New Media Links, Toronto's leading Internet-related recruiting firm, is looking for a Creative Director for Canada’s #1 ranked interactive agency. This role will lead the creative department in all interactive projects from online advertising, website, multimedia, eCommerce and interactive kiosk. With your leadership, vision and mentoring skills, you will raise the creative bar elevating the caliber of work and assist with the growth of our client’s already impressive client roster.
Please email your resume to marshall@newmedialinks.com. To view the full job description, visit www.newmedialinks.com - Creative Director - #J00645
To further support my application I feel I should highlight the areas in my skills base that will fulfil upon your requirements from the post holder.
I have split these details into five major areas, commercial experience, management and administration, marketing, training & teaching experience, and personal attributes.
Commercial Experience: I have enclosed a full CV to support my application and would like to add here a little of my career highlights which I feel are of specific interest in the role advertised.
My role within the organisations I have been employed has been primarily developing innovative solutions that engage and encourage participation from concept to delivery, creating unique experiences, easy to use with intuitive interfaces. Always shaped with the desire to deliver real business benefits, and understanding a clients business needs and the client’s clients needs.
Leading multidisciplinary teams, developing strategic solutions to business problems, and presenting these solutions to clients at all levels as well as building creative and delivery teams, instilling a clear vision of organisational goals, aims and objectives, developing internal development programmes and standardising operational processes.
Major Achievements: I exhibited computer generated art pieces at the 1990 Bradford Print Biennale, and won critical acclaim for interactive learning program in the same year.
In 1994 I came second in an educational materials print award for the LCT prospectus.
At the BBC I work on the initial EPG for the interactive television trials with BT, presented to central government and toured the UK with the demonstrator, giving a series of lectures about the way forward for the technology.
At the Press Association developed services with BiB for rollout of interactive TV, and generate new service lines for the BT Touchpoint kiosks.
In 1998 won first prise for a corporate calendar, and critical acclaim for the art direction for a documentary highlighting the plight of street children in South Africa. Received a personal message from Nelson Mandela.
At the 1999 world film festival in the states a corporate film I art directed received second prise for its creative direction, beating over 70 other entrants. The web site that accompanied the film came first in category at the US corporate web awards.
At CSC I led a team that developed the Sainsburys “Taste for Life” web application, which won several major awards.
Being part of Differentis, and helping to build a start-up from the seven founders to a team of over 200, and a design/development team of 44, has given me an insight into how to develop best practise, encourage team ethics, structure and lead teams.
Running my own ceramics business for the last 4 years has given me a host of business skills that have now been tried and tested. In charge of P&L, developing and nurturing a brand, delivering a service to a target audience, and growing a creative business.
List of URL’s:
www.hotchpotch-online.com - Brand, design, concept and build.
www.skiptonbusinessfinance.co.uk - Art direction, design, concept.
www.spalaminates.co.uk - Design art direction.
www.washingtongreen.co.uk - Design and UE
www.kitchen-appliances-direct.co.uk - Design and UE
www.arden-motorsport.com - design, art direction, concept development.
www.gltc.co.uk - UE, information architecture, and design
www.internet-magazine.co.uk - initial concepts, template design, UE development
www.washingtongreen.co.uk - Art direction, concept and design
www.ferrari.co.uk - Art direction, client liason
www.grandprixsportique.com - UE, initial designs and development.
www.differentis.com - design, UE, and concept
www.uselect.co.uk - UE of the multimanager system, art direction, concept development.
www.bldeurope.com – art direction
www.belron.com - Initial concept, design, flash animation and programming.
www.futuredome.com – design and concept
www.translogistica.com – concept development, art direction, usability.
www.slazenger.com – art direction, concept.
www.bpicture.co.uk – art direction, concept, and usability.
www.carltonsports.com – art direction, concept, and development.
www.careyjones.co.uk – design, concept.
www.geoplan.com – concept and art direction
www.sottini.co.uk – art direction and concept development, into external communications.
www.internet-magazine.com – art direction, concept development, and usability
www.tactician.co.uk – art direction and concept development
www.willhoyracing.com – art direction,
www.stiff.co.uk – art direction, and design
www.poppets.com – art direction, flash, and design
www.beatricescott.com – art direction
Here is what I have been doing as far as hands on with a couple of projects.
http://www.sainsburys.co.uk - design, UE, information architecture, concept development.
I led the creative team tasked with putting together the strategy and front-end design for a food and wine portal, for Sainsburys. Working very closely with the client I was able to advise and influence decisions on how the brand would function on-line and how certain aspects of the site may be constructed to give a customer a more rounded experience. The usability issues became core to the whole project, placing the customer in the driving seat and constantly testing our own assumptions. The project was impeded by the inability of Sainsbury’s to offer a satisfactory fulfilment solution. I specified the software for personalization and the content management system, which has proved to be best of breed. The idea was to have a front end, which gave each individual a unique selection, based upon their previous buying record, and the search engine was constructed to imitate a real wine expert.
www.ferrariownersclub.co.uk - User experience, design, information architecture and concept.
Working with a small team and a very limited budget we had to assemble a site which end users would find easy to contribute to, but remain attractive and easy to use. With a small group of users we test initial deigns, and the dreamweaver templates, reassessed user feedback and rebuilt.
My role: My initial work is with the client helping him to realize the possibilities and the limitations of the medium. I will make a first cut of the screen layout, how much page “real estate” is going to be given over to what elements and make indications of possible design solutions. Getting to understand the target audience is essential, if the application is going to be a success. I also look at potential information groupings for the information architecture, what I see as logical groupings are not always what the end user will find logical so it’s often the case to try it out with a client and then an end user. I work closely with a junior designer to develop three potential design solutions and with the development team to put together a very quick and dirty prototype to test. I tend to do all the user testing and initial analysis of the results, coordinating amends to the architecture and working with the client if we feel the brand is getting diluted.
I use this site as an example because it may not be the best looking site, but it works and more importantly the users have been very pleased with its performance.
Management and Coordination: For the last nine years I have led teams numbering 3 to 44, I have learnt a great deal about managing people and how to get the best out of colleagues. I have found delegation, discipline, and conflict resolution are skills best learnt by experience, whist I have undertaken several internal training schemes based around time management, identification of objectives and meeting management. I have project managed several medium range projects and one major project which had a £25m budget attached to it, relying on a good team and commanding full commitment from that team is essential if projects are to come in on time and to budget.
Marketing: At Hotchpotch one of my major roles has been to lead the marketing initiatives as well as being the brand manager, developing the creative vision for the business and designing all the marketing materials.
At both Differentis and BlackOrange I had a major commitment to the marketing of the business. At Differentis I worked hand in hand with the marketing director developing the brand and developing innovative marketing solutions for a start up which had aggressive growth targets.
Training and Teaching: My teaching experience ranges from teaching basic literacy within schools to teaching to postgraduate level at the university of Leeds. I have run specialist training courses in software applications, and taught GCSE curriculum in art and design, and just about everything else in-between. In industry I have been instrumental in leading “lunch and learn” sessions, to encourage knowledge sharing and skills transfer, I have organised informal training sessions in business acumen, design theory and practice, as well as formal group sessions based around brand building, customer service, and innovation techniques, and a host of training sessions based around content management systems development, principally around “documentum”, “blue-martini” and “teamsite”.
I have written and delivered a host of training modules, re-writing the Graphic Design undergraduate course at the University of Leeds and several training products for an Internet based document publishing studio. Teaching and the desire to share knowledge with others have always been with me and has been a feature of my management style.
Personal Attributes: I should add a little about myself as an arts practitioner, as well as personal attributes. I have continued with the production of small art and craft works since completion of my degree, and over the last year I have produced a series of more commercial pieces that I have exhibited locally. On a personal level I am hard working and innovative, I like to work within groups, but am equally able to work on my own initiative, I am a lively debater and enjoy discussions based around almost any subject area. My wife and I often visit galleries and exhibitions, as she too is an artist in her own right.
Posted by: Robert Buchanan-Black | October 28, 2006 at 01:14 PM