Everything that changed is really still the same

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in square holes. The ones who see things differently…While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” 

–Apple commercial 1997 

I touched my first Mac in 1984 as the Managing Partner and Creative Director at a small agency I founded. My tool box was filled with triangles, T-squares, rapidographs, rubylith, kneaded erasers and wax pencils. I sat at a large drawing board with white masking tape and X-acto knives while building mechanicals and creating marker comps. 

The Art Department was known as the Zoo. Cork covered walls were adorned with Farah Faucet posters, marker comps, logo development drafts and job traffic control spread sheets. We were required to wear a coat and tie just in case a client came to visit. A necktie did little to camouflage our deviant minds.

We made blow guns with rolled paper tubes and push pins and challenged every norm. Change was our watchword, the status quo our target. Clients visiting the agency ALWAYS came to the Zoo to stand in the doorway to gaze in awe at a bunch of irreverent creatives in action. Our T-squares and drafting tables are for the most part now obsolete, and the way we produce our work is much different.

But through the years one thing has remained constant; the people. The creatives, the technicians, the artists, the account execs, the media buyers, the designers, the thinkers, the writers and the wordsmiths. People who can breathe life into an idea through words or create an image that touches the heart without saying a word.

So, I got to thinking – although everything changed, nothing really has. We are in the “idea business.” The misfits who provide the creative spark that make content connect fit those round pegs into square holes every day.