New light-heavyweight Art Director at Red Interactive
Balind on 24 Aug 2007 | Personal News
As of September 17th, 2007, I will be nestled comfortably in my new role as Art Director for interactive agency Red, located in Santa Monica, California. I think it’s safe to say my ultimate goal of master-of-the-universe, is one step closer.
If you’re not familiar with Red, they’ve been around for 7 years and have over 30 employees but in terms of acknowledgment in the interactive community, they’re young and exploding. I’m filling a much needed role in their L.A office and the future’s looking bright all-around!
Anonymous on 28 Aug 2007 at 11:16 am #
So what happened with Elastic? You were quite excited about making that company grow.
balind on 29 Aug 2007 at 8:21 am #
Correct and I’ll bring that same type of enthusiasm to Red.
It’s complicated but in short, nothing “happened” with Elastic it’s a simple case of an almost ideal situation being replaced by an absolutely ideal situation.
ElasticFan on 05 Sep 2007 at 4:52 am #
Shame Balind! I thought u was great with Elastic! Elastic’s work is different then what Red does, elastic is more hip! and more creative.Red is just a big company where your work wont be seen to much.
Balind on 05 Sep 2007 at 8:14 pm #
We shall see. Maybe Red’s work is about to get more creative now that I’m on board.
ElasticFan on 06 Sep 2007 at 10:35 am #
Goodluck balind. Its sad to see you go. But im sure like u just said, RED’s work is gna get more creative!
Anonym on 07 Sep 2007 at 6:22 am #
Hello Balind. Congratulations with your new job at RED Interactive! Can you please state the difference between a art director and a creative director. And how could you become art director from a sr. interactive designer? What is the job difference?
Balind on 07 Sep 2007 at 7:36 am #
Hi. That’s a great question and I’d love to answer it.
It totally depends on the size of the company but generally, the Creative Director overseas all creative, he gives input but his job tends to be more management and at larger companies is basically to approve the work before it goes out to the client. The Art Director is a creative with strong communication and leadership skills, he guides a minimum two man team consisting of a Designer and a Programmer and he reports to the Creative Director.
At a company like Red, the Art Director is a jack-of-all-trades that conceptualizes, designs, animates, produces and uses his team to help fill in the gaps for him so that he can focus on the overall execution without the burden of developing content. A company like Elastic is so small it doesn’t have an Art Director, just a Creative Director and an Interactive Designer who fills all the roles necessary. This is a fantastic situation for learning but it’s not ideal long-term because the more the Interactive Designer pushes his creative, the more work he creates for himself which is ultimately, not encouraging.
What can sometimes happen is an Art Directors team can grow to a point where he’s promoted to Creative Director and the Interactive Designers in his team that show the most balanced skill-set and leadership potential get promoted to Art Directors.
So if you followed the above you can see that my role of Interactive Designer at Elastic has basically been grooming me to fill the role of Art Director at Red.
Anonym on 07 Sep 2007 at 10:25 am #
I see! Well uve explained that well enough! I understand it now!
That would mean that a Designer would have the capabilty to grow into a Interactive Designer, after that he would become Art Director and when hes somewhat 50 he’d be a Creative Director!
I thought i always wanted to become a creative director, when its art director! Which is obviously cooler, because you are involved in the actual designing and conceptualising, as where the creative director just says yes and/or no!
Nikov on 23 Oct 2007 at 2:52 pm #
Can we see a sample of something you’re working on at Red? And when did you last make 205?
tfoftfqbqf on 25 Nov 2007 at 2:23 am #
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Prodax on 27 Nov 2007 at 7:10 pm #
Will you still be creating Elastic People Coming “Taking Forever” soon website?
Balind on 27 Nov 2007 at 11:05 pm #
I finished it before I left, unfortunately it has no content and may not for quite some time.
I wish I could show you the link, it’s pretty cool and I put my heart and soul into it, but we have to wait until they fill it up.
Rishi on 06 Dec 2007 at 7:07 am #
Wohooo balind i love the new UFC 79 site! great stuff!!
Rishi on 08 Feb 2008 at 2:04 am #
Hey Balind, Are you permanently on the UFC account?? Because at EP you were doing alot of entertainment stuff, at RED its again entertainment!
Balind on 08 Feb 2008 at 10:14 pm #
82 was my last UFC site for now. I requested to stay on the account as long as I did because I really wanted to sink my teeth into it.
Coming down the pipe is a vodka site and a movie site for Paramount.
Rishi on 09 Feb 2008 at 4:24 am #
I think you and UFC is a kickass combo! I wonder how your AE and style would fit into a corporate website.
SERVICES on 12 May 2008 at 1:48 am #
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