You shouldn’t stay in the same position for too long.

The way the industry is structured and positions set up, it isn’t possible to stay in any one position for too long. I work on a contractual basis for an agent who finds me work. I don’t hold an actual position or job as such. I’m given jobs to do for numerous clients. My agent sends me in, I go in, do the job, get out real quickly. I ams da semantic hitman. Much of it I do from my desk at home. The hardest part is getting paid.

If it’s good, it transcends language.

Yes and no. Some ads I’ve worked on are “good” by industry standards, but they don’t transcend language. Others kick arse in a purely visual capacity with no use of verbal or written language at all, but they still involve semantics, and in that sense are transcendent.

Working in the industry will affect your family life at some point.

Yes, but so what, working in any industry will affect your family life.

It creates careers for art-school dropouts.

Yes, most definitely. I never bothered finishing art school because it was packed with wankshafts, most of who I now compete with on a professional basis.

The same concepts are endlessly recycled.

Oh spit yeah. But it’s a high-pressure industry. It eats people and devours ideas.

You fast-forward through the boring stuff.

Who, ad people or consumers?

The Internet took it to a whole new level.

Yes it did. Some people ask me why I don’t have an online portfolio when I’m an ad writer/concept guy and the internet surely is cutting edge for self-promotion in that line. The answer is — I don’t need one, my agent gets me all the work I can handle. The same people ask me why my agent doesn’t have a website. The answer is — they don’t need one either. They use the traditional tools of the trade; a paper notepad, an eraser pencil and a phone. Job sourcing and media buyers use the internet only sparingly to promote themselves. The business really doesn’t work that way. Everything that happens is a foregone conclusion predicated on existing relationships between people who are “in the business”.

It’s hard to transition out of.

Yes, very hard. I’m a failed filmmaker so I took the next best thing. Now I want out but it’s hard, very hard to get “out”, so wish me success with my type designs because I’m a lot like an actor — I don’t know how to do anything else, and I’m gettin’ old.

They both have weird self-congratulatory award shows.

Yepp. The internet awards shows are much wierder and self-congratulatory than anything I’ve seen in advertising.

Only the people who create it are delusional enough to call it art.

I don’t call it art, and most people I work with don’t pretend it’s art either. It’s soft soap (industry term). I’ve met people who create it and call it art, and those are the people I avoid working with.

j a m e s