We spoke to four Atlanta practitioners of the creative arts and asked them about their Dream Jobs. While different from one another in many ways, these projects share a common theme: When completed, the creative could look back, appreciate the fruit of their labor and savor the memory of having worked on it.
Peter Borowski
What makes an assignment a dream job?
A dream job is something that lets you have the freedom to be creative. As designers, we want you to have as little restriction as possible. It provides a lot of time to do the project and a healthy budget that allows us to be creative and do fun things with it. What's equally important is the personal aspect, and that's something you get great pleasure out of. I think it's great to be able to produce a product where someone benefits.
Why is it important to have these dream jobs?
Designers are passionate about their work. We’re driven by good design and attractive things. To make our job fun, we have to have these dream projects. A lot of the time, we’re given projects that are simple, boring informational charts and pamphlets. That can get a little tedious, and I think we need dream projects to bring fun into our lives and make what we do more pleasurable.
What made the Environmental Fund for Georgia project a Dream Job?
They had an event a few years ago, and they wanted some posters designed, and t-shirts and pamphlets. It was a pro bono job, and what made it really special to me was that it was a good organization that cared for the environment. I was happy about that, but also that the client not only really understood what I was trying to do and say, but also understood the creative process. That’s so important. The client allowed me the freedom to express what I felt was appropriate. Even though dream jobs are not jobs you get paid a lot of money for, they are ones where you get great satisfaction out of, purely out of what they’re doing and how they’re affecting other people when they see it.
Is having creative control a key element?
It’s not so much control as appreciation. It’s like if we were to send our car off to the car shop and then we were to stick our face into the mechanic’s space and say, "I think you need to do this or that, and have you checked that?" When we go to a mechanic or doctor, we don’t tell them what to do. We want that respect from other people if when they come to us, they should listen to us and see us as professionals and advisors, and therefore if we say to them, "We really believe this will work for you because we know about branding and strategy, trust us that this is the right way." We feel people get too involved in what we do and tend to direct us. It’s important we get the freedom, but also that we’re respected for what we do and are left to do what we feel is correct.
On this job, did the creative process flow smoothly?
I felt everything came into place. As a designer, you have ideas and thoughts in your head, and if they run parallel to everything all around you, and when you explain it to the client, they can see what you’re talking about.
This job in particular came easily because there was a personal side to this project that made me feel comfortable and secure with what I was doing. I conjured up a lot of images in my head that really helped the process. I think a dream project is something where you have a personal interest. The Environmental Fund for Georgia was important to me because I’m very interested in the environment. If you’re very close to something, you feel more comfortable, and you feel you can really express yourself because your idea and thoughts are being translated into a visual look that helps spread this message you believe in.
What defines a dream job?
For me, it’s a job that helps you grow creatively and hopefully takes your mind to a new place. It’s where the client and agency trust you to bring your creative talent to the table and they let you go with what you believe.
What made the Special Olympics commercial a Dream Job?
It was a job I was asked to do for free, which is something I was happy to do because I believe in that organization. In college, I helped out during the Special Olympics as a judge during track and field events. It was important for me to continue to help in any way I could.
The agency [Roby Robinson Advertising] came to me and asked me as a favor if I would do this job for them. They said it would be on Cumberland Island, and as a kid I went on vacation to Cumberland Island, and it was a very special place for me. There weren’t really boards, but there was a loose script. I knew visually I could do a lot of the things I wanted to do.
How did partnership with the agency work?
They told me that I was going to be allowed to do what I wanted to do in the way I saw it and the way I felt about it. I also described to them what I wanted, and they seemed to be on the same page. We had several conversations before I started the job because I wanted to make sure they understood how important it was to me to do it the way I felt like it needed to be done, and at the same time get their points across about what they needed for their client.
What happened in the production process that underscored this was a dream job?
I learned that you don’t necessarily need a giant circus tent to perform in. I’ve been all over the world, and I’ve shot many, many jobs; and I’ve had the equipment I wanted and all the lights and all the crew. But, a lot of times it shackles you because to move that circus tent takes a lot of energy and a lot of time, so you don’t shoot as much as you wanted to shoot, and maybe you don’t get all the angles you wanted to get because you’re dragging this giant team of people around with you. This was a very small crew, I only had four people on the crew beside me. I hadn’t done that since I first started directing. When I did that job with a very small crew, I was able to move around very quickly, and I was able to shoot all the angles I wanted to shoot. I was able to experiment and play with things. I could move quicker and get more angles. That job taught me that it isn’t about the amount of people and the amount of equipment, but rather about the shot and the emotion behind it. Everything I did from that job on for the past year and a half has, in my mind, been better. One of the reasons is that particular job.
Scott Frizzle
Why is it important to have Dream Jobs?
Everyone deals with deadlines and budgets that are not necessarily under their control. It’s nice to have a job every once in a while where you really see it through, and the product is really how you want it to be, and the best it can be, as opposed to when you’re wishing for extra time, or when you’re wishing the client went in a different direction.
What made the TBS project a Dream Job?
We’d been doing some work for TBS, and while it was solid work, most of it wasn’t super high profile stuff. They had been working with a firm on the West coast for this 007 job, and it didn’t work out with them and TBS pulled the job. This was the packaging for "15 Days of 007," promos and everything.. They called us up and essentially told us we needed to pull it out of the fire. They gave us the go ahead and gave us creative freedom. They didn’t come to us with a blueprint, but let us run with the idea.
How important is creative freedom to making a job a Dream Job?
It’s extremely important, but I would add that too much creative freedom can be a bad thing. When a client doesn’t have any idea what they’re looking for, sometimes you can hunt around in the dark for a while before you settle on a direction. We want to have the creative freedom, but we also like the client to have a general idea of the mood and direction they want to head in. That makes it easy to settle on a concept early and then we can get down to executing it.
What were some of the components of the project that made it a Dream Job?
I usually take a couple of days to work on concepts and big picture kind of things, but the first day I sat down and worked on specifics like the design of the logo, it just came together. I showed our client the work, and they said it was a great direction and to just run with it. That established the pattern for the whole look. What happened in the first couple of days applied to the entire package. It took off right away.
More than anything, it was a lot of fun. Sometimes, you work hard and you like the end result, but you didn’t enjoy doing it for whatever reason. On that project, I had a blast doing it. It’s a fun look, the graphics are enjoyable to look it. There are so many great graphic ideas that are associated with James Bond. They always have terrific opens to the movies, and they have a great history of design. Multiple ideas came to mind with a project like that.
Is having control important in a Dream Job?
It is to an extent. Some firms are overbearing in terms of their control. They want absolute power over the project. We understand it’s the client’s project. They’re paying for it, so they should have input. I want them to be happy, but at the same time, we’re not afraid to step up when they’re ready to push it in a direction where we may not think is best for it. We’ll tell them that this is the way to go and why. We want to be trusted and we like to have the creative control, but we don’t take the project away from the client and hand it back when it’s done.
What is your definition of a Dream Job?
It has to have a good budget, not necessarily an unlimited budget, but one where you can allow for some flexibility. It’s nice to have direction, but sometimes it’s nice to have the lack of direction, so you can just wander and create.
How did you get the Epiphone Guitars job?
I told a lie (laughs). I told a guy I would be in Tennessee and if I could come up and show him my book. He said sure, and I drove up. It was a cool gig. I got to work with musicians and be around music. With about 80 percent of the work I did, there wasn’t an art director or any direction at all. They just said, ‘We need this,’ and ‘Make a good picture.’ That was the bottom line. I was on a retainer for them and was going up to Nashville almost every week for nine years straight.
I started out shooting guitars on white paper for a simple catalogue. When I started shooting for Epiphone, they had sales of $100,000 a year, and it went up astronomically, up into the millions. I wanted to shoot some fashion, so I came up with the idea of the Epi Girls of Guitar. I was having fun shooting fashion in Atlanta, but there wasn’t much work to speak of outside catalogue work.
Is creative freedom important in establishing a Dream Job?
It’s being able to work spontaneously a lot of times, you’ll get something on a piece of paper, and you’re chained to that. And other times, people will say they want something interesting, or a certain feeling, or that they want it to reach a particular audience. The way I work, I tend to shoot a lot of different ways and different formats in the same job. There’s so much film and a lot to pick from. By not being constrained, you have the freedom to experiment, and that’s where you get a lot of your best work.
What do you get out of a dream job that you later bring into your day to day assignments?
We always learn from our experiences, and our growth comes from where we’ve been. A Dream Job is something to look forward to doing. You strive so that your work becomes more consistent so that a transition takes place where the more mundane work diminishes and becomes as good as the dream jobs until you reach a point where you’re only doing dream jobs.