How Much Has Working In an Ad Agency Changed for Creatives Over The Years?

                                                                                 OMG!

How much has life changed for creative folk working in ad agencies in the last twenty years, or so? Well, for one thing, we would have said, "Oh my god," not OMG. Because, well, people didn't talk or text that way back then... oh yeah, they didn't text at all.

Some of my good friends and I got into a discussion about how difficult it must be for art directors or designers getting into the business today, compared to when we got into it twenty or thirty years ago. The conversation was such a hoot, I thought I'd relay some of our observations here.

Have Things Really Changed That Much?

The answer is an unequivocal yes. In our day, apart from having to walk uphill to work through snow and ice in our bare feet, we frankly didn't have nearly as much to worry about to keep our jobs. What did we have to keep up with as young art directors and copywriters entering the business? Here are a few of the things we could remember:

• The latest Press Type fonts from Letraset. Yep, in those days we actually transferred type from a plastic sheets to our marker layouts on something called paper (Vellum, actually). 

• Speaking of Press Type, we also needed to keep up with the latest "burnishing" device; aka, a small plastic tool with a flat head which allowed us to get the letters off the plastic and on to our layouts. So tech talk was like, Hey Bob, check out the new poly-carbonate burnisher from Burnisher Pros (now out of business, I'm sure )... it's really smooth, man!" Then we would drink scotch to celebrate.

• Yes, in the high stress agency world, drinking was important. We had to keep up with all the single malt and blended Scotch upgrades available at the time (not nearly as many as are available in America today, so relatively easy. Thank god none of them, were made by Adobe).

• Figuring out how to manage the cash pool to keep the agency bar stocked.

• Of course, markers (previously mentioned -  little sticks with different colored nibs on the end we would use to draw our concepts on paper) were important, too. It was big news when Pantone came out with some new colors! Then we had to beg the CD to beg the agency owners to come up with the cash to get them for all of us so we be on the "cutting edge." Sniffing markers was a lot of fun, too. Side note: A good AD in the seventies and eighties could sniff a marker blindfolded, get high from the fumes, and still tell you what color it was.

• We also had to also be up on the latest formulations of rubber cement to make keylining easier. WTF (more new speak) is keylining? We actually had to paste everything on a board so it could be printed. Hell, I'm not explaining it. Look here if you care.

• For copywriters, there wasn't much. But they did get geeked up when a new model electric typewriter came out. Fodder for the water cooler, indeed. Their lives wouldn't really be revolutionized until word processing became the next big thing on dim Cathode Ray Tube displays with little green letters you could only access if you could figure out how to get past a thing called a DOS prompt. That was asking an awful lot from a copywriter, but they managed. Life was a bitch for all of us back then!

Heck, that's about it.

Compared to the youngsters coming up these days, we had it easy.

It's true and we know it. Don't be jealous, but we just had to focus on being good at what our job titles described us as. 

These days it's not enough to be simply a good art director or copywriter. Now you better know everything about everything; HTML, HTML 5, Flash, social media, SEO, video editing, and a million other techie things that weren't even on the horizon in the old days. And how about constantly having to figure out how to learn and use the constant upgrades to all the programs you new kids on the block have to deal with? That's a nightmare all its own. And what if you copy folk aren't up on Google's latest algorithm changes? Bummer! Now your latest brilliant search engine optimized copy is as worthless as the neighbor dog's droppings on your nicely manicured lawn. Holy crap. 

We admit it. Things were simpler back then. On the other hand, we're still here and we unfortunately have to be up to speed on everything you new guys and gals have to deal with and keep up with in these technologically manic times. So listen to your elders and take some advice that got us, and many "Mad Men," through their darkest days, and still does. Booze. It's the glue that's kept the industry together. Don Draper knew it, and so did we. Keep the bar stocked and you can't go wrong. You'll get through it all, and you just might get famous. Because hey, some things never change. And some things never should.

Cheers!

Comments

[Russ Tate]

Hi Kim. Wow, you are a dinosaur. But a very nice looking one.

[K Lorenz]

I'm not in advertising but I still draw on vellum, yes by hand. I still have some zipatone hidden away in a drawer, it may be useful some day. I'm one of the last dinosaurs out there who hasn't caved into the CAD craze. There must be some closet hand drafters out there still!

[Russ Tate]

Yeah, IdeaSandbox! Zip-A-Tone! Forgot about screens for shading. How in the heck did we do all that stuff back then? I also forgot to mention all the fun we used to have with stat cameras!

[Russ Tate]

Where did you work? I put in 100 hours a week for Almonds!

[twitter.com/IdeaSandbox]

I miss using Zip-A-Tone for shading...

[Name Withheld]

Don't tell me kids today have it easy! I had to work 80 hours a week for peanuts.