User Experience Designer vs. Creative Director
September 14th, 2009 | Published in Ad agencies, Advertising, Concept design, UXD | 2 Comments
I was happy to find this article by Andrew Maier at UX Booth last week. Happy because it touches on a topic that I’ve struggled with once I began working in Canada two years ago. In my past in Europe, I was a Concept Designer, and my role was very close to a UXD-oriented ACD/CD.
A User Experience Designer can’t play the role of a subject matter expert within a narrow field. Like Andrew says in the beginning of his article, “because of how multifaceted User Experience is, a user experience designer begins to take on a more directorial position within a project/company, which I see as analogous to that of a creative director.”
However, I don’t see that the roles of Creative Director and User Experience Designer need to be mutually exclusive. There is room and need for both. But I’ve experienced that some Creative Directors see User Experience Designers as a threat, which is a fear that I want to help to remove. We work for the same goal – to get the work done well – and as long as we have a clear understanding of our roles and requirements, we can only help each other to get the work done more efficiently and effectively.
Karri Ojanen
About the author
I have over a decade of experience working in digital media, advertising, and digital and social product design first as graphic designer and art director, and then as concept designer - a role very similar to a creative director, but with a stronger focus on user experience design and marketing strategy. I've also worked as project manager, managing projects for clients like Nokia, the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones. I have gained experience in three different countries on three different continents: Finland, The United Arab Emirates, and Canada. Currently, I work as a Senior Experience Architect at Organic, Inc in Toronto, Canada. I work together with other strategists, creative directors, writers, designers and developers to create experiences that deliver exceptional value to clients and their customers.
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