What Is an Advertising Art Director?

An advertising art director who is an individual who is responsible for managing a term of advertisers in the art department. Advertising art directors, working with their staff, come up with ad campaigns for various products. They are hired by clients to create art and thematic concepts for:

Print ads such as those in magazines or newspapers
TV ads
Comprehensive ad campaigns that cover different sorts of media

What Does an Advertising Art Director Do

Ever come across a billboard with a picture that simply blew you away? Ever admire the art and photography gracing a CD cover? Ever see an ad in a magazine that left you wondering just how they come up with these things? If you were left breathless, or probably more realistically, left thinking about an ad long after you saw it, the advertising art director did his or her job well.

Most importantly, though, they didn’t do it alone. Advertising art directors lead a team of other creative types who are charged with brainstorming and honing a variety of creative ideas into the one they go with.

Advertising art directors are very trendy. They have to be, because so much of modern advertising is derived and feeds into topical pop culture. They constantly keep their ear to the ground for the newest trends and ideas, which may be used in creating ever new and interesting ads for clients.

Likewise, the latest trends themselves may have a business advocate, who will want the advertising art director to come up with a campaign. If you love being hip and with it, you might do very well as an advertising art director.

The Skills An Advertising Art Director Needs

Artistic Talent

If you have your heart set on working in advertising and rising to the top of your profession, it helps if you have taken art classes. While the art director may never actually draw a concept - he may not even know how to draw! - learning how to render ideas into artwork can only help you achieve your goal.

Computer Literacy

Since the advertising world has progressed far in some respects from the era typified by “Mad Men,” another invaluable skill the potential advertising art director will want to harness is that of computer literacy. This involves learning how to create unique and interesting websites and master the process of using the software to devise the websites.

Classes in art design, photography, commercial art, and marketing, as well as time invested in learning any of the graphic arts, will all come in useful for the incipient advertising art director.

Creativity

It’s not enough to just be able to work software programs and take a bunch of art classes. You have to have the focus, talent, and drive to put yourself forward with ideas. The advertising art director is a person who is capable of brainstorming with other creative types in his firm to come up with ideas. The one with the final say in the process may be the advertising art director; some ad agencies have other executives, such as a creative director, who may have the last word.

Advertising Art Directors and Creative Directors

The creative director, who usually has his own department in bigger ad agencies, may be the one who chooses between several excellent presentations, before they’re put in front of the client for his choice and approval.

Even so, the creative types who do all the heavy lifting in an advertising campaign are the ones who devise, refine, and invent the ad campaigns you see in front of you every day, in every place from television to magazines, to the Internet.

So, what is an advertising art director? The person who makes you stop by his ideas, think about the product, and hopefully have that very article on your mind when you go to the store!