Thursday, August 30, 2012

A clean, well-lighted deck.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the absurdity of our business.

About 65 page decks talking about strategy.

About two-hour meetings about a 30-second commercial.

About 200 hours producing work two dozen people will see.

I was thinking about how much we talk.

And how little we say.

I wondered what would happen if an agency had a directive.

Self-imposed.

Write your decks like Hemingway would.

Or McCabe.

Or Bernbach.

Design them like Krone would.

Or Glaser.

Or Lois.

Take out everything that doesn't matter.

Everything that's windy.

Everything that gives you linguistic gas.

In short, what if an agency remembered this from Hemingway, and took it as creative direction:

“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.” 

1 comment:

Jeff said...

The sad part about that excellent suggestion is that if an agency were going to adopt that directive, the first thing they'd want to do is schedule a meeting and talk about it.