From founding Division 11, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Brand Design at Hurley, to Vice President, Global Creative Director at Nike Retail, Adrian Nyman has mastered the art and science of by dreaming up and guiding the creative vision of some of the world’s most loved brands by manifesting that vision through digital and physical installations and maintaining cohesion across product segments, marketing campaigns, fashion lines, by ensuring the visuals, messaging, interactive and motion designs deliver unforgettable experiences.
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From founding Division 11, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Brand Design at Hurley, to Vice President, Global Creative Director at Nike Retail, Adrian Nyman has mastered the art and science of by dreaming up and guiding the creative vision of some of the world’s most loved brands by manifesting that vision through digital and physical installations and maintaining cohesion across product segments, marketing campaigns, fashion lines, by ensuring the visuals, messaging, interactive and motion designs deliver unforgettable experiences.
Web: www.unknownorigins.com
Twitter: UnknownOrigins9
Instagram: unknownoriginsuo77
Hello, I'm Roy Sharples, and welcome to the unknown origins podcast series, the purpose of which is to provide inspirational conversations with creative industry personalities on entrepreneurship, pop culture, art, music, film and fashion. Today's topic is creative direction, for which I have the pleasure of chatting with Adrian Nyman from finding division 11 to becoming a senior vice president of marketing and brand design at hardily, to then becoming Vice President, global creative director at Nike retail. Adrian has mastered the art and science by dreaming up and guiding the creative vision of some of the world's most loved brands, by manifesting that vision through digital and physical installations, and maintaining cohesion across marketing campaigns, fashion lines, by ensuring the visuals, messaging, interactive and motion designs, deliver unforgettable experiences derian, where did all originate from
Adrian Nyman:I think as all creatives can kind of attest you, you're really born with it, right? Like you just you open your eyes and you see the world in the only way you know how right and nobody who's creative really probably understands that they're any different than anyone else. But as they go through their adolescence in their life, they start to understand that they maybe have a perspective that that isn't shared by their fellow classmates, or is slightly, slightly left or right of where the mainstream is. And I found that too, I found that like, I was very much in a daydream world, I was very much in a little bit of a conflict as I grew up between the academia education system, and my own curiosity and creativity. And I really struggled with this, it was really hard. And it it kind of pushed me a little bit to the, to the edges of the kids in the classes and in the groups that I was in. And then I realized, you know, later in life in my mid teens that I was diagnosed with a learning disability called dyslexia. And for, I think it's pretty widely understood, but it's a it's a learning disability that basically scrambles up the kind of inputs of reading and writing in a way where they just don't add to the same word or, or representation that other people see. So it makes it incredibly difficult to, to read and write in ways that the average, you know, kid in your class does. And that was a huge breakthrough for me, because all of a sudden, I I started to understand that maybe there's a reason why I struggled so hard academically. The reason I bring this up is and what this has to do with creativity and being a great creative director or just being able to lead creative vision is my adversity around dyslexia created a super sense of superpower, if you will, within creativity, right, I was already very creative, but my inability to function in the traditional sense of the academic world, it really rewired my brain to overcompensate creatively. So I always use kind of like the analogy like, Hey, if you're running and you twist your ankle, you're gonna have to put more weight on your other leg to kind of take the weight of that injury and your body kind of compensates in a way so you can keep moving, my brain did the same thing. And it really supercharged and tapped into kind of the creative zones of my brain, where I became much more articulate from oral vocabulary standpoint, I became much more of a visual storyteller. And it also created probably more of a physical presentation style. Because I was handicapped in one area, I was overcompensating in these other areas. Now, I only say that with, you know, hindsight, 2020, right, like at the time, I didn't feel like, Oh, this is such a cool day. I'm dyslexic, and I could, you know, I'm actually becoming more creative. Like it was not that way at all. I felt very, you know, if anybody can go back to their adolescent itself, there's no cool thing about being different, right. Like you're Variants appear, I really felt like I had this kind of Scarlet Letter black cloud over me, I felt like I was marginalized and not really seen and I couldn't really compete or perform at the level other other kids did. So it was a very hard thing for me. And it created an amazing creative capabilities for me. But it also created something else that became very, very powerful and very meaningful, which was, when you're on the outside of something when you're on the edges of the mainstream, when you feel like you don't fit in. And I think a lot of creative people can understand this. It gives you a deeper empathy for people who are different. It gives you a point of view, where you feel like you haven't been seen, or you've been marginalized in ways that when you come together with other people shared experiences, it just gives you, I believe, a more humane and a more open perspective to different types of people and experiences. That ability has served me incredibly well through my career in that. When building teams, we're bringing diverse brains together, seeking our different points of view, different life experiences, different ethnic backgrounds, all of those distinctions create the most powerful creative output as they create the most provocative thought processes. And they create the richest work. So I, I learned early on that my ability to not view the world through one prism of, you know, whatever the core mainstream group was tracking on, and my ability to kind of be left or right of center of that and view the world, maybe from the edges a little bit, allow me to maybe see things that helped me navigate the world and build organizations and bring people together in a different way. So I'm very grateful. Like I said, when you're young, none of this feels cool. None of it feels like, Oh, that's great, you know, first perspective, or I've got this great skill, you just kind of feel like you're not as good as everyone else. And only only later in life, when I started to understand the value that those things brought me that adversity that that challenge or disadvantage, really became a superpower. So that, I think it's just helpful to kind of talk a little bit about that, I will say, it's a hard thing to talk about. Nobody ever likes to talk about, like, what they're not good at, or, or something that they perceive as a weakness. And I think only as you grow emotionally. And as a human life experience, you are you able to kind of come to terms with some of those things in a way that's more productive and positive. I will say there was a mentor of mine and a great creative leader. His name's john hook, and he's the chief design Officer of Nike. And I've been very blessed and fortunate to have a lot of access with him throughout my career. And I remember very early on when I was you know, much younger in my career. He he very candidly told me, he was dyslexic, and he had this saint, you know, and I could not tell him that I was dyslexic, where I had this experience, I'd still felt like this was kind of a little secret I was hiding. And I remember him coming out, just being very honest with me about his own experience with it. And, and I just was, it was very inspiring to me that, that you could be so vulnerable, and so open with, with challenges and adversity that you you've experienced. So I don't want to go into a super self help book on, you know, adversity and all that but I just think it's helpful to, to kind of outline like these two experiences early on in my life gave me more purpose, it supercharged my creativity and ways when my brain had to kind of recalibrate. And then it created a deeper empathy and understanding. I think, just for people and their journeys. Those two things together, have been incredibly helpful for me. As I have kind of navigated my career, and continued to drive and be a part of great creative work across Nike as well as other brands at a very young age of kindergarten. I was left handed and my kindergarten teacher forced me to write because it was seen as witchcraft is just ridiculous melancholy can inspire creativity and people who have dealt with Things like poverty, prosecution, social alienation, psychological trauma, substance abuse, high stress, and other perceived negative factors that can develop a trauma or an illness,
Roy Sharples:this can ultimately fuel the ingenuity of the person. And that, to your point, you were an outsider, and you could see things that perhaps others couldn't. And that helped you find novel things or to really find true authentic originality where maybe others couldn't get fuels, and creative people's ingenuity, through developing an extraordinary intellectual ability, mental toughness and grit, creative productivity, and an insatiable drive for self actualization that takes its own unique formula and path.
Adrian Nyman:That's right. And I think that's a great, that's a great point is, I think, as creatives were very, like I said earlier, like you grow in your career, you know, you open your eyes to the world, and you see it through a different lens than, than the average, yeah, person through the way you're born and hardwired, and you're just a creative person, that creativity, that desire, the need to create is the rocket fuel that fuels us all. And I've said so many times like, there's, I mean, this sounds a little sinister, but I think some people might relate to it is, there's really a hole inside of me, there's an emptiness inside of me. And I am constantly trying to fill that emptiness with creativity and amazing work in and ideas and actualizing. And seeing them become something that I could not have foreseen or anticipated. And there's almost like an arms race that I'm in with myself, where I'm always trying to stay two steps ahead of emptiness. And the emptiness is not a that's not a call, like, sad thing. It's just a desire and a drive to see what's beyond I what was beyond what we can see what is just around the corner. What is the one gift? Yeah, and I think a lot of people are born with this curiosity, to expose and to put a shape on that and to create a world. Just, I think our best, at least for me, creativity that resonates the most with me, is creativity that takes on its own life and takes on its own meaning beyond my intention. Yeah, so I almost think about creative creativity, sometimes, like on a spectrum of on one end of the spectrum, you have the technical tech technician, the craftsman, yeah, the perfectionist of execution, and then on the other end of the spectrum might have the freeform unbridled artists. Yeah, these two spectrums really create the most potent creativity on hand, if you have all are in all improvisation. Creativity becomes a little unbridled. And it almost becomes too hard. When we think of creativity in the context of transferable content, right, if we think about it, in the context of what how brands use creativity, if you're an artist, you can be completely unbridled and freeform. But if we're going to talk about it in the context of Nike or other brands, Apple whatever, you've got to marry the uncontrollable power of true artists and with the pragmatic execution and tactician arm of a craftsman. And the best where both of those mindsets come together to deliver the beauty and the execution, but leave evidence of the crazy unbridled art. And it's that X factor of the improvisation married with the beauty of the execution that allow people to still see something in the work that we have not defined. Yes. And I think that's really important. Because if we fill in all the notes in the song, it doesn't leave any room for the viewer or the participant to put themselves into it. And it's much like a movie, which is obviously a high form of art and creativity. The movies allow us to see ourselves in them in our own way. Yeah. So you need to leave enough space and enough openness in the eye. idea that people can breed their own life into it. It can't just be a mere reflecting back your ideas and someone
Roy Sharples:100%. And tha's a really well made point. And I think as well, when you loo at the education system, thi is absolutely related to wha you're saying. But if you loo at the grassroots in terms of ow we are educated, and I'm say ng this very generally, the edu ation system is still pretty muc designed in terms of the Ind strial Revolution. And the ski l set the core capabilities, all of that right. Well, at a ver young age, creativity is see as something that's that's inc dental, it's a nice to have and it's usually managed via, at a v ry young age, or you won't get a job as a musician, you can t make money as a dancer you Why would you want to go into cur tion is you know, all those thi gs are seen as like hobby hor es or novelties. And I think it' the human condition is a nec ssity of human beings whe eby creativity is a core is a c re skill, a core competency, jus like reading, writing, ari hmetic, and it should be nur ured. That way, not just edu ation, but throughout an ent re person's life experience and journey to fill that void tha you just is that what ins ired and attracted you to bec me a creative director in the first place?
Adrian Nyman:It's a great question I love I love the way that you kind of set up the, the social kind of construct around society and creativity. And I'll say this growing up, I didn't even know there wasn't, I had no idea there was even a career or a job, I had no idea that I could make a living, I didn't know that there were creative directors, I thought, if you can draw good, you could be an artist. And then maybe if you're like, a really good artist, you might be able to be famous, like Andy Warhol, like really, that was about as, like, sophisticated, as I understood, the, you know, the purpose of my creativity, so and my generation, I don't want to date myself too much. But you know, I'm, I'm different than the the modern and the newer generation of creatives. But, and I and I genuinely feel that each generation is having more purpose and power and autonomy over their futures. But when I grew up, it was very much your point, like a kind of an anomaly that, you know, the education system clearly did not put a premium on it, it was not considered a good endeavor of time, right. So, as I kind of, you know, as I came into the world, in the industry of creativity, I came in really through the passion. Like I said, earlier, I was kind of in this arms race to just create. And I, I, again, you know, was feeling very disenfranchised. And I found a group of people in the mid 90s, that really, for the first time in my life, I felt like I met a tribe, a group, a union of people who shared and supported each other, the way that I felt, and that was the skateboarding culture of the 90s. As well as the early culture, and punk rock, those fringe groups at the time, they were friends at the time, they've since become much more mainstream. That was a DIY culture, that was a culture where there were no rules, there were no preset caste system. And that's where I really found my ability to turn my own creative ambitions into reality. And that started super simply with you know, every group of friends has like different friends that are good at things, right. Like, you know, you've got a friend that's, you know, a super good athlete, maybe he's the best skater in a group and got a friend that made you know, his super social and can connect everyone with different groups. And I was the friend that was the creative kind of artsy kid, right? And as my friends became, you know, our click our group of friends became you know, they became a professional skateboarders as we grew up, you know, in these couple years and when you become a professional skateboarder, so this story might be too long, but when you become a professional skateboarder, you get a board with your name on it to skateboard. It's called signature board at your pro model. And it was only natural for my friends that were turning pro. Some of them asked me to do there are You know, hey, I'm gonna be a pro, would you design my skateboard graphic. And it was literally that simple. That was like my introduction into you, I can get paid, and make some money doing this thing that I just do anyway, because I like doing it. Yeah. So it started very naively through just kind of, you know, necessity really. And it just grew from there. So I kind of went from the transference of graphic design and art on the boards. And then I started doing graphic design through apparel and T shirt graphics. And I started a small clothing label around my skate culture, and that kind of manifested itself into kind of the brand, but I started did not become successful. But what did transpire from that was a lot of other brands had recognized some of the work I was doing and said, Hey, why don't you do that for us? And so I said, Sure. So I kind of morphed my brand into a design studio and had a handful of designers and myself, and we would, you know, we'd work on a parallel collections and graphics and all that kind of stuff for the skate world. And we do, you know, a handful of different companies a season, and then that just slowly grew out of skateboarding, as I got older into bigger brands, and, and it was a really organic, very unplanned broach to do my career, you know, and only in retrospect, sometimes do I say to other creatives, like, hey, the best plan is no plan. And don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean like just freeform your life and just follow every, you know, unknown whim. But all it means that you've got to have the driving force in your life has to be your passion. If you if you substitute your passion, and this happened to me at one point in my career, where I got distracted, and I started to substitute my passion for title money, yeah, corporate advancement, whatever you want to call it, and I kind of shifted my focus to where I wanted to be a vice president, or I wanted to be this thing, or I wanted to make this much money. And I made a really, you know, I had a realization, like, a couple years where I said, I'm really unhappy. Like, I don't realize I didn't even realize that I had kind of deviated from my core belief system. And I had kind of accidentally lost my focus on what really made me happy. And I kind of got, you know, hoodwinked or distracted with this other stuff. And I and I made a conscious effort in that moment. One, I said, Hey, I'm not happy. What does that mean? And how do I fix it. And in self reflection, I said, I'm just going to go back to not having a plan, I'm not going to make some grandiose, I plan on being the, you know, the CEO of XYZ or whatever, I'm not going to make some big career declaration, like every two years, I've got to be at this level. And I'm going to took all that energy, and I'm just going to put it around working with the people that I care most about, and most inspired by, is I learned the most from the people I care and, and I'm inspired by, and I'm going to follow the work and the projects that are most exciting. So the second I did that, as a creative and younger creative, my whole world went back to a much simpler and a much more pure, happy kind of orientation. And here's the good news. I genuinely believe everyone has to do that journey on their own, because everyone's ambition is different. But the second I did that, all the successes that I hadn't previously tried to do came as an outcome. They were almost like a predetermined outcome, because the work I was doing, and the people that I was doing it with, there was real energy and real ambition around doing the best thing we could do. That was where I needed to be focused. So that's a long kind of diatribe on. Not having a plan is the best plan. But It simply says, Don't get distracted with your social status. How many Instagram followers you have, what's your title? How cool Are you get distracted with? How fucking awesome is the work you're doing? How Chagas are the people you're dealing with. If you've really obsess and just go super hard at those things, everything's gonna come to you. You're gonna have an amazing career. You're gonna have them You know, financial success, you're going to be able to provide for yourself in ways, but you've got to almost do it with a maniacal focus on the work, and the people that you deal with.
Roy Sharples:That's great advice. Adrian, I think the other thing as well that I find really admirable, within your story, that as well as, you know, your self awareness, and you're also your, your moral compass, and how you let yourself be truly guided by that, to find that to go back to your center, and to find your way and to then navigate through your true values. And then, as an outcome of that, as you said, the goodness can all the other things became a byproduct of that once you can went back to your center, and you followed your true passion and, and love and it was a ranking of people and the work that you were going to do and that's really inspirational. What does being a creative director mean to you?
Adrian Nyman:Well, in that's a great question, because that relationship has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. You know, when I it's really funny, because well, it's not funny, actually. Because this even goes back a little bit to the, you know, the commentary you are making around our education system, and the way that we think about creators, and the way that we set them up for success from from, you know, from kids, to adults, to, to career professionals. When I started, it was all about just pragmatically, I have to do everything because I don't have a team and I don't have budgets, and I don't have anything, but the passion and the desire to create whatever it was, that was fine. I wanted to do everything. And I wanted to be the author of every little piece, I wanted to do the video, the motion graphic, the product, I wanted to do the copywriting, I want to do everything, I didn't see any reason why you wouldn't complete your vision, and put shape on every dimension of it. As you get older, and you start to work with teams and groups, and the bigger those teams and groups become, you have to renegotiate your role in the process. I'm not a big team sports person. But I will use a very common analogy, which is called a ball, right? Like somebody who wants to take a shot every time. And as you become more mature and more skilled, and more proficient as a creative, you actually have to demonstrate restrain and be strategic about where you apply yourself. And I think it's kind of a interesting, dynamic, because we grow up as creatives and we do amazing work. And people are like, holy shit, that's, oh my god, I love this, you're so good. Like, come do this for me. And you're like, great, I'm like, wow, people love this stuff. And I'm so that's affirmation that I'm doing the right thing. So I get older, I get more more people around me I'm making start to manage a team. And now the thing that made me successful, is no longer the thing that's going to make me successful, right. So the individual contributor has now shifted from me as a dealer to me as a leader. And now that I have a team of people under me, I can't be the creative hands anymore, I can't be the one executing the word. Because that is diminishing to the people below you that you're managing. So it's a really interesting trends transition as a leader and as a creative director, because you kind of go from the jeweler, to the creative director. those roles are very different. And no one tells you or teaches you how to go from doing the work to directing the work. Because I always use this analogy. When you're young, you're like, I got a project. To complete this project I have to learn I have to learn some instruments, there's tools you know, if I'm working with clay, I need to learn how to use the pottery wheel if I'm working with their video, I need to learn how to use the software become a photographer, camera, etc. Right? So you through your projects, teach yourself what your school and do all these things. You teach yourself how to use these tools. When you transition from, you know, art director, design director, an individual contributor of creative work to a creative director that's leading teams of creators. Yeah, you need to learn the new tool, which is people just like you know, Photoshop, you need to learn people. And I see time and time again. Great creatives that then get put in Creative Director roles. That's really struggle because they're like all of a sudden They're, their personal value is so connected to the output and execution of the work. They all of a sudden feel like there's fraud or they're not contributing at the level, they should, because their hands aren't on the mouse or their hand isn't on the brush. Yeah. And so it's a really important transition as creatives grow through the organizations that they're in. And as they take on more responsibility and start to lead, as true creative directors, you have to at some point, acknowledge that your role has changed. And what is your value proposition in this context, you're no longer going to be the value provider of the motion graphic, or the graphic design or the layout or whatever dimension it is, your now your role will be to identify the creative territory, the team will work within, to then assess and understand the potential and feasibility of everyone on the team. And then provide opportunities within that creative territory for each person to have a runway to exceed their potential. I know that sounds a little like, I don't know, I don't know what it sounds like. It kind of sounds like a bunch of jibber jabber. But the long story is, everyone wants to do challenging work. Your job as a creative director is to understand what makes each person check, put them into a group and an organization around a body of work, and then give them the room to do that work in a way where they can achieve things they haven't achieved before. That's really Your job is to create a bridge from what they can do to what they've never done. And if you can do that, for everyone on the team in an orchestrated, coordinated way, you will have a breakthrough work. And all of a sudden, you will realize that the payoff emotionally and the satisfaction of leading a team can be a million times more satisfying than maybe contributing one element to the project or, or whatever your previous role might have been. But until you succeed or do that, it's very hard to make the leap. Because the gravity of what you've done will always pull you back to what is known. The good news is creatives love the unknown. So you'll just have to acknowledge to yourself, this is a new type of skill that I have to learn. And if I can commit and master that skill, the same way I mastered Photoshop, there's untold satisfaction on the other side of it. But I see many times, no creatives are told that no creatives are coached or mentored to, to understand the context and the role that they're now playing. And what you end up with is a creative director that tries to do everyone's work. Yeah. And then that needs a really diminishing effect on the team, or the team doesn't feel valued, they feel like they're failing. When your boss comes in and does re does your work, because he isn't happy with it, instead of taking the time to build the bridge to get you to where the work should be. That that isn't healthy for the boss that isn't healthy. I don't want to say bosses, that's I don't really feel that that's the right word. But the creative director has to have the confidence to trust the team. Yeah, I know that that again, sounds very like a self help book. But it's the only only way not to say
Roy Sharples:that, hey, this is by the way being you're coming across authentic and you're just insight after insight. So to talk, kudos to you. You're doing brilliantly. Of course, the so that's a nice segue into so in the context of the creative process, and to use your term there around making the unknown known. How do you go about doing that? And also, how do you come up? How do you conjure up ideas, develop those ideas into concepts, and then bring those concepts to actualization?
Adrian Nyman:Man, that's a that is a great question. And that's one that is so nuanced, and, and and really, you know, I think so, you know, earlier we kind of talked about this idea that their creativity lives on a spectrum, right and one is you have the free form and possession of art and on the other end, you have more of the Craftsman technician when you set up a process to create Great creative work, you need to you need a mechanism, you need a device to organize and put everything in, or you're just not going to be able to make sense of anything, and you're not going to be able to actually deliver a repeatable process that can deliver great creative work. So basically, for me, when I think about the framework or that approach, I try and create segments within it. So for instance, I'll make this up, but I think people can still see their version of this. You know, we always try and start any creative endeavor with, with some kind of hypothesis or insight around what we're trying to do. And I think that has to start, and I'll use, you know, hey, working for a large consumer athletic company, a lot of insights start around, hey, what's the problem, or the friction point, or the thing that the athletes or consumers are dealing with, that's a great place to start. And what you, what we would do is, we would really just try them, we would just try and mind, you know, a bunch of theories and hypothesis around what we thought were the problems, we would then try and validate that through quantitative research, right? So we might then say, Okay, here's hypothesis. Now let's, let's take some external data, focus groups, other research, and we will look at that against what we thought, right? And between what we thought and what we learned, there was usually some kind of interesting paradox, or, or friction point or something I'm getting tapped into, you know, I'll make an example. We might say, like, hey, runners, I think they are, you know, we might say, hey, the world is being urbanized, right? Like, the super cities are growing exponentially becoming more dense, more, more, more and more people more chaos. runners are using running, to create calm and to tune out and to create some disconnection from the, you know, kind of frenetic chaos of, of the urban city centers that they're living in. So that those two things might create a creative territory for us to start exploring. From that from the inside, in the in the assumption hypothesis, where they start to lay out Okay, so reading is a release or escape. What is the world of what is the anti city world of escapism? Maybe, we might start to say, what are our morals that manifest that idea? And, you know, you might say, dystopian Ridley Scott looking Blade Runner, you might say it's like running on acid psychedelic, you know, Peter max world might say, you might come up with a bunch of creative tropes that you can start to infuse with, with all of all of all of that meaning. And those routes that you might, you might start are very high level routes. The important thing as it is creative process, those routes, take on their own personality, and they expose opportunity and meaning beyond what you can anticipate in the beginning. So through the process, you have to have an openness, and a flexibility to the ideas that you're navigating to not be too rigid, and like, Oh, it's all about, you know, outdoor running now. And we're just going to be trailing, I'm overly simplifying. But you've got to be able to explore the extreme edges of these worlds that are kind of world building around your hypothesis. And I've always believed that if you push the teams and yourself to the edges of the idea, like, go to the edge and then jump off. Oh, there will you find the most interesting, most meaningful insights to bring back and then do something a little closer to the center of the rest of your organization and the organization I've heard about the business or function Yes. Yep, can digest and appreciate. As creatives we have a very high taste level we have an eccentricity and our desire Sometimes is more aggressive and more pronounced, then we're just further, we're just further down the conceptual pipeline than our business partners sometimes. So sometimes we have to jump off the edge of the cliff into the abyss, and then climb back out and moderate those ideas to a more palatable version, right? Yeah. At that point, it's really becomes about fortifying your ideas and dimensionalizing them across all that all the simple aspects of your creative organization, right. So you know, just the tactical, just pack the tactical stuff like, type arfi, color, motion, UI environments, I mean, there's just a whole laundry list of functional executions that take that kernel and bring it to life into it. From there, you then take that you've edited down to this one central hypothesis or premise example world world building of that. Many you got to I don't know. And you then advocate for that work beyond your group, and you break other assumptions. And, and I'm going very specific, right now, if you work in a corporation or an agency, you'll probably relate to this more. If you have your own brand, you probably won't, because you just do what you want to do, which is great, too. But at that point, once you've kind of landed your world, you then pressure test that against the organization or the client, and the client or organization is going to come back and try and pull it apart, and they're going to challenge it, they're gonna, they're gonna come up points of view that you might not have considered. And I think as true creatives, we never want to become too rigid in our idea of complete. So at the same time, you don't want to just let everyone have an opinion or blow your idea apart to the point where it doesn't mean anything anymore. But you've got to be able to strike the right balance of hearing outside perspective and feedback from unsolicited voices, ie, people that don't operate in the creative world. And be able to understand the value in those and be able to separate the good ideas from the bad ones. And then how do we augment and advance the work? To me, that's the hardest part, the easiest part is creating a hypothesis in the world. The hardest part is then birthing it and getting it adopted and accepted by the client or the rest of the organization. The bigger company, the more complexity, the more complex it Plek city, the more the weaker the idea usually becomes. So there's a lot of there's a lot of emotional and, you know, personal navigation that you have to, to protect great creative work. Creating is the easiest part, protecting it advocating and getting it into the world and its most pure form as Polly. That's really what the job is sometimes, at least for me. Yeah. And that's my role as a creative director to like I expect my art director to evangelho size to the CEO or to a director and another function, why it's pink, or why, you know, the copied zone is the way it is. Yeah, that's the creative director's job is to advocate and protect the work.
Roy Sharples:What are the key skills needed to be a creative director?
Adrian Nyman:It's such a great question. I think, you know, let's talk about creative direction as the creative director, let's not talk about it as just being a creative. And I think that's an obvious distinction. But yes, and then last, the creative director's job is to, you need to have great empathy for your team, you need to be able to understand your team. You need to know what motivates them. So you can then lay out a path for them and it allows them to exceed their potential. Nobody wants to fail. It's just human nature. So you as a creative director have to create a safe space for them to to get into unfamiliar territory in a way where they can succeed. Second part is for you to truly know them. You have to build trust. To build trust means they need to know you. So I think as a creative director, you can't just be this directorial like I know all the answers and I'm gonna, I'm gonna just lay out what everyone's job is. You're gonna have to Present yourself and your most, I don't want to say vulnerable, but most authentic self, be really honest with what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are. Be honest with yourself, as well as them, and then have a dialogue. Once you can do that, when they understand you and you understand them. You guys then have a true, productive unit, what do you create great work. So that's step one, as a creative director, is the rapport and the respect and trust that you have to build with your team. And the bigger the team are the system do. You know? Imagine trying to do that for 200 people, it's it can be incredibly difficult. And there takes a whole new set of skills and tactics to do that. Once you establish rapport and respect and trust, you then need to set up kind of what I talked about is an Agreed Framework on the way you're going to approach work. You don't want to be recreating the wheel every time because it's exhausting and counterproductive. So having a process that everyone participates in an understood way, and the way that new, well give direction to the team, and the way that you will get he back to the work needs to be done in a thoughtful, purposeful way. If you're shine every Friday afternoon, and all of a sudden just saying you know what, I don't think it should be green. That is not a productive way. Because now the team is spinning on your comment. They're they're spending the whole week trying to that weekend trying to kind of fix what they think maybe you saw a problem, you might have just been verbalizing a feeling. And now they take on that conversation to heart and they're working all weekend to try and change something that you might not even want them to change. Worst case scenario is you didn't want them to change it. And they're working over the weekend, which I would say is really poor leadership. Yeah, for so you got setup process and a rigor around how work gets kicked off and how it gets reviewed, approved and move forward. The third part, first part is rapport. Third, second part is process. third part is your, your job as the creative director is to advocate and champion, and protect that work beyond the walls of the studio. So as you as the senior representative of the creative function, interact with other units, the business units, merchandising, operations, whatever, whatever Every company has different you know, it could be technology, it could be, it could be any million things, but you are going to represent the work. And you've got to be able to as a creative director, this is going to sound a little cheesy, maybe, but you've got to be a salesman, you've got to be able to sell those ideas, and get people to buy into them. Because what you're selling is trust. I'm sorry, if you're not selling, what you're selling, and those people's confidence, yeah, you're not selling a creative idea to them. They don't understand creative at the level that you and your team do. So what you're selling them is the confidence they have in you on the team. Because if they don't believe they're going to start picking apart, they're going to start to question why is it being? Why are we doing that. So you've really got to sell the idea that we got this, we're the world's best creative group, we understand what we're, you know, our shared goal as a company is to X, Y, and Z. And we're delivering on that. So as soon as much about our creative I like or don't like, this is about confidence in this team to deliver the work to deliver the result or goal or whatever the thing is you're trying to do. So that really is a strong personality, you've got to be able to navigate complex organizations, you've got to be able to be a salesman, you've got to be able to be an influencer. You've got to be able to advocate for the work of people that don't have to listen to you and they they don't report to you and they don't have to agree or approve what you do. So by spirit of that you really have to have a great social skill for for navigating all those kind of ins and outs because it can be challenging. Like I said, I think that's the hardest part of the job is probably after the creative Stan is protecting, navigating and getting it into the world. Once it gets into the world. Managers fun, let me just get see, you know, hey, David succeeded in it or not, and even projects that don't succeed. There's still so many learnings you can get from them that it would be a totally misrepresents a misrepresentation to say they didn't, that they weren't feeling.
Roy Sharples:That's fantastic insight. So, Adrian, you're no one a time machine, and it's going backward. Based on the lessons learned to date, in terms of the pitfalls to avoid, and the keys to success, what would you say to a younger, Adrian, you know,
Adrian Nyman:I made some realizations later in life that I would have loved to make earlier. And I think, you know, some of the things we talked about, on a personal level, being confident in, you know, you're not measured by, you know, the mainstream cast that's set out in society doesn't represent your value, or doesn't represent your worth or measurement. My my security and my vulnerability around my learning disability, it was very traumatic for me growing up, you know, like, I really, you know, had a lot of insecurity about that. So I would have loved to make that realization early on in life that, you know, like, education and intelligence aren't mutually exclusive. And I'm just as good as the smartest kid in this room, even though I do things differently. And actually, that's something I should be proud of. So I would have loved to have that, you know, it took me until my mid 20s, to really have that reflection, same thing, I would have loved to have been a better manager earlier, I really had to learn the hard way that the team isn't there just to be your 24 seven design hands. And if I can't get the team to the outcome that I thought I might want, that doesn't make it okay for me to do the work and diminish the work that they're doing. And those are, those are really toxic behaviors that, you know, I had, unfortunately, learned from and I say this with a grain of salt, because I think everyone has that journey to go on. I mean, some people are just better people, leaders than others, I would say I would have loved to have not maybe cause some other teams, the pain I did early on in my career, because I just wasn't mature enough to understand what my role was. The third thing is, just like I said earlier, is Don't get distracted with the monetary with the status with the bullshit, like, stayed here. The same thing that excited you when you were six years old, is the same thing that excites you when you're 61. So stay pure Stay, stay true to the do great work. Do what people that inspire you and let the chips fall already main. Because it's a boondoggle. If you get distracted with that other stuff, and I and I again, I learned that lesson. Later, I would have loved to learn it earlier. Those are the kind of three things that probably I would, I think, would have been nice to kind of just arrived at some of those conclusions earlier than I did. And you know what, there's, here's the funny thing is, the more I can, the more I can be honest about I don't know what I'm doing, the better off I am. And I think you know, the second you started thinking got it figured out like I'm saying this because the Should I just said sounds very like righteous like, yeah, Adrian's got it all figured out, I did not have figured out those are some observations and some self reflections I've had that I'm better for. But the second I become complacent with my ability to question and be self reflective and analytical of what I'm doing is the second that I actually started to have regret and make mistakes that I wish I didn't. So when I look to the future, I constantly trying to just be as open minded and self critical of myself as I can and to really not sweep things under the rug and to be really and this is when you're having in your own mind. This isn't like you have to you know, crucify yourself in the town square. But you need to really be honest with yourself, like, you know, did I know you might want about these things in a way that are true to my values? And and am I moving my life forward in a way that I'm going to look back on with happiness and respect or am I going to have regret, and the more you can stay flexible and in the moment and be self critical? As you look to the future? I just ain't nobody better
Roy Sharples:Tilton forward. What's your vision for the future of creativity and bearing in mind that the forces that's driving change within within the industry, social, cultural, economic, political, and technology and the role that creativity will play.
Adrian Nyman:Man, this is like the best, this is the best. Okay, well done. jam on. I could we could spend the whole time talking about this Who says I think it's a very rich question and territory. Okay. I'm going to just kind of, I'll say this and there's going to be like a little bit of Groundhog Day here is I'm going to say some things that maybe have already come across a bit. But the world needs creativity more than ever right now. The role that we play as creatives, I think, can can't be understated on the value in the end, just the what we can create for society, right now is needed more than ever. And the reason I say that is we, you know, and we're all having our own experiences with the turmoil of the world through the isolation of the pandemic, the social unrest, the systematic oppression of African Americans and, and this is different all over the world. So I don't, I don't want to make this a North American thing. But creatives are have the ability to lead the culture to a positive, brighter future. And I think the way that we use our powers for good to bring people together and to paint a future and articulate purpose bigger than where we've been, I think that's all our calling right now. And I know that again, sounds a little, I don't know, kind of hippie, dippie, and New Agey. And that's kind of a lofty thing to say. But I think by nature of our appearances in the world, as creatives, and I said this earlier, like, I genuinely feel like my experience as an outsider has given me greater empathy, to look at the world through other people's eyes. As creatives, if we all tap into that, I think we will. We'll do great good for the world. And we can create a beacon of hope for people to kind of look to creativity, so dynamic and so broad, that that can be applied in very miniscule micro ways to big macro gestures, and they all matter. So it isn't just about big grandiose declarations, it's about the everyday, it's about the simplicity of just making people smile. So I think we all have that responsibility as creatives, shifting gears. I do believe and this is maybe a little more nefarious sounding, but I do believe that creatives will be the kind of like the last frontier of humanity may be the last defendable. ownable part of of humanity because I'm, I'm not going to go into like doomsday scenario on robots taking over and AI. But I'm going to be pretty, pretty honest, that I do believe that the in inexplicable, you know, creativity is so it's crazy. It's, we don't even understand how we arrive or come up. It's, it's the soul that powers the engine of, of humanity. I believe that neural networks in AI and all of these machine learning algorithms, I feel like creativity is, is the final frontier, that they that it's the code that can't be cracked. Yeah. 100 I know that sounds, it sounds a little crazy, but I genuinely fully believe that. As you know, we're seeing it in real time. We're seeing, you know, chat bots that can, you know, mimic and create human connections where people don't even know that they're not speaking to a real person. So there's a lot of there's a lot of gray area that's going to be filled in between technology and humans and automation of of tasks, automation of functions, that typically were reserved for, you know, hey, that's that's what we do as people well that line is that line in the sand is drastically different. mood. I believe that the creative thought process and the intangibility and the craziness of creativity is kind of like the breaker on the charity that stops the ocean from crashing into the harbor. I don't know I could be wrong. And I'm sure at some point, AI and all these things will figure out creativity too. But I do believe that we, we have a unique responsibility to kind of keep humanity human. I'm not a AI expert. I'm not a technologist. I'm just somebody who gets inspired by creativity. And I'm sure that there's plenty of people who are like, well, creativity has already been hacked, and it's already and so I want to say like, I'm not an expert, but I think we make the future we want to believe and we make the future we want to be and if we can use creativity as the fuel to power that future, I think, I think we'll be in a great place.
Roy Sharples:The key is the intelligent use of creative technology to unlock human ingenuity for the greater good by pushing society forward ethically, and responsibly. The impact of technology disruption in the creative industries alone has been profound. Television distribute distribution has been upended by digital distribution outlets such as Netflix and Hulu, and the music industry, Apple Amazon, Spotify have provided more convenient, accessible and affordable solutions to consumers to download or stream on demand rather than buy records and, and CDs. self publishing online has has forced publishers and printers. Apple Pay and PayPal are dominant in online banking, to the point where physical cash has become irrelevant. Uber and Lyft have made vehicles for higher food delivery package delivery couriers Frank transportation, Airbnb has made home rental more attractive, and in some scenarios, more so than traditional hotel motels and industrial robots have largely displaced assembly line workers. Our outputs are the next generations inputs and the children of this revolution are the new canvas on which the actual values of this revolution will be imposed and materialized. Adrian, thank you so much for your in depth insight. It's been a pleasure. For more inspirational conversations with creative industry personalities on entrepreneurship, pop culture, art, music, film and fashion. Please go to unknown origins.com