Hovering Art Directors
Out of context: Reply #39
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- tOki0
Hovering sucks,
Presenting shit work to clients sucks more.
Personally I'd rather hover over one of my designers to get it right than have to present work I didn't truly believe was good enough. As the Art Director, it is my job to ensure a certain level of quality and polish is kept and sometimes this means I have to piss people off internally to ensure we get there. That said, it should be done as gracefully and as collaboratively as possible.
It's a necessary evil when work isn't good enough in the first place. Some people are picky because they need to feel like they are in control, others because they actually care about the work enough to become the dickhead who will stomp all over your work even if you hate them for it afterwards. It's part of the territory - probably the hardest shift from a design to direction role.
Of course, design is mostly opinion and subjective - but sometimes people are just sloppy or completely missing the point and need to be guided quite closely (juniors should just expect this unless they can out-design the entire studio). It all comes down to effective communication, the designer and art director have to be able to communicate clearly to avoid ambiguity. Both parties have an equal responsibility in this regard.