My first drawing was a duck pulling a truck. I was about two years old. I've been drawing ever since. Drawing is how I coped with being unpopular in kindergarten. It's how I made friends. And how I skewered enemies. Drawing got me noticed. Got me thinking about how I could make a living being creative. Got me into Carnegie Mellon University. Got me into my first job at Ketchum Advertising. Got me into helping start an agency. Got us clients. Got them famous.
Drawing is how I've always developed, nurtured and communicated ideas. So I was pretty shocked recently when the executive producer of a large film production company told me "nobody draws anymore." He was looking at some concept boards I had drawn and said "you wouldn't believe the half-baked thinking we get. Stock photos. Swipe of all kinds. Just bits and pieces of ideas that we're supposed to put together somehow."
All this had me wondering. Is this non-drawing, non-thinking, style-over-content approach as pervasive as he suggests? Is this some kind of new thing that's going to make us and our clients better? Has an industry of new thinking abandoned something so fundamental as drawing? Have you?
I welcome any comments and thoughts you may have. And, if you're curious, here's the drawings my producer friend was looking at when he said what he said. And here's the spot we made together.
A late-baby-boomer-aged man sits at the head of his dining room table. A small group of family and friends have gathered for a low-key celebration of his birthday.We hear the small party through the man's ears. A friend is trying to toast him. The sounds are distorted and broken up. The people fade in and out. The picture breaks up in places, like a bad satellite feed. The dining room table grows longer, gently distancing the man from the celebration.
Still seated, the man drifts out of the dining room altogether. French doors close him off from the party within.
He is on the outside looking in.
The man continues drifting further from the gathering. Crossing the foyer, he comes to rest in a small sitting room. Again, French doors close him off. Then the doors and all the features of the small room disappear completely.
The man sits isolated in his own thoughts in a featureless, windowless, doorless space. He is utterly alone.
The man stares down at his empty hands. Suddenly a pair of Oticon Dual hearing devices appear in his palm. He admires their tiny size and puts them on. The scene's colors and lighting begin to brighten.
Sound by sound, the man's new world of hearing is dramatically brought to life. We hear birds chirping outside, and then a window appears. It fills the space with sunlight and reveals the room's beautiful architectural details. A wall clock chimes and then we see it appear. The family dog barks and pushes open the French doors. We hear the laughter and voices of the party guests from across the hall, which grow louder and more distinct as the man eagerly makes his way toward the celebration.
The man happily rejoins the party, which is more colorful and exuberant than before. He is engulfed by friends and family who joyously celebrate him.
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