Recruiting a Creative Team for a Well Known Brand

In general for any open creative role, candidates must demonstrate the following:

Creativity

Enthusiasm

Flexibility

For company with a well known brand flexibility is the most important attitude to hire for. This may seem counter intuitive because it seems creativity would be the most important criteria. After all, doesn’t every company want to get noticed with award winning, cutting edge design? However for a company with a well known, great design is important in that it must support the identity of the brand - it needs to tell a story that fans of the brand want and expect to hear. 

Image a string quartet hiring for a violinist. They want a musician who will blend with the ensemble and add personal touches as appropriate to the music and what the audience expects. The quartet certainly doesn’t want a musician who is so out there that they do virtuosic riffs in the middle of a piece of Beethoven. 

Hiring a creative in for this type of role presents a unique challenge because creative people want to add their stamp to their work: their sense of order, color, and space.

Since the established brand has a well known visual identity, a creative person in this field will be adding to the brand identity, not redefining it to a personal creative aesthetic. A designer in this role has a vast visual history to draw from, so a company in this position needs design that builds on brand identity - all visual imagery must immediately elicit the recognition of the brand.

If you are hiring a fresh art school grad, look for a portfolio that tells an overall story. Within this story there should be chapters, or school projects, that show a varied approach to design challenges. In general there should be a rhythm to the portfolio that makes sense.

If you are hiring a seasoned designer, look for work that demonstrates command of brand identity. Some designers have worked for a company for many years and have portfolios that are mostly one brand. This is a good sign because this means year after year they have given their company what it needs - creative visual assets that support the brand. And this is good for your company because it means they are comfortable creating the designs that you need.

It is essential that the creative person has flexibility of mind to accept the design parameters of the brand and the ability to add incremental innovations to future designs.

Links:

https://medium.com/@realtynewsIndia/5-creative-recruiting-strategies-to-implement-62af2fe9cece