To be or not to be (an art director or a copywriter) - that is the question.

Is it necessary to label creatives as either art directors or copywriters? I guess there is no definitive answer to this question, just many varying opinions. Here is an article on the matter from an old issue of Campaign – it may be a little outdated but I personally think it hits the whole art director/copywriter nail on the head.

Is it correct to distinguish art directors from copywriters? (job titles of creatives in advertising agencies)

Publication: Campaign
Publication Date: 09-JAN-98
Author: Archer, Belinda
COPYRIGHT 1998 Haymarket Business Publications Ltd.

The old job titles are less valid as teams share their skills. Think of some successful creative pairings. Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO's Tom Carty and Walter Campbell, say, or Robert Campbell and Mark Roalfe of Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe. Or Will Awdry and Rosie Arnold at Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Now, try to remember which one is which. Is Carty the art director or is it Campbell? Does Arnold do the writing or is she in charge of visuals?

Tricky isn't it? Not since the likes of Tony Brignull, Dave Trott and Tim Delaney have creatives been famous for a particular discipline.

It seems the inhabitants of today's creative departments are less likely to clarify exactly who does what in their partnership, insisting, with an admirable generosity of spirit, that they "both do everything", or perhaps individually claiming, "I do a bit of art direction but I'm technically the writer." Many creatives even demand that both names be listed alongside both discipline when it comes to credits in Private View or the D&AD annual.

In addition, there appears to be an increasing trend for creatives to be working on their own, effectively partnerless and doing two jobs in one, while more and more new partnerships are made up of two art directors, or two writers, in what seems to be a quiet revolution of creative department working practices.

Richard Flintham, officially the art directing partner of Andy McLeod at BMP DDB, comments: "I'm only doing art directing for about 5 per cent of my time. The currency is ideas and 95 per cent of the time I'm thinking of ideas for ads. I often might have an idea for a headline and Andy might think of a picture."

His view is supported by Don Smith, an art director at Faulds Advertising who, together with his partner, Ged Edmondson, won gold at the Aerials radio awards earlier this year for an Irn-Bru commercial.

"You could ask what art direction there is in a radio ad, but until you sit down and do an ad there is really no distinction between what the copywriter and the art director does. At the ideas stage there is no difference between us: we are both just talking about the best solution to the brief. I do not become an art director until I have to art direct the idea," he says.

Jon Canning, the new creative director of Court Burkitt & Company, has worked on his own for the past 19 months. He says: "I effectively do both jobs. The skills are really interchangeable. I trained as an art director but then I became a writer. In any case, if you have a partner you can easily learn about the other half of the job."

One explanation for the change in the way creatives are working is that the advent of technology and the Mac culture has, in the case of art directors, meant the basic skills of being able to draw are no longer necessary. The focus for today's art director is being able to think up ideas, rather than being a dab hand with a magic marker.

Another theory is that there are more young people in senior positions, all introducing fresh approaches to the challenge of how best to devise ads.

Keith Courtney, creative director of Leagas Shafron Davis, says: "So many young people are now running advertising businesses and they tend to be a bit more forward-thinking and think outside the box. I have young teams who really don't distinguish between who does what, and I don't even know which is which."

Courtney welcomes the development, adding that creatives can be used far more efficiently when they are not pigeon-holed, and that the art director would get "pissed off pretty quickly if you just used him as a wrist".

Given how increasingly difficult it is to get into advertising, the pressure seems to be on colleges to produce multi-skilled creatives rather than specialists.

Smith comments: "Colleges have to set you up with as diverse a range of capabilities as they can. You are more marketable if you are good at everything and people want to become creatives rather than specifying either copywriters or art directors."

This seems a far cry from the 60s when the copy department and the art department were housed in separate parts of an agency and writers would hand their scripts over to the artists, barely exchanging a word in the process. Some purists mourn the passing of those days, claiming the two skills are quite distinct and should remain so. Nevertheless, it would seem that labels still have their uses.

Flintham admits: "In any good team the roles really should blur, but I still like being called an art director. Within an agency, it helps to have a label." Courtney adds: "I may use the titles when the ad is in production and you have a practical need, say, for the art director to come down to the studio." Clearly defining the roles also aids accountability and means that someone takes responsibility for a specific aspect of an ad, observers claim.

Perhaps the new wave of creative talent will eventually do away with the separate disciplines altogether and alternative ways of working will begin to be the norm, but it seems there's some life left in the traditional pairing of creatives.


Up until now, Nic and I have avoided defining ourselves in either of these roles. Whenever we’ve been asked who does what, we say ‘we both do everything’. We both think of ideas, we both draw up ideas, we both work on layouts, and we both come up with lines. I think this makes us better creatives and a stronger team as such. But as we are now approaching industry, I think it is about time we figured out who is going to take responsibility for each role.
So how exactly do we define who is the art director and who is the copywriter? Personally I want to be both. I think this probably has something to do with the whole right brain/left brain thing. They say art directors are right brain and copywriters are left brain – well, I seem to be an equal amount of both! Nic on the other hand, probably leans more towards right brain (left brain being rational and logical and all! haha) So I guess for arguments sake this would make me the copywriter of the two. Right Nic? Well I guess that’s that sorted then (eventually!) ☺
Here’s to me being a great copywriter with some great art directing skills. And here’s to Nic being a great art director with some great copywriting skills.