WHEN TO FIGHT AND WHEN TO FLEE
Ultimately, of course, the client needs to share your
vision to get great work made. Sometimes the will
isn’t there and it’s a waste of everyone’s energy to
force a square peg into a round hole. “Sometimes
there’s a point where you have to go, ‘Yeah, the
client actually doesn’t want it’,” Arnolds admits.
“You have to fight a lot,” urges Hoffman, who
admits W+K has had projects where a concept has
been pulled around so much in meetings that the
soul has been sucked out of it. “In those situations,
you need to talk about what’s happening,” she
says. “Limit the idea to what absolutely needs to be
heard, and make that the most important thing.”
Arnold adds that it takes guts to tell a client
that suggested changes are going to undermine,
rather than improve, an idea. “Everyone likes to
feel they’re getting somewhere,” she reflects. “You
know, ‘This bit doesn’t work, change this.’ It’s like
chopping up a Mozart symphony. Then you play
it, and it doesn’t make any sense. ‘But we’ve got
somewhere?’ No you haven’t, you’ve just wrecked a
really good composition.”
Part of the problem, according to Arnold, is that
clients are concerned that a simple thumbs-up to
a great idea makes them look like they don’t have
anything constructive to add. “It’s so much easier
for clients to look intelligent and clever if they say
‘no’,” she remarks. “Sitting round a table, everyone
feels they have to have an opinion. This is their
opportunity to shine in front of their boss, you
know: ‘It’s really good, but I’m worried about this.’
By the time this poor little idea has had 14 people
try to look clever and brilliant, it’s dead.”
As a rule, she continues, the more senior and
self-assured the stakeholder, the more likely theyCOMPUTERARTS.CREATIVEBLOQ.COMSPECIAL REPORT SEPTEMBER 2019
“IT HELPS TO LIMIT
THE IDEA TO WHAT
ABSOLUTELY NEEDS
TO BE HEARD”
SUSAN HOFFMAN CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER, WIEDEN+KENNEDYAbove left
Triangles
developed from
negative space in
the St Albans
Cross sit at the
heart of Studio
Sutherl&’s
versatile identity
for St Albans
Museum + Gallery.
Above right
Packed with crazy
scenes and witty
dialogue, Nike’s
Nothing Beats a
Londoner applies
W+K’s penchant
for weirdness in a
very different way
from KFC.are to simply say ‘yes’ to a strong idea. “There’s a
reason certain people are at top of the tree – they’re
actually really good around creative work. But
they’re not around it enough,” she laments.
If you are forced to compromise on elements
of your idea, Arnold advocates focusing on the
best possible execution instead. “It may be bread
and butter, but you can still make it as brilliant as
you can,” she insists. “Use a photographer you’ve
always wanted to work with. Make the music the
best. Get the best illustrator. That’s where I shelter:
let’s make something beautiful. Don’t ever do
something totally joyless.”
Client frustrations aside, it takes a great creative
mind to conceive a great idea, and steer it faithfully
to completion. Baxter lists the characteristics
he believes all the best designers share: “Energy,
tenacity, perseverance, resilience, an open and
curious mind, a broad thirst for knowledge and an
ability to collaborate,” he reels off.
“The biggest internal obstacles occur when
we run out of those things,” Baxter continues.
“Of course we have to balance principles and
creative ambition with practical requirements like
deadlines and budget, but great ideas don’t require
huge budgets and generous timelines. They need
clarity of thinking.”