How to share ideas while working remotely? Special Group comes together on Pinterest
Pinterest is where people go at the start of the project, and advertising creatives are no different. In fact, 85% of Pinterest users say the platform is where they go to start a new project.* In this roundtable discussion, Special Group senior art director Josie Fox and creative duo Jeff Seeff and Joel Grunstein explain why they "can’t imagine how people did advertising before Pinterest".
As part of the award-winning agency behind Uber Eats, Tourism New Zealand, and Bonds, the creatives share how they use Pinterest to get inspired by the world beyond the adland bubble.
Part of the Creative Exchange series: Inspired work leads to inspired ideas.
Do you find there’s a difference in ideas and reference points between the different generations of creatives?
Josie Fox: For me, it’s been a really big cliche in the industry that the young creatives and the juniors know their way around online platforms and the older people don’t. I think it’s up to all of us to stay across all of these platforms, and learn how to come up with great ideas across them all. But I think we definitely all have different cultural loves, different reference points.
How have you been staying creatively motivated during COVID-19?
Josie Fox: When you’re in the same space, constantly looking at the same things, you forget how much you’re triggered by the environment with lots of different people going for a walk down the street, grabbing a coffee.
So it’s trying to draw inspiration from other sources and still tap into what’s happening in the world and culture. I can’t imagine living through COVID without the internet. I think Don Draper would have struggled.
Jeff Seeff: Even when we’re on calls with one another [as opposed to face to face], we’re still always trying to build everyone’s reference points and inspiration. We all have different places online that we like to go and visit. Josie might be scrolling through design websites, whereas Joel and I are really into TV shows that we all watched as kids, or looking through famous meme pages.
Do you use Pinterest when starting a project?
Josie Fox: I’m a big believer in looking outside of advertising for inspiration, because I think it can be quite self-referential, so I try to look into film and art and books. I always recommend to my AWARD School students to start outside of adland, and Pinterest is a great place to find inspiration that goes beyond our four walls.
A lot of younger advertising students aren’t as familiar with layout, design and hierarchy and all the visual tools we have in our arsenal. Pinterest is a great way to see all of that in action. They can get access to even more inspiration from a diverse range of disciplines and sources.
I honestly can’t imagine how people did advertising creative or art direction before Pinterest. For me, it’s just such an automatic first step. It just gets you in the zone.
Jeff Seeff: Our job is to take different reference points and bring them together to make something new. We use Pinterest to help us match up that image, take that text, and put it on that background.
Joel and I have shared boards that we both contribute to. Sometimes we add a little note with each new Pin. Sometimes we scan through the board together over Zoom and call out the things we like.
Even as copywriters, we like to think we still have an eye for good design. But when you can analyse so many high quality pieces of work, all in one place, these insights make their way – sometimes intentionally, and sometimes without realising – into our final layouts and designs.
Joel Grunstein: Using Pinterest is beyond useful, because there are some things where we just can’t imagine how it should look.
How do you use Pinterest when coming up with a brief? Can you share some examples?
Josie Fox: If I’m working on an optical brief, for example, I find it great to just jump in and ask: how do people photograph glasses? What does the product photography look like? Is there a really cool thing that I haven’t seen before? So I find it really helpful to start a job.
Joel Grunstein: We had a job that involved point of sale, which wasn’t something we immediately knew about, so that’s where Pinterest is very helpful. We had to create something that was visually interesting, interactive and displayed the product, while also not taking up much space. It was a problem that straddled many different design disciplines. While we might have originally thought Pinterest was more of a place for fashion and graphic design, it helped us massively in seeing what was possible in the world of POS, sampling and storefront displays, from luxury to retail. There was so much great stuff.
Jeff Seeff: We’re also working on a campaign that references different generations, and since Joel and I were not alive during the ‘70s or ‘80s, and barely even the ‘90s, it’s really good to see how everything looked – not just images of posters, but old retro photos, and fashion – you get a much better sense of the vibe of the ‘70s or ‘80s in a particular place. It helps us write better, and make sure everything’s consistent.
What’s some advice you could give to creatives who might want to start using Pinterest more regularly?
Joel Grunstein: I keep it bookmarked on my computer, so when I do start a brief, it’s one of the first things I see. Having it as the first port of call is good. And it might sound obvious, but I’d remind you to actually save the stuff you see. I wasn’t doing that for a while, but now that I’ve started saving things properly and organising my boards, it’s a lot easier.
Jeff Seeff: And don’t make the mistake I made of having one giant board called ‘inspiration’, because it becomes less helpful the bigger it gets.
Josie Fox: Enjoy the journey. Once you get in the groove and find the right thread of images, it’s great. I end up with so many tabs open on my screen. Click on anything that’s on the right path and just see where it takes you.
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