3. In-House vs. Agency

In-House vs. Agency

I've been an in-house designer for 10 years. I subscribe to /r/advertising because I touch upon it in my career and its something that really interests me, but I do not work in advertising per se so I am a bit meek when it comes to posting here but this might be my time to shine!

I've never worked somewhere that limited me to only designing for one "product" locked into one creative style. It's my job as the senior designer to push the company forward and keep it relevant and ahead of the competition with fresh art direction. Having the time and faith to iterate the brand is really fulfilling. Even luxury brands like apple evolves its branding, advertising and marketing over time - and even within the brand they have several different visual styles.

Everywhere I've worked has had multiple brands within the company and I get to do a little bit of everything: Advertising (print, video, web), iconography, production work, email, light copy-writing, promotional items (white label or designing our own items and working with factories in Asia), packaging, branding, web design, textiles, environmental, annual reports, style guides, etc...

It's reliable, I'm reliable and I have a great work-life balance, allowing me a lot of time to pursue hobbies and freelance. I love my career, but its just work. I'm not interested in winning awards, being interviewed by Ad Week or having my own wikipedia page. I just want to be considered a reliable and dependable creative.

It's not all roses though, I would like to make about $20k more but I make the average in my city for what my title is (and I work for a non-profit) and I'm able to do as much freelance work as I care for.

Because of the nature of the industry this company is involved with (medical) IT is really anal about admin rights on my machine, I'm not even allowed to install fonts on my own.

That is probably the worst thing about where I currently work. I'm on a windows machine, we don't have wifi in the building and I can't check my work email with my iPhone (which I wouldn't want to do anyway).

I recently met with the Chief Creative Officer at Publicis for a portfolio review. He didn't care about being an in-house designer. All he cared about was my portfolio being boring (and it was). A healthy portfolio is like a healthy meal. It should be fun, colorful and curated.

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