Originally posted here (Spanish) in 2018.

I’m sorry, this isn’t art.

I’ve been thinking about this article for months. Among all the things I’ve wanted to write, this is perhaps the one that has slapped me in the face with examples every day to bring it to life.

The beginning of my advertising career was in this field. I learned a lot about the visual aspect of this business, especially that what we do must be understood and grasped quickly; it’s not art. Works of art are left for each person to interpret, analyze, and enjoy. Advertising must merely give me a clear, concise message that prompts action.

Each medium has its focus, its art direction.

Can anyone read more than 7 words on a billboard? Moreover, who can read more than 7 words in the nearly extinct newspaper ads? Billboards have become poor adaptations of Facebook posts. The focus that each medium deserves, the time we have for each one, and the necessity for a clear message have been forgotten.

I recall one of the last campaigns I worked on, in this role, for a radio station in Costa Rica. We fought to ensure each piece was suitable for where it would be published. Newspaper ads featured headlines over a photo that reflected the idea, while outdoor ads always had the headline against a solid color background. A colleague questioned this and insisted that the outdoor campaign was visually more powerful. A designer who was present defended it by saying:

“Of course. That’s the idea. In a moving car, you have only a few seconds to read and see who’s advertising. If you use a photo background, as in print, you might overlook the advertiser. In print, you have more time for a visually longer message.”

I grew up in the advertising world during a time when we wanted everything to be minimalist: a small logo, text well placed in a golden ratio. That’s fine, very fine, but often we went too far. We hated being asked to make the logo bigger. We were foolish. The logo pays for the ad; there’s no need to fear making it large. It’s an ad, not a signature on a work of art.

Once, a client came to the agency. He approached my workstation and asked about the project I was developing for him. They were panels with a name, product, and price. A fast food restaurant. My favorite. I learned about brand management through this and especially during this occasion.

When I showed my client the panels, he smiled and said:

“They’re very nice, very harmonious. One question: can you make them smaller? I want to see something…”

I proceeded to do it while he asked me to zoom out further. At a certain point, he said:

“Okay, that’s fine. Can you see the price of each product?”

I replied that I couldn’t, and he said:

“That’s the problem. We’re looking at it as if we were waiting in line to order, about 4 meters away… How can we make the customer see the product name, the product, and the price from that distance?”

Clearly, my ego as a designer didn’t know where to hide. I learned. I didn’t just make the price bigger; I made sure it was visible correctly from a reasonable distance. I never again neglected to consider the distance, location, and how a regular person would view the ad.

Are social media to blame for us no longer caring about art direction?

I feel that we’ve stopped thinking about people. Technological advances, coupled with the need to “make money,” haven’t allowed for the necessary time to think about how to deliver a message. We often focus on the photography or illustration and not on the typography. We need versions of the ad for different media, not just adaptations for each one.

I spent five years outside of Costa Rica, and while progress has been made in many areas, I now see that we’ve not only halted in the area of art direction but have forgotten it entirely. We think that if it looks good on Facebook, it will look good on a billboard. That newspaper ads should be filled with text like in a magazine, and worse, that people have enough time to consume all possible information on a billboard.

No. Social Media isn’t to blame for this. We, the advertisers, remain the culprits who forgot how to deliver a message. We forgot that this isn’t a work of art or that people aren’t in front of their computers as much as we are.

Art direction is everywhere.

Not just in a print ad or TV commercial, a post or video content. Radio needs details, emotions, intentions that only a good Art Director knows how to achieve. To make colors and flavors felt through imagination.