, and I sometimes bounce from one new project to the other. If I think a project is capable of holding my attention for longer than a couple months, the chances of me taking it on increases significantly.

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Join Revision Path on Slack!

There’s no new interview this week, but we’ve got something else for you to enjoy — our new Slack room!

Just visit https://revisionpath.herokuapp.com, enter your email, and click the “Get My Invite” button. You’ll receive an email with more instructions on setting up your account.

Join the Revision Path Slack Room!

Chat with other Revision Path listeners! Interact and network with the design community! Learn about new job opportunities! Get constructive feedback on your work! Or just kick back and chop it up with me and others.

Let’s kick off 2016 by getting to know more about each other and learn how we can help each other succeed!

The Ten Most Popular Interviews of 2015

2015 was a fantastic year for Revision Path! The podcast grew by leaps and bounds, we hit the 100 episode milestone, our episodes are featured on the AIGA website, and we won a Creative Market award for Most Inspiring Design Podcast! We also switched our fund-raising efforts to Patreon as a way for people to support Revision Path, and we received over $8000 in funding as Fund Club‘s pick for September! 2016 is looking great!

As usual, to wrap things up for the year we pull together our ten most popular interviews here on Revision Path based on listens, downloads, page views, social sharing, and overall web traffic. Check them out and see if your favorite interview made the list!

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