Kill Your Darlings: Inside the Mind of an Art Director

Heather Riexinger: here with Paul Hill, infamous art director, one of my favorite people. And Paul, you are known as the most fun person in the office. So you told me the only way that you would come on this podcast is if we did something like Hot Ones. So wings in the morning didn’t seem like a great idea. But being boozled– I have an eight-year-old, and this is her favorite game. So we’re going to do some rapid fire questions today. And as we go through them, you are going to take jelly beans. And for any viewers who don’t know what bean boozled is, some of the jelly beans are just regular jelly beans. And some taste like things like dirty socks or dish water. So we’ll see what happens as we go.

Paul Hill: I’m freaking stoked to be on this episode.

Heather Riexinger: Perfect. Well, thank you for bringing the fun to the podcast. these lovely Bean Boozled. Let’s hope you’re going to get a good one. All right. I’m just going to watch your face and see how bad it is. All right. Print or digital? Pregital. Pregital. Start with a concept or start with visuals?

Paul Hill: Concept always.

Heather Riexinger: Solo brain or group brainstorm?

Paul Hill: Boy, that’s a great one. I think group.

Heather Riexinger: Group. Best time to think creatively, morning or midnight?

Paul Hill: Totally midnight.

Heather Riexinger: And one word, creatives overuse?

Paul Hill: Again– oh, that’s Brad. Sorry. This will be really fun. We gave up this fun idea. It’s going to be really fun.

Heather Riexinger: I’ll say the one that I think you and everyone says is, you’ll say, I kind of did this thing. I’m like, you didn’t kind of do it. You did it. I kind of did this thing. I kind of. Kind of was thinking. We’ll move on to section two here. I’ll do another one. Yep. I wasn’t bad. That wasn’t bad? All right. What separates fine creative from great creative? So fine’s one of my least favorite words. But what makes it great?

Paul Hill: Because if somebody told me once, the good is the enemy of the great. But I think there’s a level of craft. And you just kind of, I think, keep kind of working at it and shaping it and molding it until it feels like it’s right. I think it helps sometimes to walk away, come back and look at it again with a fresh eye. So I think it’s just you can usually tell when the time has been put in. When somebody has crafted something, whether it’s print or digital, it just feels like you see that level of finish that makes it great. Not good.

Heather Riexinger: Great. What part of the creative process do people underestimate the most? I know as an account, I’ll say, Paul, can I have this tomorrow? And you want to throw something at me, but you don’t.

Paul Hill: Probably just, I think it’s the iterations. And I just said, you kind of look at it and come back and look. So I think there’s so many times where you just kind of put it away and then look back and say, you know, that wasn’t quite right. So many times you find yourself just before you’re going to send it. It’s like, oh, I just noticed something that was a little off. And that’s, I got to fix it. So I think there’s some finessing, hopefully not too much tweaking because that’s probably not a great thing all the time. But a little bit of that pushing it to the really finest part. Great.

Heather Riexinger: All right. You want to take another one? We’re going to do rapid fire again.

Paul Hill: So far, too good.

Heather Riexinger: All right. Client brief, inspiration or obstacle?

Paul Hill: Inspiration.

Heather Riexinger: Thank you for saying that. Strategy decks, helpful or ignored?

Paul Hill: Dirty socks. No, wait. That’s a jelly bean. Sorry. Wait, what was the question again?

Heather Riexinger: Strategy deck, helpful or ignored? Oh, absolutely. Totally. Yeah. Oh, you’re doing a great job of sucking up here. More rounds equals better work, yes or no?

Paul Hill: Definitely no.

Heather Riexinger: Kill your darlings. Is it easy or painful?

Paul Hill: So hard to kill your babies, but they must. Must, you know, the darlings got to go, even though, yes, you get very attached to them.

Heather Riexinger: Sketch first or jump straight to design on screen?

Paul Hill: Got to do a little sketch.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah, you’re the king of sketch. I think you might be as good of an animator at drawing as you are at working on screen there. I always love your little drawings. Yeah. All right. We’ll go to a couple more bigger questions here. What trends in creative are exhausting right now?

Paul Hill: You know, I don’t want to say exhausting. Obviously, it’s on everybody’s mind. I know we did a quick compilation of everybody saying AI for every episode last year. You know, it just feels like it’s just in and out of everything. So you know, it’s just hard to kind of see what is going to emerge as a leader. So exhausting, no, prevalent, yes. Hard to kind of keep up and figure out, you know, what’s the path everything’s going to take. But exciting, because I think, you know, so many times we’ve created something with AI and been like, wow, that’s pretty amazing. Other than six fingers.

Heather Riexinger: Six fingers, yeah, you got to watch for those fingers. What are brands, on that note, what are brands copying that they absolutely shouldn’t be?

Paul Hill: Well, you know, you never want to jump on too many trends because it’s a trend because it goes away. Boy, that’s a good one. That’s a good one. I probably, I would have to say like, celebrities that just don’t feel like they’re right for the brand or maybe they just don’t come off as real or approachable. So sometimes that’s weird to me when they’re celebrity just doesn’t seem to fit. We saw that. Brand or just not on, you know.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah, we saw that a lot with the Super Bowl. I felt like the ads in the Super Bowl this year just threw celebrities for no reason at us. So that works. All right, another rapid fire round. Take– So far pretty good. So far not bad.

Paul Hill: Those look like toothpaste, we’ll see.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah. Safe or bold?

Paul Hill: Bold.

Heather Riexinger: Purpose driven ads, are they sincere or forced?

Paul Hill: I’m going to go in between on that one.

Heather Riexinger: Minimalism, timeless or overdone? Timeless, timeless. Short form video, is it a creative dream or a nightmare?

Paul Hill: That’s the only good video because, you know, attention span theater. So yeah, you got to keep it short. I feel like we always know, and it could be two minutes, it could be five minutes, like something’s starting to drag. You know, it just felt like, OK, that was the point. I sort of kind of tuned out. So maybe not short is the answer, but there’s a certain point you just feel in your heart, your gut, that it just was running too long and then you start to lose your attention. So probably shorter is better.

Heather Riexinger: And finally, are brands too obsessed with relevance? You know, like trying to stake her in on trends and– some of the TikTok-y stuff.

Paul Hill: You got to be quick for that because they come and go. But I think the ones that do it right– I was just looking at some stuff from Heinz Kutchup, and they’ve got a new suit for the 57th pick for the draft. I just thought that was very timeless, or timely, I should say, coming into the draft. And you have to react fast, especially when some of the creative is reacting to something that’s out there in the world. And you’ve got to be right on point there, the kind of trend goes away.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah. I think, like you said, it’s the relevance of the brand with the celebrities that I always think doesn’t make sense, or is it just to show up in a feed?

Paul Hill: Right.

Heather Riexinger: All right. Section four, we’re going to talk about revisions here.

Paul Hill: So far I’ve had– that was toothpaste. It was not bad.

Heather Riexinger: What’s the most common feedback that kills great work?

Paul Hill: Make it pop.

Heather Riexinger: No.

Paul Hill: No, that’s not a bad comment. I think sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what clients, if they can’t articulate what it is. But yeah, probably that. And maybe there’s too much white space, or as we say, I see dead space.

Heather Riexinger: Like keep it– don’t have to fill every piece of white. How do you determine when to push back versus letting something go, whether it’s with me, someone else internally, or even a client?

Paul Hill: Sometimes it’s timing. It’s got to go out the door. But I think there’s some things you just really feel strong, and you really got to defend it. And I think those just come up when maybe it was a really passionate project, or something you really knew a lot about, or spent some time on. And if somebody just kind of comes in and says, eh, I’m not sure, that’s tough to not defend and say, here’s why. Here’s the things that got going for it. So defend, defend.

Heather Riexinger: All right. Rapid fire here. Another round. And I must have been reading your mind, because the first question I have here is, can we make it pop? OK, well– Ow! Whoa! Oh, what was that one? I have no idea. Whoa! All right. And that’s what the people are here for. That’s what the people are here for. Oh my god. You good? I’m good. All right. So can we make it pop?

Paul Hill: We can make it pop.

Heather Riexinger: All right. Yeah. How do you feel about this one? My spouse liked the other version.

Paul Hill: You know, I have my wife look at a lot of things of Tess, because she’s not in the business. And I always feel like that person that’s not in the business is a great feedback, or gives very good feedback. So I would certainly take it into consideration before I said, that’s not a deal.

Heather Riexinger: And then just roll your eyes, yeah. Just one more tweak.

Paul Hill: One more tweak.

Heather Riexinger: That’s one of my favorite pieces of feedback.

Paul Hill: I’m OK with that. I do feel like I’m a tweaker. And I know we’ve talked about when the pressure’s on and the deadline is looming, that’s kind of when we shine. So a tweak here or there, it’s the last minute.

Heather Riexinger: That’s when I’m standing. I’m all over. Standing over your shoulder saying, can I have the deck? The meeting’s in four minutes. Can I have the deck? Four minutes. It’s like– Yeah, exactly. That’s what you usually say. Do you like to send a deck or live walkthrough?

Paul Hill: Live walkthrough.

Heather Riexinger: Feedback limit. Is there an ideal number of rounds to greatness?

Paul Hill: If you’re getting into your double digits, I feel like you’re probably going downhill at that point. But I feel like there’s always something with a collaboration that kind of gets everything a little tighter. So a couple rounds usually is not bad. If you’re dealing with people that you feel like you can trust their opinion, I think that’s always a good thing.

Heather Riexinger: All right, we’ve got a couple more rounds here. AI. We have to talk about AI. So what scares you about AI and creative?

Paul Hill: I think everybody just feels like it’s just going to take over. I hate to think of people losing their livelihood because of it. I’m not sure that’s quite there. It does feel like there’s kind of diverging past at this point of love and hate. Probably just the deep fakes and the things that it feels like they’re out there for harm and misrepresenting things or people doing the wrong thing with it. So that’s probably the biggest fear. And certainly a little bit of the environmental part of it. But I feel like probably the most is just in the wrong hands.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah. Yeah, there’s everything now. I can’t even figure out half the things if they’re real or fake. Have to Google, fact check everything. What excites you about AI and creative?

Paul Hill: I think it’s getting better. I think it’s super powerful. It allows just so many iterations. And I think any inspiring tool, you can just find that– I didn’t think of that. And it came up with that kind of on its own. Sometimes you get that from just looking at something or going through a portfolio or something. But a lot of times, AI just takes you down a path that you might not have known. And I tell the other art directors, one of my favorite settings is to turn up the chaos. Because I think that kind of leads it into different things. So it’s exciting to see sometimes what it can come up with that maybe you didn’t think of yourself.

Heather Riexinger: I’ve seen some really weird things you’ve done, especially around dental and teeth. They got real weird. OK, another rapid fire on AI.

Paul Hill: Sorry, I had to put that last one out.

Heather Riexinger: No, that was what the people were looking for. AI for ideation, yes or no?

Paul Hill: Yeah.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah. Stock replacement or tool upgrade?

Paul Hill: Oh.

Heather Riexinger: Say that one again. Stock replacement or a tool upgrade?

Paul Hill: I’m going to say both.

Heather Riexinger: OK. Faster work equals weaker work, yes or no?

Paul Hill: Not necessarily, but we’ve just talked about it. If you stop there, that’s probably not good. But I think faster ideation is great. So yeah, probably a little more toward the first one.

Heather Riexinger: AI mood boards, helpful or lazy? Helpful. Where does human taste matter most?

Paul Hill: Jelly beans. I think you’re always curating. So hopefully you’re hitting the buttons and then kind of reviewing it with a person. So I think human creation or curation, if it is, is the most important part.

Heather Riexinger: So we’re going to call this final round the hill to die on.

Paul Hill: The hill to die on.

Heather Riexinger: All right. Great title. Yes. Is good creative more about concept or execution?

Paul Hill: Both. Wait, can I even say that?

Heather Riexinger: Yeah. Yeah. You can see both. We can get out of this quick for you. Does everything actually need to be ownable? No. I would agree with that. All right, rapid fire. Let’s see if he can get– I’m going to go with another round. These seem to be getting worse. I feel like as you go.

Paul Hill: Probably shouldn’t be able to see what color they are.

Heather Riexinger: Logos, do they still matter?

Paul Hill: Absolutely.

Heather Riexinger: Brand guidelines, necessary or restrictive?

Paul Hill: I feel like we’ve been working on that a lot. And it’s more become not so restrictive as here’s a few examples. Use your own creative brain to come up with something similar. I think the guardrails sometimes are so restrictive that it just– either people break them right away because they’re not working, or things just start to look the same. And everybody is frustrated after a little time. So hopefully you got some guardrails, but they’re minimalist that let you kind of still put your own ideas in there.

Heather Riexinger: Humor and ads, underused or risky?

Paul Hill: Totally underused.

Heather Riexinger: I knew you’d say that. Do awards matter?

Paul Hill: Awards do matter. And I used to have a thing saved on why, but I just feel like that just takes you to that place that you’re proud of it yourself. And if somebody else can recognize it, again, hopefully it’s great for the client and the business and all that. But I just feel like when your peers acknowledge that work in such a way that just inspires you. And I really do think creative things are– they are effective. And they do stick in your brain. And people like to watch those. So it’s no question about it that when there’s awards, I think that kind of goes hand in hand with great work.

Heather Riexinger: Nice. Is creative getting braver or safer?

Paul Hill: I think that’s another divergent path. I think some stuff that I’m seeing is just so intelligent and crazy and cool. And the Heinz stuff, they’re just so on point. Some of the cooler stuff– I don’t remember when the foul ball hit the scoreboard. And they just came up with this little black square. And they’re so cool. Kind of the stuff that just makes you go, like, wow, I wish I had thought of that. So for sure, I think risky is still risky. But it’s very rewarding when it hits. And I think the safe route, as we already talked about, it just kind of gets lost in the sea. And it certainly works. And you can’t really fault it. But it just doesn’t feel like you’re going to be memorable or have that ownership to an idea or a brand.

Heather Riexinger: Well, to close it out here, we’ll just talk about a little personal fun ending here. What’s your most controversial creative opinion?

Paul Hill: Controversial creative opinion. Like that I was trying to push the creative through or– Hmm. Yeah. Oh, I don’t want to stall here. It’s a dead air. But that’s a tough one.

Heather Riexinger: You’re killing it. All right. We can skip. We can skip. But you have to take a bean boozled for skipping. What advice would you give younger creatives? This is a fun one. I feel like I’m going to have to bring this back for round two. You’ll be back in– I’m going to have you back in like two weeks. Yeah. This is great.

Paul Hill: What the hell was that? Good God, wet dog. Oh. Oh, gosh. What was the question again?

Heather Riexinger: What advice would you give younger creatives?

Paul Hill: I think it’s probably a weird time for creatives. They’re probably wondering where all these tools are going to go. But I would say embrace it. Embrace your creativity. I think there’s always going to be a job for people that are thinkers, that are creators, that are conceptors. They have all the tools at their disposal. So they’re probably in a better place than most of us when we started. So just don’t forget to use your brain. And be aware of the world around you. Absorb what’s going on. We have students come in every year with their portfolios. And I’m always amazed that they come through with great stuff. And I think there’s always going to be room and opportunities and careers for people that are passionate about it and really want to do great work. It’s out there.

Heather Riexinger: All right. Final rapid fire. One more.

Paul Hill: We’re out of red.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah, you’re like, no way. Most painful kill ever.

Paul Hill: You know, I think every once in a while we’re doing work pro bono. And God bless the clients. I’m not knocking them. But when they start to come back with stuff that just felt like kind of killed the idea, and it’s like, we’re doing this for you. And it’s kind of on our own dime. So those really hurt sometimes. They have that killed. So those are done. We came to go to the foam core furnace, we called it.

Heather Riexinger: Oh, no. Creative Hill you’ll die on.

Paul Hill: I really don’t think I will. I know there’s negotiations. I don’t think I would ever take it in the heart for something that much. I’m sure we could come to a happy medium. But yeah, I’m not sure if I’m really ready to go that way.

Heather Riexinger: No, I think sometimes I want to fight harder than you do. I’m like, no, I’m going to fight for Paul. Better compliment, beautiful or smart?

Paul Hill: Oh, beautiful, of course.

Heather Riexinger: And finally, what’s one creative skill everyone, not just creatives, should learn?

Paul Hill: One creative skill. Wow, I think that the answer to that question is be a sponge. You should be eyes open. You should be ears open. Don’t think you know it all. Pretend you don’t know anything. Try to listen to people who are different than you, and their opinions are different. Or maybe they have more seniority. Maybe they don’t have a seniority. Maybe they aren’t even a creative person. Listen to those people. Be absorbent, observant, and absorbent, because I think great ideas can start anywhere, and the spark can be anything, some simple thing to something to come. So maybe the answer is just be open to ideas and kind of out in the world listening.

Heather Riexinger: Awesome. Well, thank you, Paul, for joining us today.

Paul Hill: I love the jelly beans.

Heather Riexinger: Doing the jelly beans.

Paul Hill: I don’t know if it’s– I’ll get those ones off the floor that I spit out.

Heather Riexinger: Yeah, I don’t know if it’s better or worse. Now, you can just go play with the creative team and tell them how good it was, and see who you can get.

Paul Hill: I’ll just put them in a jar, and not let anybody know that they’re–

Heather Riexinger: Yeah, just put them in the kitchen, and somebody will grab a handful and throw them in their mouth. So awesome. Well,