COMMUNICATE AND DESIGNING TODAY.
At the beginning of my career in the Advertising Communication everything was different than today. You might say, "Sure, 25 years have passed." Not a few. I admit. That's why I’m not going to blame you. But what is very true, is that in those days, there was no talk yet of crisis in our field, or economic crisis in a general sense. The budget made available by the clients were substantial. Clients paid more equitably and without flinching, works and services we offered to them. What made the real difference was that our professionalism was recognized and respected. Our skills were specific and unique and the clients did not dare contradict or interfere, in most cases, in our daily work. I can say in a few words that our clients use to love our job and were jealous of our work and they also were, more importantly, absolutely fascinated. To better appreciate what a Junior Art, a Senior Art Director or a Creative Director use to create when I started to work from the ranks in my first Agency, you have to keep in mind that in those days there was no sign at all on earth of any kind of Graphic Computer. Let alone a Macintosh. On our desk all you could find such an electronic object could only be a calculator or at least a watch. Even a simple calendar was in cardboard. Nowadays, our Clients are equipped with the same technology that we work with by several years now, since the new technology for the Graphic Designing it has become increasingly actual and evolved. In a Creative Department of one of the many, but unfortunately increasingly rare Graphic Design Studios, small or medium-sized Advertising Agencies or Production Houses, you can easily find the same Computers that our clients have on their desk. This allows them more and more often and unjustifiably belittle and criticize our work and our professionalism, starting from the costs for creativity, to criticize time to dedicate to the design or finalization of the work, and yet tragically, even criticize the creative choice of a font, line spacing, colors or the unique, dedicated and specialized works of a Copywriter. Why is this inappropriate and unfair? I’m deeply convinced that all this has created an inevitable contradiction; an overlap of roles and, in many cases, a real reversal of these roles. Over the years I found myself increasingly faced with this dilemma, as well as to deal with a profound crisis of identity: am I the Professional in Communication and they Clients, or we both are also experts in Advertising Communication Strategy, both experts in layout, both experts in high resolution finalization, photo direction, photo retouching, web-design, web-developing, e-learning, e-commerce, e-marketing, e-visual? I will not go any further, although I’m sorely tempted to add more. We have allowed them, and sadly it is not entirely our own fault, if we can still speak today of responsibilities of the Agency or the Creative, from appropriating tools that would and should be peculiar of the Agency and the Creative itself. Why do I say this? Certainly not out of jealousy to deny them the use of the same model of Mac that I paid thousands of Euro or even the same Editing Programs I use in my everyday job. We have failed in the recent past and now we are paying the consequences. We are no longer in a position to make a difference and add value to our work. We submit speculatives where too many agencies are involved, when budgets are in any case more and more content, today now bordering ridiculous. I say, as many of my colleagues, "no more tenders". Even if, one day, magically we succeed to protect our category from any abuse, getting 100% refund of expenses, against the total investment made available for the prospect. To remunerate each professional figure involved in a project it is still far from a right to acquire. Forfeit remuneration for their efforts it is absolutely unfair. To conclude, I would say to all Creatives: ”despite everything, the passion for my work survives, strongly, nourished by a positivism that is obviously not based on certainty for the future, but rather and simply feeds by itself”.