Latest / The Spark Podcast: Nashville / Dale Addy | Designing to Create, Teach, and Inspire

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Dale Addy | Designing to Create, Teach, and Inspire · The Spark Podcast: Nashville

0:00
So often young designers, especially, say, they get a project
0:04
to work on a logo for, let's say tire company.
0:08
It could be anything.
0:09
A lot of times the first thing they'll do
0:10
is they'll go to Google Images and say, show me logos for tire companies,
0:14
and I'll pops up more or less the second you do that,
0:17
you're already locked into something that it's really hard to break out of.
0:21
So what I was trying to do is, is use your own ideas first.
0:25
I'm not I'm not anti googling something or.
0:28
Yeah or anti research.
0:30
I'm actually very pro research use Google
0:33
and other models to help really get your research down.
0:37
But don't run to it for visuals.
0:40
Use your brain first, then once you've created stuff,
0:43
then you can look at Google images just to make sure
0:45
you're not stepping on something that's already out there.
0:47
I just find that a better workflow because once you Google something
0:51
or once you image
0:52
search something, your mind can't help it be completely locked into that.
0:56
And it's really hard to break that chain.
0:59
Nashville is alive with music.
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Sure, but creativity also thrives in our art.
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Marketing, technology, food, and in every corner of our community.
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On Creative Assembly's The Sparks podcast.
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Our mission is to amplify Nashville's diverse creative voices, foster growth
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Each episode will take a deep dive
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We'll explore their creative processes, the challenges they face,
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Welcome to the Spark Podcast, brought to you by Snapshot,
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a digital agency on a mission to serve with heart,
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execute with excellence and build something bigger together.
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And now here's the spark.
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Hey, welcome to this FAQ.
1:49
I'm Mark Scrivener, your host.
1:50
I'm super excited about today's episode.
1:53
I've got a good friend here with me.
1:55
Dale, Addy, Dale, you've, had an interesting trajectory through the years.
2:00
You've went from, working your way up at Dell before that merger happened.
2:05
You went out and started your own, DNA creative and did that for quite a while.
2:10
And I know we did a few projects together,
2:13
and now you're doing full time teaching at Belmont University.
2:17
Really?
2:17
Like leading the next level of,
2:20
training the next level of leaders in the creative marketing space.
2:24
So, you know, it's great to have you on the show,
2:26
Dale, look forward to learning more about you through this episode.
2:30
Yeah, well, thank you for having me. I'm glad to be happy to be here.
2:32
Yeah, well, maybe just to kick us off.
2:35
Dale, maybe you can take us through your journey of kind of where you came from.
2:39
What got you into this world?
2:40
Yeah.
2:41
Well, I would say, like most kids, I wanted to be in art.
2:47
I want to be an artist.
2:48
And, like most parents, my dad said, you can't make any money in art.
2:53
So he wanted me to go to business school.
2:55
And I somehow, learned along the way that graphic design was kind
2:59
of the mixture of art and business, and that kind of kicked it off for me.
3:04
And I end up going to a good college almost by accident
3:08
in San Luis Obispo, California, called Cal Poly,
3:11
very good design school that, I didn't know at the time.
3:15
I just I looked on in the catalog and it was the farthest,
3:19
farthest college from my house that offered graphic design.
3:23
It was four hours away.
3:24
And I said, I'm going there and just kind of lucked into it.
3:26
But I had some very good
3:28
teachers there.
3:30
Guys like Dan Peel and, Robert Reynolds,
3:33
a fantastic watercolor painter, Mary Laporte, a fantastic designer.
3:37
And they really kind of put me on the trajectory
3:41
that that, you know, design is important and design can be a very good career.
3:47
And, and they also kind of,
3:50
I guess a little bit gave me the bug for teaching, too,
3:52
because Dan Peel, for example, he taught my advertising class
3:56
and he had been an art director and on Madison Avenue for 20 years,
4:00
and he was always rant and rave about how crazy this business is
4:03
and all this kind of stuff.
4:04
But you could tell he was having fun with it too.
4:06
So that kind of thought, well, if he can do it,
4:09
maybe I can do that someday too.
4:11
So from there,
4:13
from California, I moved back here.
4:15
I had some family back here and got a job at,
4:17
a place called Erickson Marketing Communications before TV.
4:20
Okay, there's the old school building, you see now where that is.
4:23
And I worked there for a couple of years, and,
4:26
that's where I met April, my wife, who was also my business partner.
4:30
Later on.
4:31
And, she went more corporate side
4:35
corporate marketing, for various different health care companies.
4:38
And then I went to double, where I started out
4:42
as a designer and kind of worked my way up over the eight, eight and a half years.
4:45
I was there to associate creative director, and we worked on
4:49
all different kinds of accounts from, Jack Daniels was a big one.
4:53
I was,
4:55
not the only designer, but I was probably the lead designer when I left there.
5:00
As well as Johnson and Murphy as well as numerous other accounts. So,
5:06
had a lot of fun along the way doing that kind of.
5:08
I met some great people,
5:10
Chuck Creasey and Nelson Eddy,
5:13
have always been very close friends and very good mentors to me.
5:17
And, made a huge impact on my career.
5:20
And then one day, April, and I decided that, you know,
5:25
maybe we should try our own thing.
5:27
And we always felt like,
5:29
I think you learn a lot from the different places you work at.
5:33
You know, you arrogantly, we thought only we can do it a little bit better.
5:36
I think everybody thinks they can, and I don't know if we did or not,
5:39
but we I hope we we did it differently.
5:43
We believed that we could be a small, you know, just she and I, she was,
5:47
a writer and also did all the marketing stuff.
5:51
And I was an art director.
5:53
And, so we made a good team,
5:56
and, we felt like we could give.
6:00
High quality
6:02
creative to our clients at less than what they were paying at big agencies.
6:07
So that was kind of the first.
6:08
And then we also noticed that a lot of these big companies
6:12
have like, smaller projects
6:15
that the agencies don't necessarily want to deal with,
6:17
but could be big moneymakers for a smaller shop like us.
6:20
So we worked with Nissan, we worked with, Nissan was a big one.
6:24
They gave us a big break, but there were several other companies along the way.
6:27
Bill was another big thing. We worked with.
6:29
Most recently, yellow wood pressure treated pine oak with those guys
6:34
and just had a core group of friends along the way that helped us.
6:38
We had its ups and downs, but, we really enjoyed doing it.
6:43
Yeah.
6:44
Well, you, you did get to work under some amazing, like, creative directors.
6:49
I know they're very well known.
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And in town, they've been there for a long time.
6:53
Like what?
6:54
What lessons did you take from them that maybe you you still keep with you today?
6:59
Or maybe even share with some of your students? Yeah.
7:04
I think
7:06
work hard, but this business should be fun.
7:10
And I think that a lot of times students don't get that.
7:14
They they get so entrenched in their projects
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and we have to get it done.
7:17
And yes, you have deadlines, you have things you have to do.
7:20
But this is a fun business.
7:23
Let it be fun.
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And I always tell them, you know, if you can think up an idea
7:27
that requires you to go to Tahiti, then you can go to Tahiti,
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you know, stuff like that.
7:34
Or just, don't take yourself too seriously.
7:38
You know, I've had
7:41
I jokingly say I had my
7:44
I had one boss that said, we're not saving lives.
7:47
And then I had another boss at Ericsson who would say something like,
7:51
you know, there's something to be said for digging ditches.
7:54
You know, the hard work is good.
7:57
And, you just you learn a lot from that.
8:00
It's like, don't take yourself too seriously.
8:02
You, don't believe that you're going to change the world
8:05
through, design or advertising.
8:09
Take it for what it's worth and, you know, have fun with it.
8:12
Yeah, well, that's good lesson, I guess.
8:15
You know, when I was doing some research on you, I saw that,
8:18
you did a project over at, an exhibit at Belmont,
8:22
and it was called, conceptualize or and it called out,
8:26
you know, the trap of, like, googling for inspiration first.
8:30
And now kids or creatives don't even have to Google anymore,
8:35
or they can actually put it in, you know, one of the large language
8:38
models and, and get inspiration through that.
8:41
But just kind of walk us through that personal process
8:45
in generating, original ideas. Sure.
8:48
You know, before, forgetting the work.
8:51
Yeah. Well, the conceptual Iser was,
8:54
it actually came out of a exercise
8:56
we used to do at Cal Poly for Mayor Laporte's illustration class,
9:00
where she would take three different words and mix them together.
9:03
And then you would have to illustrate something based off of that.
9:05
And what they conceptualized was was a big stand up unit with three drums
9:10
with different words on it.
9:10
You'd spin the drums,
9:11
get your three words, and then you would create something from that.
9:15
And it kind of it kind of delved into how the human mind works.
9:19
So if I say
9:21
dog, carrot, hot air balloon,
9:23
all of a sudden you don't even have to try to.
9:26
Your mind starts putting jamming these things together in a different ways.
9:31
And that's kind of the conceptual process to me.
9:35
It plays off of mind mapping and all those kind of things.
9:37
We do. So
9:40
the the point was to get students
9:42
to use their ideas and don't just look for the easy solution.
9:48
So often young designers, especially,
9:52
they get say, they get a project
9:54
to work on a logo for, let's say tire company.
9:58
It could be anything.
9:59
A lot of times the first thing they'll do
10:00
is they'll go to Google Images and say, show me logos for tire companies,
10:04
and I'll pops up more or less the second you do that,
10:07
you're already locked into something that it's really hard to break out of.
10:12
So what I was trying to do is, is use your own ideas first.
10:16
I'm not I'm not anti googling something or.
10:19
Yeah or anti research.
10:20
I'm actually very pro research use the Google
10:26
and other models to help really get your research down.
10:30
But don't run to it for visuals.
10:33
Use your brain first, then once you've created stuff,
10:37
then you can look at Google images just to make sure you're not stepping on
10:40
something that's already out there.
10:42
But I just find that a better workflow
10:45
because once you Google something or once you image search something,
10:49
your mind can't help it be completely locked into that.
10:52
And it's really hard to break that chain.
10:55
So that was the whole point of that was to just some, some mind exercises
11:00
to get you thinking with your brain instead of with letting the computer
11:05
do the thinking for you.
11:06
Yeah. I mean, that's a great, great point.
11:08
And also, like I've heard it with even presenting logos to clients
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and you know, how most people, you know, present them with colors
11:18
and you should always present black and white first because, you know,
11:21
if if somebody in that group, you know, hates the color red
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and you put an accent of red in there, but it's the very best logo
11:29
that, that, there's a chance they're probably not going to like it.
11:33
Oh, yeah. I tell my students that all the time.
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It's like always present, black and white, always present
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the lowest fidelity thing you can get away with to the client,
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because that way the client won't get hung up on
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I hate that typeface, or I hate that
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that color or I hate that photo.
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It's it's it's you need them to look at the idea.
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And that's hard for some clients.
11:58
You know, for you or I, we've been doing this forever.
12:00
We can say, well, that's just kind of a throw away.
12:02
It can be anything you want.
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It's just, we can look beyond that.
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But a lot of
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people that aren't, haven't been come up
12:09
through the whole creative process have a really difficult time doing that.
12:13
So I tell my students, present as low fidelity as possible.
12:16
It needs to be good.
12:18
But, don't waste tons
12:22
and tons of time on something that could be thrown out immediately.
12:25
You know, we should use your time on the on the hardcore creative thinking first.
12:30
Yeah, it's a great point.
12:32
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13:28
You, you know, as you and April kind of scaled up, DNA creative and,
13:34
you know, by scaling up, I mean,
13:35
you took on some pretty big clients here locally and nationally.
13:39
Like, how did you scale with external teams,
13:43
like to really get these projects done?
13:45
We leaned on a lot of folks
13:50
that we had met at our time at the agencies at Dell.
13:54
I had built up a network of a lot of freelance folks that I had worked with.
13:57
And then even after I left evil, other designers or art
14:01
directors and writers had left evil as well to go do their own thing.
14:05
So we had this kind of
14:08
network group of folks that, that we could pull from, that we knew,
14:12
we trusted, we knew would do, we knew did
14:15
good work that,
14:19
we worked well with.
14:20
So April from her client side work and then me from my agency work,
14:25
we sort of depending on the project, we knit together this sort of merry
14:29
band of misfits to to go out and tackle pretty much anything.
14:33
And, yeah, we I felt like we kind of punched
14:36
above our weight, because of the groups we were able to bring together.
14:39
Yeah. What?
14:40
You know, who were some of those?
14:43
I mean, maybe not who, but what types of people or agencies were,
14:48
you know, some of the better agency partners that you pulled in
14:52
and what were characteristics?
14:54
Yeah.
14:54
Just from past experience, knowing we could
14:58
we worked we played well together was the biggest thing.
15:01
It I mean, doing good work was a given.
15:05
It's a it's always a given.
15:06
But after that, it comes down to personalities.
15:09
And do your personalities meshed well together?
15:12
You know,
15:13
we and we had some folks that that over the years
15:16
we learned that we didn't mesh well and we had to say, you know,
15:19
they do great work, but they're not for us necessarily.
15:22
But what we tried to do is when we found
15:25
those core group, I couple off the top of my head.
15:28
Todd Crowder as a producer, David Step is a director and an editor.
15:34
They did some great work with us.
15:37
I wouldn't say force it with us.
15:39
We all work together and those are people.
15:42
We would protect those relationships with our lives.
15:44
I mean, they got paid before we got paid
15:46
every time because that was just good business.
15:50
You take care of your people first, then if there's any left over, you get paid.
15:54
I mean, I know you, you apply to that same principle.
15:58
It's just
15:59
taking care of the folks that got you where you are.
16:02
Yeah, we've we've had a lot of agency owners on the show that have mentioned
16:05
that same thing of how important it is taking care of like,
16:09
partners out there and paying them first and quickly.
16:12
And, you know, there are some agencies that don't do that.
16:16
And, you know, it's it's really hard to go get the right people
16:20
around projects when you get that name out there.
16:23
Yeah, definitely.
16:24
It's a good lesson.
16:24
What I guess you know you've done a ton of big stuff.
16:27
What's one project that maybe you're the most proud of.
16:31
You know how it is with creative every projects kind of your baby.
16:33
Yeah totally.
16:34
But if I had to point to a couple that were really proud of,
16:40
I there were there are two the distinctly.
16:42
Well, there's three, but I'll mention to the first is it's
16:47
actually a, a campaign we did for Belmont University back before I worked there,
16:51
before I taught there at all.
16:52
It was called Finish What You Started.
16:54
It was for their adult degree program, and it was a television, radio, print.
16:58
The full campaign.
17:02
Showing, telling people about how you can finish your degree.
17:05
If so, maybe you started your college degree.
17:06
And then for some reason, life got in the way and you ended it.
17:09
You could go back and finish it at Belmont.
17:11
And they had all these incentives to do that, and that was important
17:14
because we felt like that was really making a difference.
17:18
We had people when they found out we Belmont had case studies
17:23
where people said, you know, I heard this radio commercial and it made me go
17:28
finish my college degree, or I saw this TV commercial.
17:31
And why was this thing keep running? It's like, it's like, that's all I ever saw.
17:34
And we didn't have a huge media buy, but it just it, it clicked with them and
17:40
if you have a chance to help somebody like that's huge.
17:43
And then the other project that that was a lot of fun and,
17:46
and we're proud of was, we did the branding for the music
17:50
Country Music Hall of Fame, Museums Night Train to Nashville exhibit,
17:54
which was around the roots of of rhythm and blues in Nashville.
17:58
And I think when we started that project, we didn't quite understand how powerful
18:04
the whole rhythm and blues movement was in Nashville and how meaningful
18:07
this project was to Nashville and to developing Music City into Music City.
18:14
But we learned quickly, learned along the way, and that it was fun to see.
18:17
And we heard that,
18:19
there was one particular artist we had on the logo
18:23
for that show, and I was told by our client that
18:27
his family drove him down the street, and they had his banners on there,
18:29
and he started crying when he saw the logo with his image on it and everything.
18:32
And he was the face of this rhythm and blues movement.
18:37
And to be part of something
18:40
that important to our city was, was very cool.
18:43
Yeah.
18:44
Was there,
18:45
was there ever a project that you, that you took on
18:49
that maybe didn't go so well that you and maybe if you could
18:53
maybe teach the audience maybe how you got through it and.
18:58
Yeah, I mean, there in the lifespan of every project,
19:02
there's going to be a bump along the way, and the more
19:05
the longer you're going to spend some more.
19:06
I learned to just get ready for it. Yeah.
19:09
So, just being able to adapt,
19:13
you know, you always have timelines change where,
19:18
all of a sudden we needed two weeks before we thought we did.
19:21
And you have to scramble to get it
19:22
done, or budgets change and it's like, okay, we still want to deliver
19:25
high quality work, but how can we scale things back and still do that?
19:30
Or, you know, parameters change and you got to figure it out.
19:33
And it's just being able to think on your feet. And
19:38
not panic in the moment.
19:41
Take a deep breath.
19:42
It's going to be okay and figure out how you move forward.
19:46
You know, we've had we've had,
19:49
you know, major TV campaigns where the budget got cut
19:52
by a large margin and you're like, what do we do now?
19:56
You just you find a way to adapt and you find a way.
19:58
Okay.
19:58
How can we do more with less days of shooting and stuff like that?
20:02
And that's where your partners that that you've worked with that
20:05
you really know very well come in because you can say,
20:10
you know, this is a one off.
20:12
We had an issue.
20:14
Let's figure it out.
20:14
And they'll usually chip in and help.
20:17
Can't do that every time.
20:18
Obviously it can't always be a panic.
20:20
But if there is having a great team that you trust, that trust you,
20:24
they'll usually work with you and find a way to make it and make it work out.
20:27
Yeah.
20:27
Well, you, you left evil to start DNA creative, and and the purpose was,
20:33
hey, I can maybe we could do it better by being more affordable.
20:38
By being faster, more nimble, and still producing, you know,
20:42
the same quality of work, you know, that some of the big agencies are doing.
20:46
And I, I think it's the way the future is kind of the smaller, nimble
20:50
agencies are the ones that, are really excelling right now.
20:54
Not that there aren't some great big agencies, but, you know,
20:57
now you've, you know, you've went from that to what drew you.
21:02
And, I want to now go into education
21:05
and start teaching, you know, at Belmont University full time.
21:09
And I'm sure you
21:10
dip your toe in the water first, but now you're all in your full time there
21:16
teaching the next, like the next creative people out in the community.
21:20
Yeah. Well,
21:23
I, I blame a guy named Jeff Fuqua for that.
21:26
He was the, And that's a joke.
21:29
I don't blame him for that. I thank him for it.
21:32
He was the design director at oh, More College in Franklin.
21:36
No more College of Design in Franklin, down just outside of downtown Franklin.
21:39
And, he had another friend of mine, Tim Templeton,
21:43
come to do a portfolio review for him.
21:45
And Tim said, hey, you live right up the street.
21:47
Come with me.
21:48
So I went to this portfolio review and we looked at the stuff, and afterwards
21:51
Jeff pulled me aside and said, hey, you seemed like you enjoyed yourself.
21:54
You think you're so good at this, you know, why don't you come teach a class?
21:58
And I kept throwing up roadblocks. Why?
21:59
I don't have a I don't have a master's degree.
22:00
He goes, okay, I don't either.
22:02
And or I'm working all day.
22:04
I can't I was waiting teach at night
22:05
and every roadblock I threw up, he found a way to tear down.
22:08
So, I started as I couldn't, he got the point where I couldn't say.
22:13
Now it's like, okay, I'll try it.
22:15
And I my first class was an advertising class there.
22:18
And I'll tell you, I've presented
22:22
to CEOs and board of directors and there's nothing more terrifying
22:28
than walking into a group room of 19 and 20 year
22:31
old students where you're teaching them how to do something.
22:35
It's like it's way more terrifying than talking.
22:38
And any, any group of, you know, board of directors.
22:43
But it's also a lot of fun, too.
22:45
And I found out that I really enjoyed it.
22:48
And I thought, okay, you know, this is what I would like to do when I grow up.
22:52
Yeah.
22:52
And, you know, I started this ad and I taught one class here or there every year.
22:57
And the deeper I got into, I thought, okay, well,
22:59
if I really want to do this, I need to go get an MFA.
23:02
So I went,
23:03
Savannah College of Art design, Scad has a it has an online program you can do.
23:07
So I did that.
23:08
And and just because it's online doesn't mean it's not daunting.
23:11
It is very, very intense.
23:14
So work my way through that.
23:17
And then, you know, I, I had adjunct a little bit at Belmont,
23:21
but I was told there really wasn't an opportunity for full time positions.
23:25
They weren't going to hire anytime soon.
23:26
Well, things change.
23:27
There were mergers with Oh, more was
23:31
was absorbed by Belmont as as was Watkins.
23:34
And then they all of a sudden they needed more professors.
23:36
And I heard about it and I applied and kind of ran through the gantlet
23:40
on that, and was lucky enough to get the full time position.
23:44
And, I really I really do enjoy it.
23:48
I would recommend it for anybody that that,
23:51
it will change your perspective on this business.
23:53
It'll it'll make this business exciting again.
23:55
Really?
23:56
That's great to hear.
23:57
Well, I mean, you know, one thing that I've noticed from, you know,
24:00
a lot of the local university is Belmont specifically.
24:03
They are hiring industry experts to come in and, and teach class,
24:09
and a lot of them are leaving the industry to come in and be full time professors.
24:13
But they're probably bringing a different level of experience to the students.
24:19
And you're not that there aren't, you know, good traditional,
24:22
you know, professors, but just with the industry experience,
24:26
it's got to be a game changer for these students.
24:29
I would think.
24:30
I think so, I think they recognize the students recognize that.
24:34
And they're always asking questions about, you know, they want to hear
24:37
the old war stories from, you know, back in the agency days.
24:41
And and which is good because it's good that they understand that.
24:45
And, and I think we can give them a perspective of what
24:48
it's really like to work through it.
24:50
And and like you said,
24:51
there's a lot of great professors that that may not have a whole lot
24:54
of industry experience.
24:55
But at Belmont, we really kind of lean into that,
24:58
that our faculty has industry exponentially.
25:01
We feel like it's very important.
25:02
And I, I feel like we're we're building something pretty special.
25:07
Yeah.
25:08
Well, I'm going to shift gears two more.
25:10
There are a lot of students that listen, to the spark.
25:13
So I want to shift gears a little bit and just ask you, like, you know, in what
25:19
you're seeing with your students, like, how do you get them?
25:22
How do you help them move
25:23
from, like, execution to, like, strategic problem solving?
25:29
Yeah, that's that's that's a hard one
25:31
because, students are so, entrenched in,
25:38
in doing
25:41
that, that sometimes the thinking gets pushed aside.
25:44
They think if I make it,
25:47
visually appealing enough,
25:49
it will cover for a bad concept and it just won't.
25:52
It was kind of funny.
25:54
I was having a discussion today earlier this morning in my.
25:56
I teach, history in philosophy of design.
25:59
Okay.
26:00
And, LaSalle Mahoney, knowledge and the bounce house
26:03
believe that the concept was more important than the execution.
26:06
And our students that they believe that.
26:07
And they kind of recoiled a little bit, and I said, well, if you think about it,
26:12
it doesn't discount that the quality has to be great.
26:16
But what that means is you can't cover for a bad concept with good execution.
26:21
You have to have both.
26:22
So the way I do it is in my classes and I'm not the only one.
26:25
Several the professors do it as well is it's heavy on research,
26:28
probably more research than the students would actually like to do.
26:32
But I'm always telling them you're not designing for yourself,
26:35
you're designing for you're not even really designing for your client.
26:39
You are.
26:39
But what who you're really designing for is your is your client's client,
26:44
the end user.
26:45
And until you understand them, you're not going to do good work.
26:50
I always jokingly say it's I'm a 55 year old guy.
26:55
Basically, I'm almost 50.
26:57
I'm a 55 year old guy and it would be arrogant for me to design
27:02
something for a bunch of college students without talking to college students.
27:06
I don't know what they do.
27:08
But that's the same way in any business.
27:11
It's, you have to know who you're working for.
27:14
What makes them click? What?
27:16
What are their hot button issues?
27:19
If you do that, then you're designing something meaningful.
27:21
If you don't do that, then you're just designing something for yourself.
27:25
So I, I lean heavily into the research.
27:27
Yeah. That's interesting.
27:28
I mean, we've had designers throughout the years, great designers.
27:31
But, you know, we've had young ones come out of school and, you know,
27:34
they take on their first project and they're ready to like, rule the world
27:38
and show you what they've got.
27:39
And it's exciting.
27:40
But, you know, they're designing for an older audience
27:44
and they just think they've got it like they know it.
27:47
So here in that it's pretty important.
27:49
Like, you should probably ask some people that fall into your clients, you know,
27:53
clients, age groups or demographics, whatever it is, and get a perspective
27:59
before you actually start trudging down, you know, a design path.
28:04
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
28:05
I mean, if you're designing for an older market,
28:07
you don't need to be setting things an eight point type.
28:10
You know, you have to think of
28:12
maybe they don't have the greatest eyesight in the world,
28:13
maybe make it a little bigger, help them out a little bit.
28:15
Or and it's vice versa.
28:18
You just know your audience is the main thing.
28:20
And that's something we really, really stress at Belmont is,
28:24
understand who you're working for and,
28:27
design for them, not for yourself, because and and don't
28:33
it, if you do that, then there's less
28:35
less of a chance of something to just be thrown out outright.
28:40
And then you have to start from scratch again,
28:42
or at least you have some back up to say, well,
28:45
because sometimes your client isn't your own audience either.
28:48
You have to say to your client, well, you may not like this, but
28:52
we did some research into your target audience and this is what makes them tick.
28:57
And so sometimes it comes to educating your clients as well.
28:59
Now, most agencies these days, or most clients
29:03
these days, have a lot of research arms that they really know
29:06
who they're working for. So it's not as much.
29:08
But with some smaller clients you have to do that sometimes.
29:11
Yeah.
29:12
Well, what what signals tell you that like,
29:15
a junior designer is ready to, like, lead the room?
29:22
I don't know that they're.
29:24
I mean, you can tell that some are kind of natural leaders,
29:28
but sometimes the quiet ones are the ones that are really impress you.
29:33
But to get up and stand up in front and and pitch creative in a way,
29:38
there's really no way to know that until they do it.
29:42
So in my classes, at least
29:45
before a student ever pitches
29:47
anything to a client or to a, well,
29:52
just whoever their final presentation, they'll do their presentation
29:55
2 or 3 times in front of me and the rest of the class.
29:58
And will really
30:02
critique them very, very harshly.
30:04
In a lot of ways to say, okay, you bubbled here, let's fix that.
30:09
My, my philosophy is it's kind of like the sports
30:12
philosophy that that practice should be harder than the game.
30:15
And if you do that,
30:17
if you've if you've run the gantlet through the practice a couple times,
30:20
then when you get to the game and the real pitch,
30:22
you're ready for anything that's going to be thrown at you.
30:24
Yeah, well, you mentioned this just a second ago.
30:26
Like, and I know you've judged some of the, Addie awards in town.
30:31
And I guess, you know what, what does separate like just award
30:35
chasing work from the really like, business moving work like in how do you
30:41
how do you teach your students the difference?
30:44
Because there is an ego that goes in the design and it's like,
30:47
am I designing for me and my portfolio?
30:50
Or am I truly designing for the client and what they're looking for?
30:56
Yeah, I mean, it goes back to that understanding the audience
30:58
more than anything.
31:01
I would have a couple analogies on that.
31:04
Is student work can be a little more edgy because their
31:09
their audience is the creative directors they're showing their portfolio to,
31:13
so they can take more risks for that, for sure.
31:15
But as far as chasing awards and things like that, I tell
31:19
my students, don't get hung up on awards.
31:22
Awards come down to and all the judging I've done awards
31:26
come down to three people's opinions and that's all it is.
31:30
I mean, we've had work, personally at DNA and then also I've had student work that
31:35
that won like a silver on the local level, but went to regionals.
31:39
I won gold.
31:40
So it's just so it should be harder at the next level.
31:43
But it's it's just it just comes down to personalities and DNA.
31:48
April and
31:48
I, I feel like some of our best work,
31:53
never won any awards, but it made a difference.
31:56
I can think specifically, we did a lot of work for Chemical Mobil,
32:00
which is the world's largest manufacturer.
32:01
Power wheelchairs.
32:03
And, you think of power wheelchairs, you think of
32:08
poor folks that don't have mobility, have mobility issues and stuff like that.
32:12
But we had a, a, a
32:15
marketing director there that he said,
32:18
Mobil is more like kind of the rock star of, of power wheelchairs.
32:23
And a lot of their
32:25
clientele was doing a lot of stuff that wasn't what you would think of.
32:29
When I started talking to these guys, I had that first impression of,
32:35
they're having all these mobility issues.
32:36
They get, they can't do all this stuff.
32:37
Well, these guys are on water skiing every weekend.
32:40
You know, they have modified weight boards
32:42
and stuff like that, and they're doing all summer.
32:44
Like, I'm not doing that.
32:46
So once you get out of that mindset of.
32:50
Poor pitiful them to see that they're just people
32:53
and they want to live their life just the same way as everybody else.
32:56
And this this device helps them do that.
32:59
It opens things up.
32:59
I mean, we did we we had seen some like videos
33:03
of, of guys like crowd surfing in wheelchairs and that.
33:06
Well, we can do something like that or like,
33:10
streaking, through the quad from the running, from the police,
33:14
like all kinds of goofy stuff like this because it was it was more of like,
33:20
it was it was life amplified.
33:22
Oh, yeah.
33:22
So just realizing that people are people,
33:26
and once you do that, it's, it takes to a whole nother level.
33:30
And so like I said, we had a great time doing those campaigns,
33:34
and we had a marketing director that let us do that kind of stuff.
33:38
But that stuff never really want any awards,
33:41
because if you're judging a Jack Daniels poster
33:45
next to a power wheelchair poster,
33:46
I don't care how funky your power wheelchair poster
33:48
is, Jack now is going to win every day of the week.
33:50
It's just I think it's the mindset
33:52
of the judges, too, that they have this perception of
33:58
the way things should be as opposed to the way things really are.
34:01
Yeah.
34:02
It's a great point.
34:03
What I guess now that you've taught at Belmont for a few years,
34:07
what do you wish more Nashville agencies did to like nurture
34:12
entry level talent these days?
34:16
Yeah.
34:18
Be very honest.
34:21
Junior critiques when if they, if they take on, most are.
34:25
But a lot of times I think,
34:29
the people are
34:31
creative directors or they, they don't want to hurt somebodys feelings.
34:35
Students don't want that.
34:36
Students want honest to goodness, hard headed critiques.
34:41
You know, a lot of times the students, they'll feel
34:45
they'll feel let down if you only say nice things about the work
34:48
they they want the the,
34:52
the real critique.
34:55
If it's not good, tell them, if you if it's like
34:59
if somebody interim for you, be brutally honest when you need to be,
35:04
because the students want that they, they, they want honest feedback.
35:08
They don't want you to sugarcoat it.
35:10
And I would say, you know, get involved,
35:13
have,
35:16
we we welcome anybody that wants to either
35:19
come and teach at Belmont, like, an adjunct class
35:22
or just come and speak to a class or do a guest critique.
35:24
We're always looking for folks because, you know, the students respect that.
35:29
And they, they want to be working with with working professionals.
35:34
Yeah.
35:34
Well, I'm sure you have a lot of students that come out
35:38
and maybe they're not going to work for anybody.
35:40
They're going to go start their own agency and you know, I guess like,
35:45
you know, coming out of school, young, young man or woman
35:48
starting an agency, like, what kind of advice do you give them?
35:53
Well,
35:55
I really try to discourage them from doing that right away.
36:00
The only reason why
36:02
I was successful at DNA creative is because we had,
36:06
we had built relationships over the years
36:09
from working on the corporate side and then on the agency side.
36:13
So I've had students that want to go immediately out and do their own work.
36:16
And I said, well, you can do that, but it's very hard.
36:19
And your first few years as a designer, you're going to make a lot of mistakes.
36:24
And agencies know that.
36:26
They know that young designers are going to make mistakes,
36:28
and they're okay with that to help them nurture and grow.
36:33
But if you're doing it on your own and you make a mistake,
36:36
it could potentially cost you a lot of money.
36:38
And so you need to be careful with that.
36:41
So I actually encourage them to go work for somebody else,
36:45
for a few years to get their feet under them to understand how they work.
36:49
But if they're dead set on it, then I say, okay,
36:52
the first thing you need to do is you need to get a good accountant.
36:56
You need to.
36:56
I go through all the business list, you know, get a get a business license,
37:02
all the all the stuff they don't ever think about all the back of house
37:06
stuff that they're like, wait, I have to do that?
37:07
I have to pay taxes. Wait. What's this? And
37:11
so, I try to coach them up as best as best.
37:14
And April helps a lot to to coach them up as best we can.
37:17
On what it takes to actually run a business.
37:20
But we do try to discourage them from doing that, at least for a few years.
37:23
I bet they are.
37:24
When you give them that list, I bet you they go, you know, Dale, you're right.
37:27
I'm going to go, work for somebody for a little bit of time.
37:30
So, yeah, I've had a few that, you know.
37:34
Oh, man. I had one student.
37:36
He was doing a bunch of freelance work,
37:38
and I'm doing doing real well with him, making a lot of money.
37:41
And I said, so how much you saving for taxes?
37:43
And he looked at me like. Like, what are you talking about?
37:47
I said, oh, this is not good.
37:49
So we had a long talk about
37:50
you need to be saving about a third of this money
37:52
because you're just going to give it to the government and just plan on that.
37:55
And you can't spend every dime you make.
37:57
And, and, and I think that's the biggest trap that a lot of
38:02
people fall into
38:03
when they decide to freelance is they think, oh, I made this money.
38:07
I'm just going to take it and spend.
38:08
It is great.
38:09
But, you got to realize that business is cyclical.
38:13
You're going to have times where you're doing great and times
38:17
you're not doing so great, and the only way you weather
38:19
the not so great times is if you save the money and use
38:24
built up the accounts that you can weather the bad times.
38:26
Yeah.
38:27
So, just try to impart kind of life lessons to a more than anything, I guess.
38:32
Yeah.
38:32
Well, Dale, as we wrap up, is there anything that maybe I didn't ask
38:36
that you think could help an agency
38:38
owner and design or creative or marketing student?
38:42
Coming out, anything that, you'd want to leave the audience with?
38:47
Yeah, I think,
38:50
I think it's a little bit of both time
38:51
and what can help an agency and also to help students work together.
38:55
If you're in the Nashville area, come see us at Belmont.
39:00
We would love to, to collaborate with you on projects.
39:04
Have you critique, talk to our students in the students.
39:07
We get a lot out of it, and I think you would get a lot out of it, too.
39:12
And, we have, and not just Belmont.
39:15
There's other great schools around us around here as well.
39:19
But there's
39:21
a lot of young talent tap into that.
39:24
All these students are looking for internships.
39:26
It's a way to
39:29
kind of test drive some of the best talent
39:31
at, you know, a little bit of money, but not much.
39:34
Not near as much as hiring a full time employee.
39:37
Do that.
39:38
Like I said, there's a lot more talent than I think.
39:41
Than I think a lot of people think they think student.
39:42
They think, oh, well, maybe they're not as good, but,
39:45
I'm here to tell you they're pretty strong.
39:47
Yeah.
39:48
So lean into that and give them opportunities.
39:51
You'll be better for it, by seeing what's out there.
39:55
And they'll be better for it from learning from you.
39:57
So I would just say, get involved.
39:59
And if you're not in Nashville, then find a local college or university
40:03
where you are and and get involved. It's it's
40:07
that was my realization.
40:10
The further we got into DNA creative is that
40:13
I think part of
40:16
being
40:18
a industry,
40:21
leader or industry participant is part of
40:25
the obligation is you have to give back to the next generation.
40:28
It's not just you, it's if you're going to if you're going to really do something
40:32
meaningful, you have to help foster the next, next group,
40:36
because none of us are going to be around forever.
40:39
And, and none of us are going to be,
40:44
you know, as good as we once thought we were.
40:46
So help coach up the others to kind of take the lead
40:50
once we, say, okay, it's time for us to hang it up.
40:54
Yeah. They are such a great point.
40:56
And thank you for everything you're doing in Nashville to, you know, to
41:01
help us as agency owners get the next
41:05
level of, like, talent that's going to come in to the agencies.
41:08
Appreciate you.
41:09
You know, working at Belmont
41:11
and all the great creative work you've done in the Nashville market.
41:14
And I've enjoyed our friendship over the years
41:17
and getting to know you better.
41:18
And, you know, just love everything that you've done up to this point.
41:22
So thank you.
41:22
And and again, that's why we do this show is to, is to give back and to,
41:28
you know, help try to energize the creative community
41:31
here in Nashville and really appreciate you being on the spark today.
41:34
You brought a lot of good lessons and, appreciate everything
41:38
you're doing for the community. So thank you.
41:40
And to all the audience, just, give a big shout out
41:44
and thank you for joining us week in and week out, on the spark podcast.
41:48
It's our way to give back to the creative community and lift up
41:52
some of the, agency and creative leaders around town.
41:55
So thanks again.
41:57
And, we'll catch you next time on the spark that's a wrap
42:00
on this episode of The Spark from Creative Assembly.
42:03
Thanks for spending time
42:04
with us and exploring the minds shaping Nashville's creative future.
42:08
If you're walking away more inspired, connected, or energized,
42:12
that's exactly the point.
42:14
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42:16
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42:20
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42:25
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42:29
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42:30
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42:32
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