Advertising and Artvertising

The creative field.. are we true artists?

Our beloved Egypt falls under a major fallacy. A glitch in the matrix. No, I'm not talking about street cats. What I'm talking about is something, or should I say someone in particular: The Artist; if you're in the creative industry, you have probably met your fair share of the artist.

If you're waiting for this to turn into mocking someone for their clothing choices, how they talk, or their religious/political views, let me save you some time; I’m not going to do that. Now, if you're still reading, it means you're not in it for the gossip and want to know what this is all about. Allow me to start with who the artist is. After all, they were the trigger to my question. They are usually extremely cynical, highly opinionated, and consider themselves artists in our field. The last part is what made me, as a creative, think: are we artists?

Let us start with what an artist is. Don't google it. I already did. The term refers to people who paint. But if you look up if a poet is an artist, you'll find that they are also viewed as artists of the written word. If I say that an artist is anyone who uses any form of communication—visual, written, or verbal—for self-expression, would you agree? Here is another question for you. Whether you are a graphic designer or a copywriter, or an active member of the advertising world, do you think we express ourselves in the creative field?

When creating a visual or a copy, there are always guidelines. The brand comes with a pre-set tone of voice for the copywriters and brand guidelines for the designers—a set of rules designed to guide your creative river flow. That makes self-expression in the advertising field minimal. The way I see it is we answer briefs. In other words, your client sends you what their problem is, and you solve it for them. We might use critical thinking to come up with a creative solution. Some of us might even use lateral thinking, a technique proposed by the great Edward de Bono.

Explore more about the lateral thinking concept here.

To be fair, we do share some of the characteristics of artists, such as the criticism of our work by an audience—in our case, the customers. One might argue that the mere fact of coming up with visuals and copies with guidelines is more of a challenge than absolute self-expression, which makes the process of overcoming briefs a form of art in itself. I'll end this with: art is abstract and what counts as art... more so.

So are we artists, or are we just creative problem-solvers?

In my humble opinion, we are not artists. We are creative problem solvers with the potential to be an artist every now and then. How so? Well, if you answered the brief and sold the idea by sticking to exactly what the client wants, congratulations, you’re a creative problem-solver in the world of advertising. If you challenged the brief somehow, broke all rules, and were able to convince the client with the idea that was off the brief, then you have leaned towards the artistic spectrum within creative problem solving, a new method of self-expression which in my book counts as artvertising.