Keeping Alzhimer's at bay...

Working on your book is something that will never, ever completely finish... unless you retire.

But every piece of advice we've received across all levels is to keep busy, stay creative. The minute you stop working is the minute you cease to have flare and potential. As David Abbot once said, "You're only as good as your last piece of work". So if you're not working on your book take photos, sketch, paint, go to exhibitions, meet your mates for a social, either way you're learning the way of the creative individual and keeping the alzheimer's at bay. 

I'd like to think in this dreamy reality that everyone on the ad scene is constantly working on their book, and for the most part, i'd agree, especially amongst the Junior ranks and those wishing to switch jobs. I'd like to know how much Creative Directors work on their 'folios if they even have them? Time is tight when you're working and the last thing you want to do when you've had a tough, long day at work is to come home and knock up some speculative ads, but you do because you hope that one day it will pay off. 

If it's something you enjoy then clearly it's not something that will fall to the wayside. Once you get into advertising, things change. Not in the small sense either. The way you approach things, the way you see things, and the way you think about things. There is not a day that has gone by where I haven't thought about an ad, made a comment about one, or jotted down some new ones, this is where a pocket sized notebook comes in handy for those bottom draw ideas. 

And no - bottom drawer ideas are not bad, tasteless, sexual innuendoes; but those that aren't fully fledged and ready to leave the nest ideas, just thoughts, observations that might come in to play at a later date - but possibly not.