AD IDOLS
Creatives from around the world told us about the industry legends they admire most.
Image: Michel Gondry
Gustavo Sarkis, award-winning copywriter at TBWA\Chiat\Day and former AlmapBBDO Sao Paulo creative:
“It’s not easy to be a creative leader for a big advertising group and at the same time keep up the rebel spirit, as if you were a raging art director in the beginning of your career. Lee Clow manages to do it like no one else.”
Dave Dye, commissioning editor of London agency DHM:
“Over the years you see people become hot for a few years, then live off it for the rest of their career. John Hegarty on the other hand has influenced our business every single year since about 1967. A 45-year run - unbelievable and unprecedented.”
TBWA\Chiat\Day art director, Kristina Krkljus: “Of course, I'll have to say Lee Clow here, and not only because I work at Chiat, but because he is one bad-ass mofo. He still makes me nervous even though we've presented to him a handful of times already. He was one of the first hall of famers I learned about while I was at Miami Ad School and now I actually get to work with him.
“He's undoubtedly any Art Director's dream mentor. He walks into the war room, skims the walls and knows within minutes what works and what doesn't. There is something so incredible about that sort of confidence that really brings Chiat's notion of 'disruption' to life. You know when you have a good idea because he blinks a lot.”
Rimantas Stanevicius, creative director at independent Lithuanian agency, Milk:
“Howard Gossage. For assigning his own ideas to Chinese philosophers just to make them sound more credible.”
Dentsu Kansai creative and art director, Yoshihiro Yagi:
“Japanese graphic designer and art director, Kazunari Hattori.”
Photographer Nadav Kander has been the highest ranking creative in Lürzer's Archive for over a decade:
“I admire great art directors and writers who with so much heart and positivity go after their ideas and in trying to get them through are so often being thwarted. I admire the persistence and hoops they have to jump through.”
DDB Mudra creative director, Deepak Singh:
“David Droga. His work is amazing. He is unstoppable and surprises us every time with a new way of looking at things. He’s worked on campaigns for such a variety of clients – from Obama, NSPCC, Burger King “Fiery Fries” to the Club 18-30 print ads or even his recent work on Puma. Every campaign is new and different and that is what inspires me. He is someone I look up to.”
Film director and co-founder of Amsterdam agency KesselsKramer, Johan Kramer:
Michel Gondry, because he keeps re-inventing himself and the more he knows about technology, the more analogue he becomes.
Jung von Matt art director Johannes Hicks:
“Bernbach is great - still. He said so many true things about advertising, which are always relevant. It is hard to believe then, that his thoughts come from a time when advertising was ‘Mad Men’ style. Actually, I’ve always felt that Don Draper is Bill Bernbach.”
Image: Design by Kazunari Hattori
