saidelismejia
designer
Did you always see yourself working in advertising?
No, when I was in 9th and 10th grade I was thinking about fashion design, but there were no fashion design schools in Miami, so I changed my mind and found advertising. I’m honestly not sure how, I started googling art schools and found what looked interesting to me. I was always interested in graphic design and stuff like that. I would say that in 10th grade I knew I wanted to do advertising.
Do you think there is a set of characteristics that define people in advertising?
I think so. Most people are down to earth. You’ll find your jerks here and there who aren’t too good at giving feedback, or they just don’t care, or they’re over it and don’t want to deal with it anymore. But for the most part, everyone I work with is pretty awesome. We have a great company culture. You can actually be friends with everyone, it’s not just a work relationship.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
When I get a creative brief, I start by researching the topic online. I like to go on dribble, Behance and Pinterest, and once I gather up all these thoughts and visuals and have it all in my brain, I’ll just kinda close it up and start drawing. I always like to see what other people are doing and how I can improve upon it.
How do you approach differences of creative opinion with the client?
So a lot of the time, they will say they want something, and our job is to help them understand that they’re wrong. So let’s say there’s a banner ad and they ask for something really ugly, we have to work on a fine line. Do we create it and show it to them and risk showing them something ugly? Or should we help them understand what looks good? Most of the time, we try to make them understand the reasoning behind our designs. It’s really frustrating, because they’ll try to give you creative feedback and you’re kinda just like “Uhhh, that’s our job and you’re not doing it right.”
What’s your best strategy for coming up with good creative on a tight timetable?
Oh man, that’s rough. I think in that case it helps to get other people on it to help bounce off ideas. When you’re stuck in your head, you don’t know if something’s good or not and you may think it’s bad, but you can bring someone else in and build upon it. I’ll always go ask people if I can get their eyes on a project and talk to them about my ideas. It helps a lot.
What separates good designers from bad designers?
I think attention to detail, and your skills, basically. Some people are sloppy. Even in Photoshop [for example], there are layers. Some people just leave them all over the place, and when you pass on a project, it’s hard to follow. Maybe that works for you, but you need to know how to be organized. People often say the eye can be trained, and it’s true. If you spend time looking at good design, you start to make better design. You need to be out there looking for inspiration. Feed your eyes, basically. If you don’t, you stay stuck doing the same things over and over again. And then someone who has been feeding their eyes will do better work than you.
What advice would you share with people looking to go into the ad industry?
If you’re younger, study it in school. Do internships. If you don’t, it’s going to be all that much harder to get a job afterwards. It’s honestly tough to get a job in this industry. We’re fortunate that we’re a part of MAIP, but other people aren’t always as lucky. You have to know someone. The other two creative interns I worked with at Ogilvy knew someone, that’s why they were there. Look for resources like MAIP, the AAF, AMA. Those resources help you a lot. Through AMA I got an internship at Y&R. It kinda sucks, but it really is who you know. If you just go to class and go home, you’re not gonna get there.