The tyranny of the tight comp

Opinion The tyranny of the tight comp

By Chris Staples

Art directors used to have it so easy.

In the pre-Internet age, they could get by with relatively few specialized technical skills. Comps were usually loose affairs, scribbled in black and white. For big presentations, freelance artists were hired to do marker renderings.

Once an ad was approved, ADs marked up comps and copy sheets with instructions for typesetters, who often plied their craft off-site.

What a difference an Internet makes. Now even the most junior AD has all the tools to create virtually finished ads on their laptop— from Photoshop, to micro-stock and royalty-free fonts. Tight photo-comps are now the norm in most agencies— for jobs large and small.

I think this has had disastrous consequences for both ADs and their craft. Why?

Tight comps move the focus away from ideas to execution. The surest way to see if an ad has a strong idea is to see if it passes “The Napkin Test.” If an ad can make you laugh out loud when it’s rendered in black and white on a piece of paper, it will only get better in its finished form. Scribbled comps force you to evaluate the naked idea with no distractions.

Tight comps allow clients to focus on the wrong things. It shouldn’t matter whether the girl’s shirt is red or blue at the presentation stage. When clients see a tight comp, it’s only natural they think they’re seeing the final ad. In fact, many will hold the creative team hostage to the comp, expecting the final version to be exactly what was sold.

Tight comps lock in technique way too early. In the old days, ADs would sweat over fonts and kerning for days and even weeks. Tight comps mean many of those decisions have been made before the concept is even presented. Ads don’t get better in the production process— which is why so many these days look and feel half-baked.

Tight comps steal time from the creative process. We have a saying at Rethink: Your best idea is either your first or your hundredth— but you won’t know until you’ve done a hundred ideas. It takes days (and often nights) to create tight comps. Coming up with more rough ideas is a far better use of that time.

Tight comps prevent truly original ideas. To create a tight comp in a limited amount of time, you need to be able to quickly assemble all of the ad’s elements from existing sources. Unoriginal elements often make for unoriginal ads. Truly groundbreaking ideas are hard to comp tightly because they’ve never been done.

Tight comps make art directors’ lives hell. It’s becoming standard practice for copywriters to knock off at 6:00, leaving their partners to toil late into the night finishing their comps. This is not only unfair, it’s incredibly destructive to ADs. They run the very real risk of professional and personal burnout.

So what’s a better way? How about the good old one? If it was good enough for Bernbach, it’s good enough for us. We have a rule at Rethink: Art directors are not allowed to turn on the computer until the idea is sold.

Some of them squawk and accuse us of being luddites. Until they realize their ads (and their lives) improve immeasurably once they ditch their digital ball and chain.

We sell most of our ideas as black and white scribbles. If we need to, we’ll show visual or type reference so clients can get a better idea of the finished ad. But we still allow ourselves plenty of time to experiment with fonts, composition and photography during the production process.

To illustrate the point, here are two mini case studies— one involving a more visual idea, and one involving a more traditional concept with a headline.

PLAYLAND
Art Director: Nicolas Quintal
Writer: Jason Perdue

This is the actual comp we presented to our Playland client:

To give them an idea of visual style, we presented the comp with this mood board:

After the ad was approved, Nicolas spent several weeks exploring visual styles, colour and type, using Peer Review to help pick a winner. Here are a few of the directions he played with:

This is the final ad as it ran:

DAYTON BOOTS
Art Director: Carson Ting
Writer: Rob Tarry

This is the actual comp we presented to our client at Dayton Boots:

Here are the mood boards we also presented to give a sense of visual style:

After the ad was approved, Carson explored a wide range of options, including the ones shown below, and used Peer Review to help narrow down a winner.

Here’s the final ad:

Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule, and sometimes a tight comp is necessary to sell an idea (this is especially true with design projects, where style is often just as important as substance).

But what do you think? As a former copywriter, do I have it all wrong about art directors? Are you an AD ready to revolt against tight comps? Or do you think the tighter the comp, the tighter the idea? Let me know what you think— that is if you’re not too busy finishing tomorrow’s comps.

Posted on August 24, 2010 by Chris Staples, partner and national co-creative director of Rethink in Vancouver and Toronto.

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Comments

Oct 28 2010 - by Diabetes Diet
Very good post. Looking forward to the next one.

Oct 28 2010 - by diabetes diet
Loving the new design, great work. Will it always be this way?

Sep 16 2010 - by John Marovino
You are right on Chris - well said. Too often the focus on execution tries to make up for a concepts' lack of substance - and sadly, the weaker concept often gets selected. The points you make apply to the package design process just as much as they do to advertising.

Sep 14 2010 - by Jim Diorio
Gotcha, Chris. Thanks for taking the time. Much appreciated. I agree. It also makes economic sense: you're basically throwing away thousands of dollars.

Sep 14 2010 - by Anonymous
Gotcha. Thanks for taking the time. Much appreciated.

Sep 14 2010 - by Anonymous
Jim: Not sure I understand your question. If you're saying a team should only go in with a napkin scribble, my answer would be that it depends. Some campaigns depend on a certain style of art direction to be effective-- it can be helpful to give clients a taste of that direction using mood boards during the concept presentation. That's what I tried to show in the examples above.

Sep 14 2010 - by Jim Diorio
great, but (oh my god, a dissenting voice!)... are you suggesting that the art director went into the concept presentation with a pre-established design direction? how does that work with the idea of keeping things focused exclusively on the idea?

Sep 8 2010 - by Dennis Forbes
As someone with many concepts and comps behind me, I applaud your article and for standing behind them. The positive footnote I would add is that the vast majority of young 'computer-literate' art directors also recognize and agonize over the decimation of quality think time. While they've never had the pleasure of churning out wastebaskets full of trash, to uncover a treasure, they too recognize its importance. Perhaps there is hope after all.

Sep 8 2010 - by New dad
Right on Chris. It might go a long way to explaining the recent trend of the "visual energy dump" with a headline. I'm pretty sure there are a few hundred photographers desperately waiting for the return of an idea. Not to mention the few hundred AD's wishing they were writers. It's too bad "Art Director" just sounded so damn good at the time.

Sep 2 2010 - by SRE
I think people's memories are suffering Golden Years Syndrome. As someone who made a living producing comp layouts for AD's all over the city in the 80's, I can assure you that very few clients saw anything resembling napkin drawings. When I became an AD myself, I used my scribbles to present ideas to the suits and the creative director -- but the clients always saw professionally mocked-up comps. Don't romanticize the past too much. Computers are just a tool that allow AD's to try stuff they never dared to in the past. They don't generate ideas. Yet.

Sep 1 2010 - by Cori
I second third and fourth all of the comments, as a seasoned print producer, I often have to explain the timing, costs and differences between the work of an AD and production artist, and why it takes "so long" to build and costs so much. I am often explaining this to twenty something AEs that have never seen anything different and therefore would have to be educated before the client is...

Aug 31 2010 - by Pete Campbell
The only thing every Art Director needs to ask themselves is "What Would Don Draper Do?"

Aug 31 2010 - by eyeamtheo
I've been telling colleagues this since I've started in the business but nobody seems to understand until now. Great article.

Aug 30 2010 - by Justin
Works for digital too. Hard to believe, but in the early days web concepts were sketched out on paper napkins as well. Common practice, however, has unfortunately made this somehow unacceptable to present to clients.

Aug 30 2010 - by Derek Redican
You hit the nail on the head Chris. great article.

Aug 27 2010 - by Nusber
I love you.

Aug 27 2010 - by Anonymous
horay for paper!

Aug 25 2010 - by Frank
Couldn't agree more Chris, you nailed it. I've been espousing this process since the advent of Macs. I too am old enough to have started out with loose sketches on tracing paper to sell an idea. Hell I still have all the old tools (amberlith, t-squares etc.) up in the attic. The idea always comes first. Sure you can art direct the hell out of a non idea. But then what does that leave you with? It won't fly at Cannes and it's not fair to your client.

Aug 25 2010 - by tdotdude
Idea first, execute later. I hope the photoshop comp trend fades and b&w's come back in style, and this is coming from someone who has bad drawing skills and went to OCAD when the "laptop program" started. I had to shoot stuff for a client presentation once and could have spent that time coming up with more ideas.

Aug 25 2010 - by Jim Vincent
I am old enough to have watched art directors work with pastels, illustration before Volkswagon changed the game, the emergence of felt pens (in black only) and the original Letraset, ... well you get the idea. And you're right Chris, something can get lost in the translation, because it places a boundary on the evolution of ideas.

Aug 25 2010 - by Chris Staples
Good point on web, JR. We just did a huge web-only presentation on Friday using all loose comps. Just because it's digital, doesn't mean your comps need to be. Does take some hand-holding, though...

Aug 25 2010 - by JR
Great read. Tight comps lead to loose concepts. A finished comp is like a one way street, once you get to a certain point it's next to impossible to go back. Sketches are a hard sell for web work mainly because clients tend to see sketches as unfinished or have a hard time making the leap from paper to screen.

Aug 24 2010 - by Terry Dee
A fantastic read. I'm certainly one of those in the precarious demographic where I was taught to work in a sketch/conceptual manner, but the prevalence of everything Adobe has allowed for "shortcuts" and quick sells of the process...so too often, the wheels can spin too long on the wrong thing.

Aug 24 2010 - by Julie Burden
Absolutely! And even as a freelancer working for small clients, my first presentation is black pen on tracing paper. You can educate the clients that this is the first stage. It's extra work to educate them... but they do get it.

Aug 24 2010 - by Jason Kinsella
So true. The dangers of polishing a turd. Great post, Chris!

Aug 24 2010 - by Ernest Burden
Thank you. I still try and work this way. Always made sense, even when I worked for you! Thanks again, ernie

Aug 24 2010 - by Annie
I LOVE this post. It's so refreshing. Combine the expectation of a tight comp with an even tighter deadline and.... ta da...welcome to my life. I'm the little broken hearted art director eternally working late, wishing I was a copywriter. Can I have a job. Pretty please?

Aug 24 2010 - by Bret Taylor
Sounds to me like a much more efficient use of time, and the concept doesn't get lost in the execution.

Aug 24 2010 - by Rob M
Awesome read, and I totally agree. As a writer, maybe I don't see the finished product as much as somebody is more of a visual thinker, but I find ideas are often push aside in favour of polished comps - even just for internals!

Aug 24 2010 - by rickperri
That's the way I was taught by the great Terry Iles. Too bad some clients just don't get this right away. Nice article Chris.

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