Campaign Brief Q&A: Today the Brave creative partner Jade Manning’s key lessons for the next generation of Australian creatives

This year Today the Brave creative partner Jade Manning will be chairing the 44th AWARD Awards – Press, Poster and Dark Arts Jury. Ahead of the judging process, he shares lessons to pass onto the next generation of Australian creatives. Manning shares his unique insight into what it takes to get to the top of the industry, helping emerging leaders in creative accelerate their ability to create original and bold ideas for brands and their clients.

 

Campaign Brief: You’re chairing the Press, Poster and Dark Arts Jury. Can you explain what is meant by the dark arts? 

Jade Manning: Dark arts includes everything from art direction, copywriting, illustration, photography, typography and production design.

CB: Why is chairing this particular category important to you? 

JM: As a young creative, crafting press and posters is what I cut my teeth on. I have countless fond memories of sweating over layouts until the early hours of the morning, trying to distil and hone an idea into a single page. Then, pinning that same layout up on the office wall (back when offices were a thing) and watching it shift and sharpen with each person who popped in for a chat, a build or critique. Until it shone with beautiful simplicity.

CB: For those in the running for this category this year – what will you be looking for? 

JM: Very simply, care. On paper, the word ‘craft’ is sometimes far too narrow – as if we should only be concerned with meticulous kerning and artful grades. ‘Care’ can include ‘craft’ and ‘idea’ but it transcends personal taste. I’ll give you an example, and bear with me, because it’s a bit of a music-analogy tangent, but I think it works. Anyone who knows me knows I have a deep love affair with all things metal. More recently, thanks to my daughter,  I’ve developed an appreciation and a growing fondness for Taylor Swift. It sounds like a lame dad confession, but when you dissect it, it’s hardly controversial. Her artistic commitment on something like “Midnight” is as rich as Cattle Decap’s “Bring Back the Plague”. Two albums worlds apart but equal in care.  From the genuine depth in storytelling and writing, to the concept within the album art and track sequencing – it’s truly brilliant. The genuine level of care by the artists involved in presenting their albums to the world and understanding how they are ultimately consumed, regardless of your musical taste, is really quite moving.

There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing work that has been fortified with care – when font choice, colour, tone and concept signal that someone has agonised and poured themselves into the work. That is more than skill and craft. That’s care.

CB: What are the current challenges in this category? 

JM: It’s hardly a new challenge, but it’s one that’s increasingly prevalent; Press and Poster are often treated as a supporting act. Campaign hygiene at best. The need for brevity is often translated as bland. So we end up with decks of multi-channel campaigns that tell compelling stories, but press and poster elements that are rarely strong enough to be interesting on their own.

And then there’s simplicity. In a world where every piece of comms needs to earn its keep, we tend to overload the messaging to the point of indifference.

CB: What are three lessons you’d give young creatives? 

JM: A very clever ECD once told me creativity is simply the unlikely connection between two points. The starting point is the brief, the product or product benefit. The second point is a little harder to find. It is a timely anecdote from a book, a resonating quote from a movie, or a clever observation made by the bartender at your hotel. But if you only read one type of book, watch one type of movie and revisit the same hotel, you’ll only ever make the same connections. You are only as good as the influences and insights you invite into your world. They’re not going to come looking for you.

Share your ideas. Speak them allowed and often. Having to explain it without the aid of decks and visual cues helps you distil and focus it. Don’t be precious or selfish. Invite builds and criticism. Having those discussions earlier on and arming yourself with the answers will only make the work better.

Then lastly, trust your gut. Your initial instincts on an idea are almost always the right ones.

CB: As an upcoming creative, it can be daunting and challenging to make your mark. What advice would you give to young talent? 

JM: Be relentless. I think unfortunately, now more than ever, agencies struggle to build and develop young talent. They just don’t have the bandwidth for it. Resources and budgets are tighter, and agencies are looking for talent that can hit the ground running, rather than having to spend valuable time nurturing them. Young creatives need to accelerate their learning and experience. Be relentless in building your breadth of work. Be relentless in reaching out and talking to people. Do work experience. Do proactive projects.

Surround yourself with good people. We’ve always surrounded ourselves with good people because we know the quality of people, measured in talent and values, directly impacts the quality and enjoyment of our own work. Good people will help you make good work great, but good people will also get you through the times when it isn’t. We dedicate so much of our personal time to this industry, that wasting it on people you genuinely don’t enjoy being around seems completely counterintuitive to me.

Lastly, you are your own agency and brand. Don’t think of yourself as an agency creative, but rather a creative that works within an agency, for now. Agencies will rise and fall, but your personal brand needs to be resilient.  Seeing yourself as a brand in its own right gives you a different perspective on your career and the decisions you’ll need to make along the way.

CB: How do you feel the industry as a whole can support young creatives? 

JM: There’s some incredible initiatives out there but I think the most valuable thing we can all do is give time. It’s easy to forget how desperately we sought advice and guidance when first starting out. We’re firm believers in being generous with time; just being willing to respond to an email from a young graduate, or sitting with a student to help shape their book is worth its weight in gold to a young creative.

CB: And finally… where do you draw inspiration from?

JM: One of the key reasons creatives hate timesheets (sorry, Jaimes), is we often find it impossible to distinguish between working hours and personal hours. We have to be sponges to the world around us in order to make the necessary connections within our work. And to that point, I find most of my inspiration takes place in the hours between work. For example, and hopefully this doesn’t sound too creepy, but I love watching and listening to people. Yup, that definitely sounds creepy, but you’ll be amazed at how something like public transport can be an incredible wealth of insights into human behaviour if you take the time to look around more often.