The Imposterous: Graham Fink’s Different, but that’s just the way he Finks about things
Today’s Episode features Graham Fink, a creative who has truly committed to exploring just what that ‘title’ can mean. From art school, to starting his own school, from advertising to multimedia artist, from London to China…and now AI, Graham has more than a few tales to tell.
Graham started his career with rejection from his first interview – due to lack of experience. So he returned the next day dressed as dusty old man to highlight this ageist prejudice, he got the job and has been challenging the status quo ever since. His philosophy is that its ok to admit to not knowing what you are doing (unless you are driver of a school bus..) – because if you know, that means you’ve been there before and in fact – ‘Not knowing where the f&ck you are is the most creative place to be’.
From iconic early body of work like ‘British Airways – Face’, abstract Silk Cut advertising that danced its way around the regulators and award winning music videos that led to him becoming the youngest ever president of the D&AD. No matter how well it was going, Graham shook things up by moving to CCO at Ogilvy China in 2011, in 2012 he spotted a 19 year old art school student and together they created the agencies first Cannes Grand Prix for Coca Cola in 2012.
Graham believes that the human mind is limitless, it’s just that we have limits and doubts enforced upon us. He sees one of the most damaging phrases is ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ that this thought is actually a very shaming sentence and the root of all imposter syndrome and the death nell of a thousand potential creative careers. So Graham has actively filled his creative toolbox with new and different trades that he knew nothing about throughout his career – Finking Different all the way.
This includes becoming the agent for AiDA the world’s first humanoid robot artist – who paints, draws and sculpts and is currently exhibiting all over the world. To Graham Ai is not a threat, more that it’s the latest way to evolve the human creative process – that Ai will never have imposter syndrome, they are not capable of self doubt – because there is no ‘self. They have no ego, they just create and maybe we could all learn a thing or two from that.
With a new episode every Monday, The Imposterous is hosted by Michael Knox (ECD, Roller) and Graham Drew (CCO, Grey Malaysia) and as has been created to explore the theory that even the world’s most respected creative professionals suffer pangs of inadequacy that either stifle their potential brilliance or protect them from mediocrity. Tune in to find out how Imposter Syndrome might just be your super power, if you let it.
LISTEN TO THE GRAHAM FINK INTERVIEW
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Listen to previous episodes with Nils Leonard, Laura Petrucelli, Rob Campbell, Kitty Lun, Sarah Barclay, Fran Luckin, Jab Borgstrom, Merlee Jayme, Jo Sellars, Grant Rutherford, Shannon Crowe, Daniel Lobaton, Josy Paul, Vicki Maguire, Paul Catmur, Toby Talbot, Rachel Lounds & Phoebe Sloane here.
