Motivating Designers?
Out of context: Reply #5
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Frankly, it boils down to the same thing that motivates and inspires non-creatives working in other industries:
• More money — salaries aren't they used to be in this business, and more and more agencies are paying their creatives shit, junior and senior alike. It's difficult to be motivated when you feel exploited. And if the creatives work over-time, pay them (also see point 3);
• Respect — this should be a given and self-explanatory, but it isn't. The disrespect comes from all sides in an agency: the account people who think they're creative directors, and over-rule your creative decisions; junior creatives who think they've got it all figured out, and your ideas suck; CDs and ECDs with chips on their shoulders who take it out on you and mob you all day;
• Work-life balance — Best way to burn a creative out, and insure his or her best work never sees the light of day? Work them 12 to 16 hour days plus weekends for three months, and see what happens.
I went through all of these more times than I can count, and still go through points one and two, and got fired a few of times for standing up for myself on point three.
Table tennis, a climbing wall, Nerf guns, free fruit/soft drinks/coffee/whatever, 'development opportunities' (read: stupid conferences), none of that means anything. It's all bullshit engineered to make an agency *look* like they care about their staff, without actually having to care.
These window dressings cost an agency nothing. And they don't motivate or inspire, they don't pay the rent or help you pad your savings account, they don't lead you to be more respected, and they don't balance your life.