The realization of copywriting

This might sound like a terrible thing to say, being that I’m a two year associate creative director veteran, but I’ve just recently learned to fully appreciate the masterful craft that is most commonly known as copy-writing. In my defense, during my years as a coder I had little reason to think about the copy whilst I went about producing websites against almost-too tight deadlines. We ran into the widow/orphan issue now and again but the reality was that like 95% of my relationship with the creative department as a techie was with the designers – I’d work with production artists to cut the assets and build the sprites, sometimes I’d work with designers to experiment with new methodologies I’d read about (or better yet dreamed up myself), and finally I’d work with art directors to tweak effects and motions, and pixel push that bitch into perfection!

And since I made the switch over to the creative department I’ve followed a somewhat similar path, as a new breed of creative technologist I bring additional value in a specific area – producing cutting edge digital experiences. But this additional knowledge has come at a price – I’ve thus far lacked the depth to fully study and appreciate its copy. But again in my defense there’s also been another very good reason I haven’t had to delve into the mysteries of copy, and that’s because in my former job I was protected by a masterful writer named Nick Allen who for two years worked tirelessly day and night, deflecting and absorbing all copy requirements so that no copy related issue was ever to turn itself into a problem requiring my attention. At first they called him a junior copywriter then a senior one, neither title was good enough, in my mind that cat was Master of all Copy and Lord of the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and probably the King of Scotland to boot. Thank you for taking care of all that for the team Nick!

But enough about designers, and me, and even Nick. This post is about all the writers out there – those amongst us blessed with the god given talent of taking a keyboard of simple characters and forging them into nothing less than a wonderfully crafted masterpiece. In fact for me even associating the word ‘craft’ with copy is something I’ve newly adopted. It’s embarrassing, I’ve been ignorant, I’ve not appreciated your craft and for that I truly apologize. But I’ve not been rude about it either, I’ve not been disrespectful in any way, except through my weakness of not appreciating your true value sooner, but that’s only been my loss at the end of the day.

But look this is still me here and I might be trying my damnedest at my new philosophy of being fucking awesome, but I wouldn’t be me without saying that I’ve come across a lot of copywriters during my time that are mediocre at best. We all have, across all disciplines in some fashion or another we have worked with colleagues in other departments that we know have less ability over their own craft than we do over theirs – for example I can’t design a damn but I’ve seen plenty of coders that have had the chops to design circles around whatever designer they were assigned to work with on whatever project, and Flash developers that could kick an art directors ass with Photoshop. And when it comes to copy I feel the same way – it’s obvious I have a knack for this and have come across many a copywriter in my time that’s work I felt paled in comparison to that which I could have produced. I guess I’m saying that we all have these boxes that we’re put into, and sometimes we get put into the wrong one, and we need to figure out a smarter way of getting ourselves out and into the one that fits us better. Look, I made a badass coder in my time, and still could to this day, but I’m so damn comfortable writing words maybe this is where I belonged the whole time, and could have been even more badass at writing words instead of code, or at least badass happier, or something. But I had no way of knowing, of finding out. I know it’s tough for upper management to figure out, things have to be organized to run smoothly but maybe figuring out this problem of box relocation would make things run way smoother and better in the long run. But we can’t just look to management to solve this, it’s also down to us too, as individuals – if you know you’re a shitty designer, or writer, or coder, if you’re heart isn’t in it and you’re just winging it and producing the least possible to pick up that monthly paycheck. Take a good look at yourself bro, you can’t be happy, it ain’t fulfilling, and the people around you know it too, they might love you and think you’re funny and that, but you ain’t no good at your job so it makes their jobs harder picking up your slack, and they’re secretly getting kinda pissed about that. Get outta your box, get off of your cloud, figure out what you’re good at, what you’re passionate about, and become fucking awesome!

Maybe it’s a never ending journey?