Creative Directions

Creative Directions
Author: Jason Sperling
Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1400222907

More and more makers, designers, writers, and artists are in demand as we enter the Age of Creatives. By understanding the new strategies and mindset required to succeed, you can manage other creatives successfully. For creators, getting that promotion to management is exciting but can also be scary. The skills that made them so successful may not translate to the skill required to be a great manager, and this gets even more complicated when managing other creatives who often don’t thrive under traditional management procedures. Creative Directions is a management masterclass in which you attend lectures and seminars as you learn from some of the best in the business, including directors Ava DuVernay (When They See Us) and Joe Russo (Avengers: Endgame); two-time Academy Award-winning editor Angus Wall (The Social Network); executive producers from hit TV shows like The Simpsons and GLOW; and creative directors and leaders at businesses like Amazon, Apple, Disney, TikTok, and more. In Creative Directions, you will: Receive essential guidance on how to master the delicate balance required to successfully lead a creative team. Learn from star creative leaders in the entertainment industry on essential lessons they learned on their path to success. Gain insights on how to balance mastering the new skills you need as a leader with finding the time and energy to focus on the creative work you love. All of these lessons are provided in an easily accessible format so that you can open the book to any page and find an actionable, inspirational insight or strategy.

Leading Creative Teams

Leading Creative Teams
Author: Eleazar Hernández
Publisher: Apress
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2016-10-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484220560

Learn the skills you must master to assume leadership roles—creative directors, art directors, and advertising managers—on creative teams and in integrated branding campaigns for corporate clients. This book compares and contrasts 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 director Eleazar Hernández 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. Hernández 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. What You'll Learn Learn the technical, business, and management skill sets of creative management Lead and orchestrate teams of creatives Discover tips, tricks, and techniques for creative direction of web, broadcast, and print projects Shape your career trajectory toward creative management Learn the dos and don’ts of creative presentations Who This Book Is For Mid-level and junior creatives—graphic designers, web designers, copywriters, and artists—and ad students who seek information on the specific skills, experience, and credentials they need to qualify for promotion to creative management. The secondary readership is creative directors, art directors, and advertising managers who lead web interactive, design, and advertising creative teams and who develop and direct integrated branding campaigns for corporate clients.

Herding Tigers

Herding Tigers
Author: Todd Henry
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2018-01-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 073521171X

A practical handbook for every manager charged with leading teams to creative brilliance, from the author of The Accidental Creative and Die Empty. Doing the work and leading the work are very different things. When you make the transition from maker to manager, you give ownership of projects to your team even though you could do them yourself better and faster. You're juggling expectations from your manager, who wants consistent, predictable output from an inherently unpredictable creative process. And you're managing the pushback from your team of brilliant, headstrong, and possibly overqualified creatives. Leading talented, creative people requires a different skill set than the one many management books offer. As a consultant to creative companies, Todd Henry knows firsthand what prevents creative leaders from guiding their teams to success, and in Herding Tigers he provides a bold new blueprint to help you be the leader your team needs. Learn to lead by influence instead of control. Discover how to create a stable culture that empowers your team to take bold creative risks. And learn how to fight to protect the time, energy, and resources they need to do their best work. Full of stories and practical advice, Herding Tigers will give you the confidence and the skills to foster an environment where clients, management, and employees have a product they can be proud of and a process that works.

Creativity

Creativity
Author: John Cleese
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 76
Release: 2020-09-08
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0385348282

The legendary comedian, actor, and writer of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda fame shares his key ideas about creativity: that it’s a learnable, improvable skill. “Many people have written about creativity, but although they were very, very clever, they weren't actually creative. I like to think I'm writing about it from the inside.”—John Cleese You might think that creativity is some mysterious, rare gift—one that only a few possess. But you’d be wrong. As John Cleese shows in this short, practical, and often amusing guide, creativity is a skill that anyone can acquire. Drawing on his lifelong experience as a writer, Cleese shares his insights into the nature of creativity and offers advice on how to get your own inventive juices flowing. What do you need to do to get yourself in the right frame of mind? When do you know that you’ve come up with an idea that might be worth pursuing? What should you do if you think you’ve hit a brick wall? We can all be more creative. John Cleese shows us how.

Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition)

Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition)
Author: Ed Catmull
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0679644504

The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve. “Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.

Hacker, Maker, Teacher, Thief: Advertising's Next Generation

Hacker, Maker, Teacher, Thief: Advertising's Next Generation
Author: Creative Social
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2014-08-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0956608337

- What does the industry need to do today (not tomorrow) to stay valuable and relevant? - Is digital collaboration the death of idea ownership? - What the f**k do clients know about great advertising? - How can copying make you more original? - I feel connected, but do I feel more human? - How are the porn industry, illegal black market and bitcoins changing online culture today? - Should we make things people want rather than make people want things? - How do we 'do' innovation? If you want to get a point of view on these and a whole host of other questions, just pick up this book which features a collection of essays from 35 leading creative directors and business owners. Creative Social celebrates hackers, makers, teachers and thieves - advertising's next generation.

Org Design for Design Orgs

Org Design for Design Orgs
Author: Peter Merholz
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2016-08-22
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1491938374

Design has become the key link between users and today’s complex and rapidly evolving digital experiences, and designers are starting to be included in strategic conversations about the products and services that enterprises ultimately deliver. This has led to companies building in-house digital/experience design teams at unprecedented rates, but many of them don’t understand how to get the most out of their investment. This practical guide provides guidelines for creating and leading design teams within your organization, and explores ways to use design as part of broader strategic planning. You’ll discover: Why design’s role has evolved in the digital age How to infuse design into every product and service experience The 12 qualities of effective design organizations How to structure your design team through a Centralized Partnership Design team roles and evolution The process of recruiting and hiring designers How to manage your design team and promote professional growth

Creative Manager's Pocketbook

Creative Manager's Pocketbook
Author: John Townsend
Publisher: Management Pocketbooks
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2015-09-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1907077677

According to management guru Peter Drucker, 'the enterprise that does not innovate inevitably ages and declines'. The Creative Manager's Pocketbook is a treasure-trove of techniques, tools and triggers that will help you produce creative ideas. There are 10 ready-to-use techniques with such intriguing names as Nyaka, Merlin, Eureka and Brainfaxing. In each case the author explains what the technique is, in what way it can be used, how to apply it and what materials will be required. Elsewhere the book looks at the different areas (e.g. product development, customer service, efficiency) that can benefit from innovation and how to 'sell' new and creative ideas. The numerous exercises, tests and quizzes will keep you involved and help you discover just how creative you are.

Creative Problem Solving for Managers

Creative Problem Solving for Managers
Author: Tony Proctor
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2006-05-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134282834

This accessible text provides a lively introduction to the essential skills of creative problem solving. Using extensive case-studies and examples from a range of business situations, it explores various problem-solving theories and techniques, illustrating how these can be used to solve a range of management problems. Thoroughly revised and redesigned, this new edition retains the accessible and imaginative approach to problem-solving skills of the first edition. Contents include: * blocks to creativity and how to overcome them * key techniques including lateral thinking, morphological analysis and synectics * computer-assisted problem solving * increased coverage of group problem-solving techniques and paradigm shift. As creativity is increasingly recognized as a key skill for successful managers, this book will be welcomed as a comprehensive introduction for students and practising managers alike.