i think being a creative is an endless journey of growing pains. i love the pains, but that hasn't always been so. this year i was fortunate enough to be one of many judges at the d&ad awards where i attended a presentation held at st. martins school of art, the title of the talks was 'where it all started'. four d&ad judges were asked to share their first and most recent work. it was very interesting and the subject matter inspired the creatives to have fun and be honest about where they came from.
when i fell upon these they brought back lots of memories, mostly of how terrified i was on the shoots, the journeys to and from, how many times i re-did the layouts and worse of all presenting them to Andy Greenaway who was my creative director at the time. Oh, the joys of being an art director. they represent the very beginning of my journey in 1994 when i landed my first real job, it just happened to be in advertising. I was filled with grandiose ideas about being a designer and was en route to start that career in australia. fresh out of college and knew diddly squat about advertising other than that of your average consumer. i had run out of money in hong kong and was desperate. when i was given my first title of 'junior art director' at ogilvy&mather direct hong kong i remember panicking about the 'director' part sounding waaaaay too important.

as creatives we spend most of our time looking forward to the next big thing and we can loose sight of where we came from which is a shame because there's so much to learn from the past. (sometimes.)