Leading creative teams: management career paths for designers, developers, and copywriters

Table of Contents:

1: Start with a Blank Piece of Paper
2: Leading a Creative Team
3: Leading an Advertising Creative Team
4: Leading a Design Creative Team
5: Brainstorming
6: Creative Exploration Tools
7: The Art of the Critique
8: The Art of the Pitch
9: The Art of Copywriting
10: The Art of TV and Radio
11: Career Trajectories to Creative Leadership
12: Invest in Your People
13: Don’t Just Take It from Me
14: The Final Nutshell

This book compares the skill sets and responsibilities of creatives with those of managers who direct creative teams. Technical competence in the creative arts is a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for promotion to and success in positions directing creative teams. Business, management, and communication skills are equally necessary. Leading Creative Teams reviews the business metrics that the manager of a creative team must be able to manipulate and present persuasively to the organization to prove that the team’s creative excellence delivers superior ROI. Award-winning designer and veteran creative author walks you through the creative manager’s skill sets—technical, business, management, and communication. He covers the techniques and tools common to the direction of creative teams in all industries: brainstorming, creative exploration and visual communication tools, internal and client presentations, critiquing, mentoring, and copywriting. The author shows how creative directors can apply management and leadership skill sets to different kinds of creative teams found across interactive, graphic design and advertising industries and how they orchestrate methods among team members. He details how creative teams vary in their concepts and principles, composition, objectives, and processes according to their specific industries and project requirements. And he shows you how to shape your career trajectories toward creative management roles in your chosen field. Leading Creative Teams features information on the processes and best practices for ideating, developing, and directing advertising campaigns, graphic design projects, :30 TV spot and :30 radio spots. Drawing on interviews with top creative directors, art directors, and advertising managers, the author explores how the roles of creative team managers are evolving in response to changing technologies and business models.