Who is Emily?

Anybody who has ever worked with advertising and direct marketing agencies will instantly recognise that Emily Hewett is not your run of the mill designer and art director; she is a ‘Creative’ with a difference.

This is a bit of an over simplification but it’ll suffice: Traditionally the ‘Suits’ are the face and the money end of any agency: these are the senior members of the Account teams who (allegedly) understand the Business needs of the Client. They then brief the Creatives as to the outcome required.

What is a Creative?

It’s essentially someone who creates either pictures or words that will evoke the desired response. The Creative Director can come from either route:

On the pictures side you’d start as a junior art worker (graphic designer is another term that’s more often used in companies and for web work) and work up through art worker, junior art director, art director, senior art director and, if you’re really good and ambitious, the top job (often at Board level) of Creative Director.

The words route has fewer yet equally important stages: It starts with junior copy writer, learning to write copy in the style that each client, industry, project and end customer will respond favourably to. The next stage is copy writer and then senior copy writer – the highest you can go unless you’re aiming for the top job of Creative Director.

(A note here: There are loads of alternative descriptions on both sides, such as “Conceptual”, “Digital”, “PR”, etc. at each stage)

The ‘director’ level is where the two functions are required to work together on the brief submitted by the suits: where there is a need to create and develop concepts. The Creative Director assigns the teams and, if it’s a really important client, will be appropriately hands on …

Creatives can range from wildly flamboyant and egotistical to introverted and seemingly shy, they are by and large not renowned for their listening or verbal communication skills, and are only brought into direct contact with Clients (and the unsuspecting public, for that matter) under controlled and carefully supervised conditions.

Let’s look specifically at our Emily

She worked for over 6 years at an award-winning direct response agency where she was involved in re-branding, design, advertising, PR and direct-response marketing for a variety of clients – from blue chip companies to local charities, such as HBOS, BT, Daily Mail, PC World Business, RSPB and Dulux.

It was the newly acquired stripped down PR division sucking up much of Emily’s time to “just help us out, please”, that could so easily have been her downfall yet ironically prepared her so much better than most of her peers for starting out in her own business.

A bit like solicitors, anybody who works ‘client side’ in an agency is expected to have a certain amount of billable time – ideally minimum seven and a half hours a day, five days a week. If you’re employed to do design work for clients, that’s what you do: no billable client work – no job.

In ‘helping out’ PR Emily was organising and art directing photo shoots, selecting photographers and models, print and art buying, invoicing and presenting at client meetings and pitches. Whilst this was great experience, little if any of it could be charged against her own clients or official role in the agency. She only got away with it by working crazy hours well into the night on her ‘proper’ job.

Fast forward to today…

What is it that you do for your clients, Emily?

“I use my experience of working along side Account Directors, presenting to clients and my role (amongst others) as an Art Director for a range of clients from big name brands to smaller to provide cost effective solutions to businesses. I live up to my company name ‘I am emily’ and give each client my time and knowledge and work very closely with them to achieve an end result that works for them.”

What makes an ideal client?

“I have a number of ideal clients. There’s the lovely clients who work with you and give you the information you need on time and then follow it up by paying you on time. There’s the clients who have an ultra sexy brand that is a pleasure to work with, then there are the small businesses who I work with from day dot and see grow into flourishing companies and they give me a sense of achievement that I have used my passion for design to create something that has seen their passion a success.”

What would be a perfect working day?

“Designing. Pure and simple. The thing I love about my job is that I can be working on a logo design one day, creating a website the next and designing some direct mail for an established well known brand the next. It’s so diverse and keeps you on your toes, it also means that you have to keep up to date with the market, industry and current topics which means I get to indulge in anything design related, usually on the web.”

What’s best about working for yourself… and what’s the major drawback, if any?

“Best thing is the flexibility and the diversity of the job, you can also approach clients you want to work with and shy away from ones that you’d rather not. I’m also looking forward to the juggle of motherhood and running my own business but I’m sure it’s a hell of a lot more flexible than a 9-5 job. The drawback is that whenever your laptop is on that table you feel you should be using it and there is always something to do whether it’s catching up on twitter, writing a blog, doing the accounts, filing… the list is endless. Sometimes you have to just switch off and ignore it but I find it incredibly hard to do that.”

If you had to say one thing that makes you different from your peers, what would that be?

“I think the difference is ‘me’, I believe that I work ‘with’ my clients not ‘for’ them and I involve them as much or as little as they want to be. I have a passion for design but that has to be turned into an effective solution for the company and it has to achieve results.”

Would you employ people/ do you have an exit plan?

“The only time I would employ someone is to help out with the clients that I do monthly work for that has been set up and templated so that it can be artworked each month/quarter and remain on brand. I think that selling myself as ‘I am emily’ then getting a freelancer in to do the initial design work goes against everything that I believe in for my company , plus I want to do the concept work, the branding work, the meeting and greeting and the networking. People buy into me, and my design style and I think that’s what they should get. I’m also far too precious about my work and want to get stuck in and do it myself .”

So there you have it: Looking for a creative solution to a creative business need? You know what to do …