This was a recent AIGA keynote to advertising and design students at a "Mentor Match Up." It's always fun to get up in front of people and be opinionated. Well, fun for me at least.

1. AIGA Student/Mentor Match Up:
11 things design and advertising
students should keep in mind
about the business of creativity
Mark Conachan, VP, Creative Director
Saturday Brand Communications
#mentormatchup

2. One
Don’t niche yourself. Don’t
specialize yet. Your precon­
ceptions about yourself may
limit you. Assume you can do
anything until you prove
yourself otherwise.

3. Two
Bring more than design
awareness to the table.
Culture, history, politics, etc;
remember to communicate
about life through design,
not design through design.

4. Three
You are a start up in the Job
Getting business. Do basics:
biz cards, Linked in, elevator
pitch, etc. Turn late nites and
shoestring budgets into raw
creative brilliance. Music
and beer are cheap muses.

5. Four
Be a “graphic messenger,”
instead of a graphic designer.
Color, photos, type, media:
everything is a message that
inKluences the brand. Think
about your visual dialogue
with your audience.

6. Five
People are irrational. They
aren’t robots. Consumers use
emotion over logic. This is
why design, branding and
kick­ass headlines are so
important. (MBAs, now they
might be ’bots.)

7. Six
Creativity needs time and
momentum. First ideas are
often not worth doing.
Revisit, rethink, redraw.
Require necessary time.
White sheets and screens
are beautiful tools.

8. Seven
Critique assumptions in
creative briefs about media
and tactics. Alternate
creative opportunities exist
to deliver messages, push a
brand. Explore the custom­
er journey for ideas.

9. Eight
It’s you vs. tech. Tools are
making us lazy, desensitizing
our natural instincts for
spacing, alignment, kerning,
color, everything. Stop
relying on automation so
much. Use the force, Luke.

10. Nine
Failure is the bar for
creative excellence, not
success. Easily approved
work doesn’t challenge us
or the client to greater
heights. For the audience,
safe is ignorable.

11. Ten
Beware agencies that
poo­poo awards: They
forgot or never knew the
value, power of the creative
part of our business, sadly.

12. Eleven
“Everybody’s creative.”
There are no bad ideas.”
Statements like these
diminish our education,
skills, process, profession.
Collaborate, yes, but always
protect your expertise.

13. Saturday is a consumer‐focused, media‐
neutral, fun‐centric, creatively‐ambidextrous
brand communications agency.
We like to put business and pleasure in the
Cuisinart and push 10.
We believe in branding through humor, social
experiences, valuable information, great
design or cool technology.
We don’t know what we want to be when we
grow up. And we like it that way.

14. Thank You