Every project requires individualized levels of oversight. As a Creative Director, I communicate the intended level of oversight I believe each project will benefit most from. Projects are balancing acts between oversight and designer creativity.

Example of Creative Direction:

The Creative Director meets with the graphic designer and formulates a vision for the project. To create this vision the creative director provides the graphic designer a background summary of the project, including how and why certain decisions were made and the overall project design aesthetic. The Creative Director seeks the graphic designer’s input about methods that can achieve the desired result. Then the graphic designer produces several variants for the Creative Director to review and advise.

Example of Micromanagement:

The Creative Director meets with the graphic designer and tells her to open Photoshop. He shows her a drawing he did and tells her to reproduce it. He specifies fonts, background textures, and filters. He hovers while the graphic designer begins. He leaves for a period of no longer than 10 minutes before returning and monitoring progress.

These two examples provide a quick illustration of some of the characteristics of the two types of oversight. I tend to exhibit characteristics of both methods depending on the circumstances. There are some co-workers that creative directors count on to provide insightful solutions. There are others (new employees, overloaded employees) who need more guidance. Regardless of the method, the Creative Director, and in this case, the graphic designer need to communicate with one another. The Creative Director needs to explain why this oversight method is being used in each circumstance. And the graphic designer needs to communicate the upside of downside of each method.

Creative direction is providing information and guidance that helps the graphic designer achieve the expected outcome. A creative director and team should have open discussion and feedback as to how to achieve the expected outcome. Creative ideas and concepts aren’t the sole responsibility of the Creative Director, but the team.

Have you ever been micromanaged?