Raf Simons is one of my favourite fashion designers and a prolific creative director who has worked for the likes of Jill Sander, Dior and Calvin Klein since leaving his own renowned label in 2005. Raf started out his career as a furniture designer after a degree in Industrial Design and Furniture Design from a college in Genk in 1991. He would discuss fashion with peers in a cafe in Antwerp, namely the avant-garde designers of the time, Helmut Lang and Martin Margiela. Notably attending a show by the latter in 91, his first runway and an experience that inspired him to go into fashion. Raf built up a visual repertoire through the styles of designers he appreciated and his own knowledge of form to debut in 1995 with his own label Raf Simons thats. Becoming a household name within a matter of years. Rafs meteoric rise to prominence was down to hard work, contacts he made including as a furniture postgrad and an in depth visual knowledge of the market and what had come before. These qualities are all essential for both becoming and sustaining a creative director position, allowing the change over from designer to broader visionary to be achieved.
I think the Raf story is particularly inspiring because of how quickly he adapted skills from a completely different field and applied them to the world of fashion, a concept that really interests me. As a creative director I would need to be adaptive and have knowledge across multiple genres.
At this point I think I need to establish what the difference between an art director and a creative director is as a few of the companies I wanted to investigate, especially brands with publications, tend to have an art director and editor only.
My findings seem to be just around the monetisation side of the business. An art director will be in charge of creative output and fulfilling a brief by creating appropriate design. Whereas a creative director is in charge of ensuring an appropriate design is created and fulfil a business like stance also with the longterm creative outlook of the company in mind. With this new insight I would say that as a younger designer with limited knowledge of the industry, an art director role probably comes before creative direction. Unless I have an exceptional understanding of how to run a business from any previous design positions, for example running my own start up. With these advanced roles its very hard to envisage my way in now but I think its important my visual identity reflects this eye for creative vision.
In terms of art direction in publishing Mike Meiré was brought to my attention as the art director of design, culture and fashion magazine O32c. Mike has an impressive portfolio with 7 magazines that he has or still is art directing, many of fairly disparate contexts, from business to children's fashion. Once again the versatility within his work is exceptional and is a key attribute I should highlight within my branding. Meiré is an infamous provocateur as a uniting aesthetic across his work, he genre defies and uses anti graphic techniques and draw the eye. This over arching philosophy he applies to each magazine individually but also to his work as a whole shows the need for both continuity but also an adaptable skill set. This is one of the reasons I want to highlight the theme of juxtaposition within my branding as it demonstrates great range and shows my own personality traits, whilst from a design perspective giving an element of visual play that can draw the eye and compel potential clients to read on.
One thing I've found across most graphic design specific agencies (especially in the UK) is that they don't have creative directors by and large. An example of this is Pentagram which is to be honest the biggest graphic design agency I can think of. Pentagram operate a partnership model where a board of 19 creators work on individual briefs as well as the larger vision of the company. This is very interesting to me and seems to be a theme throughout most of my favourite UK studios. Spin studio has some one listed as a founder/creative director by virtue of it being founded about 25 years ago, meaning the founder Tony Brook is still the main visionary behind the output of their team of 9 employees. Spins philosophy is based around the physical act of making and stepping away from the computer screen to edit, build or destroy by hand. I also got the impression from the little information online that Tony has a brash confidence about the way he works and believes less in the process and letting a client dictate Spins every move, more in their ability to produce things in their own style. This is a very graphic design ethos I feel as a customer should come to you because they like your work, not because you do things on computers like the next company. Of course a balance must be struck and their balance is the job of the creative director.
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