A creative directors skills

[zoran]

If one would come to fulfill a Creative Director (CD) position for an adv agency, what:
1. would his job be (taskwise)?
2. skills and qualifications do you believe he should have?
3. seminar could he attend to, in order to learn about how to behave as a supervisor?

 

[organicCPU]

IMO, a CD for publicity is good in sharing ideas with others, leading to an advertising campaign that is targeting material success or at least recognition. A CD could draw or write concepts on a piece of paper, develop a strategy for execution, and instruct team members with more specific skills what to do (like copywriter, AD, project manager or whoever it needs to get that ad done). A CD is most often starting as a junior CD and will need many years of experience to fill the position of his superior, the senior CD. So he should not only be creative, like the job title implies, but also needs good social competence for communicating with others and guiding (directing) them, of course some (self-)organising skills are needed, too. There are many study paths to get qualifications for the job title, reaching from arts to communication and from journalism or linguistics to economics. But in the end, you´ll only become a CD while doing the job, means you´d need to get the job or another job in reach of a CD and survive at your position... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_director

 

[guzhogi]

organicCPU brings up a lot of good points. I would add, like any director-type position, know what job each member does and how they do it. If you don't know what's going on, you can't make appropriate decisions. Know what changes you can & can't make, whether they're decisions of the project, Human Resources, etc. There are contracts for a reason. Try to be transparent in your decision making. If you make a big change, show how it'll improve things. If you don't make a change, show why. I find "We decided not to go that direction" isn't always a valid reason, especially if the said change has little cost and large benefits for someone.

As for learning this stuff, for me, on the job work experience helps. Work from the bottom up. Also, check local colleges and see if you can take classes in Business Administration or Project Management.