The best piece of copy I approved during my tenure at MCJ. Or, ladies and gentlemen, meet designer, Ben Harman.

The above bag popped up seemingly out of nowhere last week on LinkedIn when a really good writer paid homage to it.

I think people who don't read their posts assumed it was his work.

Embarrassingly, the same thing happened to me one day, only in a bigger way when Modern Copywriter featured my CD/CW portfolio several years ago and honed in on this single piece, which I loved like my own child, but had only sold to the client as the agency's CD.

Oooooof.

LET ME SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT, MAYBE ONCE AND FOR ALL.

That's him, officer. That's the designer who wrote the Central Market grocery bag I was given the credit for by Modern Copywriter.

Ben Harman.

Every syllable. Every word.

It was, in my humble opinion, the best piece of writing I saw my entire tenure helming a small Austin agency that is no longer quite so small.

I'm fiercely proud of this piece for a couple of reasons and Ben is only one of them.

A GOOD IDEA CAN COME FROM ANYWHERE? DEAR GOD NO.

In retrospect, I didn't make many new friends when I took the helm and suggested that creative and design people were on equal footing in my mind.

I wanted to see ideas from everyone and anyone—regardless of job title or department.

I had inherited two warring departments, who lived on two separate sides of a cool old building, and seemed intent on poisoning each other to prove which discipline was stronger.

Geezus Christ.

ALL RISE: GETTING THE DEPARTMENTS TO STOP ACTING LIKE BRATS.

I have no doubt my operating philosophy was met with hostile glares and eye rolls. I also asked that a media person sit in on all brand briefings.

More eye rolls.

The two warring departments didn't want to share the stage with each other, let alone a media dweeb. Welcome to sophomore year of high school all over again, only Ad Age and Adweek were handing out the Report Cards.

And I was holding the whistle.

Then something interesting happened. In a meeting where we were trying to figure out how to sneak Shiner into the SXSW festival in spite of Bub Light being the official sponsor, the media person suggested an overlooked medium.

URINAL POSTERS: HO-LEEE-SHITS AND GIGGLES.

And with that, the agency began a prodigious run of urinal posters that overtook all the nightclubs during SXSW bands and continued doing so for years.

Thank you, Tina. Media fuckin' rocks.

The client was thrilled to learn that the posters were being stolen from the frames and the biggest problem we faced was restocking the posters. Or client knew it was a good sign and signed off on street crews to restock the frames.

The work got into all the awards shows.

Thank you Tina and media, for bringing the idea to our first creative check-in.

YEP, A FREAKIN' MEDIA PERSON BROUGHT THE SECRET SAUCE.

As the turf was began to lose steam, we moved the chairs around so that the departments no longer lived in silos.

Meanwhile, some friends of mine were planning on opening a hot rod shop behind the Binswager Glass warehouse on South Congress.

I went to the agency founders with an idea. I wanted to offer to do the grand opening invitations. With their blessings, I popped into the shop and learned that they had a guest list, including VIPS.

Returning to the agency, I asked our new head of design, David Kampa if he'd like to work with me to cross-collaborate on it with me.

Kampaman had an even better idea, which was of course, vintage Kampa

He asked me to work with a young designer he'd inherited from his pissed-off predecessor.

Thank you, David Kampa.

I STILL REMEMBER THE CONVERSATION THAT LED TO THIS POSTER.

RYAN: What if we printed posters on a rusty piece of metal for people on the VIP list?

I loved the idea but knew my friends weren't going after the rat rod crowd.

ME: What if we printed the posters on car upholstery material? We could have my upholsterer friend—who was starting the shop—custom-stitch the poster's frame?

RYAN: I don't know if the ink would stick. But I have a silkscreen. I'll see if it works.

Ryan stepped into my office after the weekend and showed me the exact design seen above.

Ryan: Guess what... it worked!

Suddenly, a member of the creative department and a designer were making good chili. Austin Speed Shop had a highly collectible VIP poster to announce their Grand Opening, and at the end of that year, the poster got in the Communication Arts Design Annual.

A first, for a collaborative piece that came from a team made up from both departments.

If you've got a building full of talented people vying over who is better than whom, your biggest problem to solve is that fucking attitude.

Thank god for grocery bags, awesome clients, and designers who write as well as Ben Harman.

Father, I have confessed my sin.

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Cameron Day loves collaboration, yes, even if it's with Chat and MidJourney. He's written three books without artificial assistance, and does live talks about everything from using AI as a rapid ideation tool to honing one's ability to find human insights in their own noggins.