Creative Agencies

A creative advertising agency is responsible for creating and executing advertising campaigns for its clients. A creative agency is concerned with what messages to convey to the target audience, and how to communicate the message in a creative way that gets it noticed.

In creative agencies you'll see people take briefs from clients, then recommend the best way to answer that brief through the production of ads. They develop scripts for television commercials, then make those commercials. They develop billboard executions, radio ads, digital and social media content, or build digital experiences.

The process of developing ads can involve market research, developing concepts and messages, creating visuals and copy, and production.

The key thing that distinguishes a creative agency from a media agency is that the creative agency decides how best to communicate a message and produces the 'ad' that does so. The media agency is concerned with where to best place that ad so that it is seen by the right audience. They then negotiate with media companies (such as TVNZ, Stuff, or Google and Meta) to buy the space that the ad appears in.

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Digital Designer

Digital Designers help to not only provide great digital content, but also help designing the way websites, apps and products look and work to provide the best experience for people using them. Based between the technical teams, and the creatives, the designers make sure they can create a digital space which visually translates those solutions into great content online in websites or apps across all aspects of branding, design, usability, and function. Digital Designers are really comfortable using analysis, research and data to not only guide them in creating things, but also then to track the performance of what they have created.

See what it's like...

Eden Pilbrow

Digital Product Designer at Edition

A fresh Artline200 Fine 0.4 Pen
Vanilla candles
“Digital design is like a creative puzzle game, where sometimes the most unlikely idea is often the best one.”
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Eden from Edition
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Career progression

Creative roles do not have a defined time period between levels of seniority. Talent defines how quickly you can rise to the top. There is no ceiling for how high you can go as a super-talented Digital Designer.
1. Junior digital designer
2. Web User Interface Designer (UI - working to improve how a user might use a digital product or service)
3. User Experience Designer (UX - like UI but including physical products)
4. Head of Digital Design
1. Junior digital designer
2. Web User Interface Designer (UI - working to improve how a user might use a digital product or service)
3. User Experience Designer (UX - like UI but including physical products)
4. Head of Digital Design

To be successful you'll need...

Technical understanding of systems or application capabilities, as well as a design flair and continuously building on this knowledge.
Strong communications skills to 'sell' your ideas, persuade people to tell you honestly what they think, and to then translate that into a digital space.
Imagination - you will be able to generate a range of ideas while applying your creative thinking to solve business problems, as well as great experiences for the end user.
To be great at working in a team and confident working with clients.
To be excited by analysing websites and apps for content structure, functionality, and encouraging positive customer behaviour.
A fascination with people and behaviours. Be curious about culture, what motivates people and the decisions they make.

Common Study Choices for Digital Designers

Because this role requires technical skills, tertiary study may be required. There are a number of shorter courses which could also be available to you – to test if it is what you might be interested in, or to grow your skills.

A Fine Arts, or Digital course would be very useful to build on your passions. There could also be three distinct pathways – Digital Designer, UX or UI designer.

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Getting a job as a Digital Designer

There are a number of different ways to get a job as a Digital Designer. One way is the the Comms Council Graduate Programme.

Applying directly for any of these roles, make sure to emphasise your communication, organisation and the various technical skills you may have in your Cover Letter and CV. You may also have created a ’portfolio' or ‘Showreel’  of the design concepts  you have created. You could use this to showcase your work in your application. These don't have to be real designs that have appeared in the world. They are speculative - how you would advertise products and brands that you've chosen. It is just a chance for people to see how you see the world through your previous work.

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