Remember how, in your first job as a junior, you daydreamed of the future? How, one day, you’d reach the pinnacle and become a creative director. The maestro of imagination, the conductor of creativity. It would all be so awesome.
Unfortunately, it’s not quite the magic and unicorns you imagined. Every day, instead, brings a new headache. Aligning people with different visions. Juggling resources. Wrangling stakeholders. Chasing deadlines across projects.
But before you get too depressed, let’s take a deep breath and dive into some solutions. Because it turns out there’s hope on the horizon.
To create this article, we’ve teamed up with Frontify, one of the world’s leading brand-building platforms. Helping creatives and marketers to design, organise and collaborate better together, Frontify serves more than 10,000 brands in over 200 countries, including 25 of Interbrand’s 100 top global brands.
What’s bugging creative directors?
Recently, Frontify, in collaboration with D&AD, decided to play detective and uncover the mystery of what’s really bugging creative directors these days. They surveyed 60 leading creative directors and senior creatives from around the world – the cream of the crop.
These folks were sourced from the judging committee of the D&AD Pencils, which is basically a bit like the Oscars of the graphic design world, but with fewer tearful speeches and more ironic eyewear. This global brain trust of creativity hails from a variety of places, including the EU, US, UK, Ireland, Brazil, China, Japan, South Africa and Australia. Some work in agencies, others in-house. But they all have one thing in common: some serious creative conundrums.
In this article, we’ll outline the survey results, namely, the most pressing issues facing creative directors in 2024. Then, we’ll share six actionable steps to solve them.
1. Time crunch: The creativity killer
Time, or rather the lack of it, emerges as the most significant hurdle for creative directors today. A staggering 70% of surveyed creative directors agree that insufficient time is the primary factor preventing memorable creative output.
And that’s not just bad for designers; it’s bad for design as a whole. The constant pressure to deliver under tight deadlines often leads to rushed and reactive work conditions, stifling the creative process.
So have we got here? Hugo Timm, creative director at Frontify, offers an intriguing insight into this question. “We see a lot of interesting companies that grew fast, because of their unique angle, overpromise, and have to pedal so hard to fulfil outrageous growth targets,” he reveals. “This leads to commercial needs steamrollering everything else; killing the very energy that made the companies interesting in the first place.
He continues: “It’s a little bit like that nice neighbourhood with nice hangout places that becomes desirable, gets flattened by anonymous development, and becomes an empty shell of itself.”
But this makes life difficult for the designers who are left to pick up the pieces. One creative director in the survey, for instance, lamented the: “Time and momentum to get work made vs. the time it takes to discuss, simplify and craft creativity.”
This sentiment echoes throughout the industry, highlighting the struggle to balance quick turnarounds with the need for thoughtful, innovative work.
2. Brand misalignment: a vision divided
The second major obstacle is the lack of a unified brand vision. Over two-thirds (67%) of creative directors report that their organisation or client lacks a shared brand vision or strategy. This misalignment can lead to inconsistent messaging, confused audiences and, ultimately, weakened brand impact.
One frustrated creative director, for example, decried “not being able to spread a creative vision consistently across the network and making sure people live and breathe it”. This challenge underscores the need for better communication and alignment tools within teams and across organisations.
3. Collaboration breakdown: silos and resistance
The third significant problem is the lack of effective collaboration, with 57% of creative directors struggling with poor cooperation and communication between people and departments. This issue extends beyond mere logistics, encompassing a broader reluctance to take risks and a lack of commitment to creativity within the organisation.
One creative director pointed to “cross-team misalignment, working in silos,” while another mentioned “clients (and colleagues) who don’t want to push for something outstanding if there’s a risk involved”. Such problems highlight the need for better integration of creative processes and a culture that values and supports creative risk-taking.
Of course, people mostly don’t like to talk about this stuff, because everyone is putting on their “best face”… which is exactly why these kinds of surveys are important.
As Hugo says: “It’s always interesting to reflect on this role from the inside out. There’s a romantic view where a creative director is a visionary risk taker, eternally constrained by their surroundings, but in truth we are extremely attuned to business needs, industry context, and how to create solutions. Beautiful case studies sure are nice to look at. But it’s under the surface that the work happens. So it’s nice to, once in a while, take a breath and dive in to see how we’re doing.”
Root causes
At the heart of these challenges lies a fundamental issue: the absence of a centralised, shared system for brand building.
And you don’t have to take our word for it. In the survey, 80% of creative directors supported this insight, strongly agreeing that having a single digital brand-building hub would significantly benefit their brands.
Such a system addresses the three core problems we’ve outlined by:
- Improving time allocation through better organisation and automation
- Fostering greater internal alignment
- Enhancing collaboration by providing a common platform for all stakeholders
“It’s much easier to move a brand forward when it feels like it’s shared,” explains Hugo. “Creative teams gatekeeping brands run the risk of becoming the sole advocates for it, and that’s a tricky place to be because you’ll always be playing defence. It may sound like a paradox, but inviting stakeholders to be co-creators allows for more brand ownership — it becomes something that is cared for.
“On a practical level,” he adds, “it also stops in-house teams becoming a bottleneck, where everything needs to be passed through their hands before coming out.”
6 steps to reclaim creative control
To address these challenges and establish a robust foundation for creativity, Frontify proposes a six-step checklist for creative directors.
1. Audit your brand: take stock together
Begin by creating a comprehensive inventory of your brand’s current state. This process involves reviewing and evaluating all brand assets, identifying areas of waste and repetition, and pinpointing access bottlenecks in the creative process.
Such an audit will provide a clear picture of your brand’s strengths and weaknesses, laying the groundwork for improved collaboration and efficiency. For instance, Mercedes made its brand more consistent and accessible by using Frontify to store all assets in one place for the first time in its company history.
2. Commit to a strategy: reaffirm, refresh or rebrand
Secondly, based on your audit findings, determine the level of change necessary for your brand. This step involves:
- Gathering customer insights to inform your strategy
- Identifying the costs of maintaining the status quo
- Committing to a direction, whether it’s reaffirming your current brand, refreshing it, or undertaking a complete rebrand
Remember, as one creative director puts it, “Perfect is the enemy of progress.” A strong commitment to a good direction is often more valuable than an unrealistic pursuit of perfection. For instance, Uber keeps its brand united and focused through many changes and acquisitions in what global creative director Brian Coonce calls its “one Uber, one brand” strategy.
3. Build a brand portal: create a shared source of truth
Thirdly, a centralised brand portal should be established to guide and engage more people in building the brand. This step includes:
- Creating a single source of truth for all brand-related information
- Developing comprehensive brand guidelines
- Customising the portal to provide a distinctive brand experience
A well-designed brand portal shifts the creative director’s role from brand enforcer to facilitator of shared responsibility across the company. For instance, automobile trailblazer KIA rebranded in 2021 and brought everyone along for the ride. Using Frontify, KIA makes connecting with and contributing to its new brand easy for everyone.
4. Establish DAM structure: build for the long-term
The next step is to implement a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system to organise, share, and deploy brand assets effectively. And we won’t mince words here. In 2024, a robust DAM system is crucial for maintaining brand consistency and adapting to changes quickly.
Creating one involves maximising efficiency through streamlined processes, avoiding “change debt” by enabling real-time updates, and preparing for emerging opportunities with properly organised and searchable files.
5. Automate with templates: design for independence
A fifth step is to create templates and tools that save resources and strengthen creative consistency. This includes:
- Providing relevant access and training to teams and partners
- Setting up digital templates for common or high-volume assets
- Laying the groundwork for enhanced automation, including AI-powered applications
By empowering more people to contribute independently, creative teams can focus on more challenging and potentially game-changing tasks. For instance, US football team the Kansas City Chiefs built a one-stop brand shop to focus on its most important work, save over 10 hours per week, and realise its vision of being “the world’s team”. Similarly, the coffee chain Caribou Coffee saves its team time with a DAM, brand hub, and templates from Frontify that make serving coffee easier across 700+ locations.
6. Implement through analytics: measure progress continually
If the changes you make aren’t measurable, you won’t know whether they’re working. So, use analytics to keep the entire brand on track and make data-driven decisions.
Continuous measurement ensures that improvements in alignment, collaboration and efficiency become permanent across the organisation. This involves monitoring how and where assets are used, identifying gaps or misalignments in brand implementation, and using results to inform and prioritise future actions.
For instance, Nationwide, the world’s largest building society, has reaffirmed its democratic commitment to its people by creating a new brand hub to drive engagement and consistency.
Conclusion: Dream bigger
As creative directors navigate the challenges of 2024 and beyond, the key to success lies in embracing systems and tools that free up their time and energy for what they do best – creating. By addressing the core issues of time management, brand alignment and collaboration through a comprehensive brand-building system, creative directors can reclaim their role as visionary leaders and drive their brands to new heights of success.
It’s important to remember that implementing a shared brand-building system is not an overnight process. Each step forward brings creative teams closer to aligning their brand, increasing collaboration, and reducing time-wasting distractions.
A centralised solution with a robust DAM, collaborative tools and automated tasks not only optimises daily operations but also enhances adaptability to major changes.
This setup builds the foundation for bigger, faster, more daring creative projects. Most importantly, it gives back the most precious resource any creative can have: time. Time for ideas to reach their full potential, for creativity to flourish and for innovation to thrive.
