Dec. 16, 2022, 12:00 PM

 

I recently spoke with Coleman Reece Brainerd, otherwise known as Cole, Big Deal Marketing’s finely-mustached Creative Director. 

He’d just flown back into the country from an undisclosed location where he was aiding local authorities to rediscover their lost, invaluable, ancient artistic heritage-a keen interest of his.

 

We sat down in a local cafe. I ordered a caramel macchiato. He ordered something I’m not sure how to spell (so I won’t write it here). Here are some excerpts from our conversation.

 

BDM: What does being a creative director entail?

 

C: Most of my weekly tasks are similar to that of a graphic designer.

 

BDM: Yeah? What kind of tasks?

 

C: *Sighs* I make graphics for various clients to match their brand vision. This can be anything from social media, brand identity, print media, merch, and so on. 

 

Graphic design isn’t an ‘artistic’ job. It’s…

 

BDM: Wait. What do you mean graphic design isn’t artistic?

 

C: Well, graphic design is a customer service/creative problem-solving job. It’s like being a salon artist for puppies. 

 

BDM: Sorry, you mean a dog groomer?

 

C: Tomato, Tomatto. As a dog groomer, you give the dog owner what they want. Just because you want to braid the puppy’s hair doesn’t mean you should. It’s the same in graphic design: you give the client what they want. It’s not ‘creative’.

 

And the major difference between a graphic designer and a creative director is that the latter requires managing other designers. 

 

So you have to spin a lot of plates. Metaphorically, of course. Very few people can actually spin plates.

 

BDM: Have you ever tried to spin plates?

 

C: No. My duties are hearing out inventive ideas for clients, offering feedback, and putting my eyes on the ‘final draft’ before it’s sent to our clients. 

 

But the most important thing I do as creative director is making sure anything Big Deal Marketing sends to a client has the proper branding and visual direction and that its voice matches the client’s.

 

BDM: Why did you choose this career path? Or did it choose you?…

 

C: I told my parents as an infant that I’d become a creative director. As a baby, I said that. 

 

BDM: That’s not true.

 

C: It’s actually not too interesting of a story. I’ve always loved art and media in all of its forms, but I only ever saw it as a hobby. Like spinning plates.

 

BDM: Spinning plates. I see what you did there.

 

C: Mhm. I liked tinkering with computers when I was younger, so when I enrolled in college, I declared my major as computer science.

 

Long story short, I am very bad at math, so I jumped ship. 

 

I ended up taking a few classes in the arts building and thought that graphic design might just be the best way to combine my love of computers and artistic media. 

 

After that, I never really considered anything else. Actually, I did consider… never mind.

 

BDM: What else did you consider?

 

C: …

 

BDM: What do you like and dislike about your position?

 

C: I would say the most rewarding part of the job would be sitting down with a client who knows their business well. Then getting to imprint my own crazy ideas to create something fun and engaging. 

 

I also like helping out the graphic designers on my team with problems they run into.

 

BDM: Like personal problems?

 

C: No? I mean… I wouldn’t be opposed to it if they had, like, a dog die or something. 

 

BDM: It seems like dogs are a theme of your life.

 

C: *Pulls out phone* Wanna see a pic of Sherman? That’s my dog.

 

BDM: No, thank you. I don’t know that it’s super relevant to what we’re doing here. 

 

C: Hm.

 

BDM: Hit me with your top 5 creative directors/designers!

 

C: I would say my very favorite designers tend to be contemporary ones. Yeah, I like older designers like Saul Bass and Davis Carson. But there’s something really nice about seeing people out there who are coming up with brand new ideas, like right now.

 

My top three at the moment are Ori Toor, Jon Contino, and Gaston Pacheco!

 

BDM: Those names sound made up.

 

C: They’re real people… Great designers. They’re not made up.

 

BDM: What advice would you give young creatives who aspire to do what you do?

 

C: Don’t do anything illegal. Actually. There are lots of creatives who are reformed criminals. So, don’t let having a criminal record stop you. There’s always a way forward, guys! Always.

 

But continue learning your craft. YouTube and Instagram are free resources that have changed my game exponentially. 

 

Once you feel like your design principles are solid enough, you’ll feel way more comfortable giving knowledgeable feedback to other designers on your team. Otherwise your advice will be bad and useless, sorry to say.

 

BDM: What are some things you hope to achieve by the end of your career?

 

C: Hard to say. I hope by the end of my time as a creative director, and more specifically as a designer, that I can honestly say that I never stopped developing my own personal style.

 

It would also be extremely rewarding to see a brand I helped create out “in the wild” regularly and think that I had a hand in shaping it.

 

BDM: Speaking of “out in the wild”.  You get stuck on a desert island. You can only bring five items. What are they?

 

C: Too easy. A bush knife, a fishing net, a rain tarp, a Sawyer water filter, and a S.A.S. survival handbook.

                                                 

* * * 

 

I had a few more questions to ask him but he abruptly left our interview without saying anything. I was later told that inspiration had struck him for a four-dimensional font. It’s now being hailed as revolutionary because it’s invisible yet still functional.