An Actual Introduction After Three Years

Three years of writing about art direction, and the introduction I never quite got around to writing

Hi everyone,

This is a bit of a different post that I’ve been considering writing for a super long time, probably three years to be exact, which is how long this Substack exists. I had a few meetings recently where the same observation came back to me at different moments. The phrase that came up was wondering who I actually was, the person writing this Substack. People mentioned I felt mysterious and anonymous and I realised I never intended this to be.

It made me laugh, because I genuinely never set out to be. I’m not building a private practice. I’m not operating from the shadows. I’m just camera shy, in a way that doesn’t always translate well to a microphone and I’m not someone who enjoys having my picture taken, let alone talking to a camera making video content. But, just like most people I did have an urge to create and that’s why Substack seemed perfect for me. I’ve turned down most of the podcast interviews I’ve been offered over the past few years for that exact reason. Writing feels safer. It gives me time to think, to choose the right word, to actually articulate the thing I’m circling. I do like to write the way I speak, I like to keep things approachable and easy to understand but also I like that I can click backspace and slightly rewrite a sentence on my laptop, which is something that can not be done in real life.

But three years and over two hundred essays in, the absence of me as a person on the page has started to feel like its own kind of statement. So this is the post I’ve been avoiding. The introduction. This is my proper introduction and saying hi!

When I started this Substack I wrote to nearly nobody for almost a year. I never promoted it, didn’t have a following on other channels but slowly but surely people started sharing it. I’m beyond grateful to where it got me, because I really did not expect this to happen. That’s also why I never made an introduction, because to who exactly? Then.. it became to many people and that kind of made me put it off even longer. It’s also not that I necessarily did it as a strategy, it’s simple. I was just focused on writing and my work as an art director, I don’t have many photos of myself that are decent to share either.

So, hi I’m Zoe. I’m currently 28 years and I’m based in the Netherlands. I’ve lived in Amsterdam, London, Ibiza and Berlin but recently went back to Rotterdam (a question I regularly get!), where I am from to figure out my next step. I travel a lot for work, but also for inspiration. I work as an art director doing, yes art direction, but also visual strategy, image research and direction. I have a strong focus on conceptual work within fashion, wellness, beauty and sports. As most know, I’m a big photo book and magazine collector, I also enjoy vintage shopping for specific pieces, my favourite place is Ibiza and my life goal is to build a house there one day, if I wouldn’t have this career I would have either been an art teacher or own a dog shelter.

I’m Dutch, but one of my grandfather’s is Morroccan or actually of mixed African descent, my other grandfather is Indonesian so my mixed curl pattern is a daily struggle. Pink is my favourite colour, I love the beach, long drives or train rides, my Google Maps probably has over a thousand places saved, I also really enjoy fashion history, watching runways and was a big Tumblr and Rookie mag girl, I do love a good iPad game and a cheese platter with some wine. I’m a Pisces, but also an INFJ so that makes me extra sensitive and really a dreamer.

So that’s a short summary of my introduction besides what you might know from reading this newsletter.

A very corny collage

I’m a doer who looks like a thinker

People often assume the opposite. They read the essays, see the research, the long paragraphs, the framework-building, and assume I’m someone who sits with ideas for a long time before acting on them. The reality is the inverse. I act on impulse, which doesn’t mean I’m impulsive. It means that when I have an idea, I execute immediately. The research is what runs underneath, I memorise a lot for some reason and make connections quickly. It happens almost unconsciously, in parallel with the doing. By the time I write something down, I’ve usually been thinking about it for months unconsciously and testing it across briefs without realising.

This is also why the Substack exists at all.

Why I started writing

There were three reasons, and they layered on top of each other over a few years which might be important mentioning.

The first was that I needed a mentor when I first stepped into art direction, and I couldn’t find one. What I found instead were a few industry egos who promised me the world, took my work and my time, and then disappeared the moment they got what they wanted. It happened more than once before landing my first proper jobs. I’m not bitter about it now, but at the time it was disorienting in a way that’s hard to describe. You think you’ve found someone who’s going to help you. You learn very quickly that most people aren’t built that way.

The second reason followed from the first. I started feeling like I was constantly chasing people. Anyone who I thought might know something useful, I was reaching out to. Most of them were either too busy, or simply not interested in helping someone else learn. There was no infrastructure for the thing I needed.

The third reason was the most specific. As I shifted from applying for junior creative roles to actually shaping myself into an art director, I started looking online for resources, and almost everything I could find was about graphic design. That isn’t what I do. The work I was doing was conceptual and strategic. I couldn’t find anyone writing about that part of it. So I started writing it myself, partly because I genuinely needed a place to articulate what I was learning, and partly because writing it down forced me to keep doing the research that was making me a better art director in the first place.

The email that shaped my career

Anyone who knows me knows I ask too many questions. I’m beyond curious. I want to know everything. I was the kid who was good at research and analysis during my fashion and branding studies, and I’ve never really stopped operating that way.

When I started at Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, I had no idea what any of the roles actually meant. I genuinely cannot tell you my own job title from that period because it was so long and corporate it didn’t mean anything to me. What I do remember is that the work wasn’t what I thought it would be. So I did something that I now realise was very naive, and which I’m grateful no one talked me out of, because I did it secretly after I finished my tasks. I went to the company structure document, looked at every role title that sounded interesting, and started cold-emailing the people behind them. Including the creative directors. Including the CEOs, anyone that I thought could help me further.

A surprising number of them said yes. Not all of them, but enough. They took the time for a coffee or a lunch even. They told me how they thought about their work, what they’d done at my age, what they’d do differently. Those conversations changed the entire trajectory of my career. I started piecing the roles together and understanding where I wanted to go. They also permanently dissolved any anxiety I’d ever had about reaching out to someone. After that, I genuinely believed I could do anything with an email address.

I’m still doing this in my career, and I know that a lot of people are not able to get in the right rooms. I am super grateful that I was able to, so I wanted to share all the knowledge I gained in a Substack publication. I also feel like, because I grew my following I have some sort of accountability to keep creating, which makes my curiosity even deeper for any topic that interests me. I research a lot more than I used to, which essentially also made me so much better at what I do and made me have so much more interesting conversations.

Going all in

There was a period a few years later when I was (and still am) in a long period of grief, and the experience left me with a kind of clarity that’s hard to manufacture any other way. Time started to feel different, life is precious. I could see exactly how short a life is and how easy it is to spend it staying at a level that doesn’t quite fit because the level is comfortable. I was working a stable full-time art direction job at the time. The work was fine, I was bored and could only dream of what I really wanted to do and what kind of brands I wanted to work for.

So I quit. I contacted what felt like the entire industry. But I also picked up a camera and started bringing my own concepts to life rather than waiting for someone to commission them, I pitched like crazy, worked with stylists, MUAH’s and young designers. I followed up. I made mock projects. The opportunities came slowly at first, then more steadily and then I ended up always being booked.

Learning from someone just a few steps ahead

That whole period shaped what I now believe about teaching. There is real value in studying what someone like Ferdinando Verderi has built. He’s at the top of this industry. But he also started in a completely different time, under conditions that don’t really exist anymore. People learn more, in my experience, from someone just a few steps ahead of them. Someone who can still remember what it felt like to not know, who knows what the current version of the path actually looks like.

The position I’ve tried to hold here is that of a peer. Someone who has just done the part of the path you’re currently on, and has notes. I try to alternate this with frustrations that spark me to think differently in this industry, my personal inspiration written as an essay and anything else that comes to mind.

In a couple of years the trajectory has shifted in ways I didn’t expect. I went from junior creative to senior art director leading campaigns with people I’d grown up watching. Tate McRae, Zendaya, Normani. Footballers like Virgil van Dijk and Bradley Barcola. I’ve been in pitch rooms for heritage brands I once only dreamed of buying a single item from. I’ve spoken to editors of magazines I collected through my entire teenage years. The strangest part is that I now occasionally help a younger generation of image-makers do versions of the same thing.

I have like 50 drafts in my Substack folder. There’s no degree in art direction, which is partly why people sometimes call this newsletter niche. I’ve never thought of it that way. The field is enormous, the visual literacy the work requires is becoming more important rather than less, and the thinking is genuinely under-served. I could write about this for the rest of my life and not run out. I think art direction is a really broad term that anyone who is a creative needs to know and understand, whether you’re a photographer, stylist, brand owner, set designer, strategists or even account manager.

Where I’m going

A few things are happening this year that the writing here will start to reflect.

I’m redesigning the Substack and finally giving it a proper logo, something I’ve also put out for so long. The little circle I created without much thought and ran with it ever since. I’m building out The Art Direction School more seriously, because education is becoming a bigger part of what I want my work to be since I feel like there is so much ask. I want to teach people stepping into this field, and I also want to share image literacy and strategic thinking with brands that need it. I’m going deeper into visual research and archives in a way that goes beyond the Library Substack. Essentially besides freelancing I’d love to open my own studio when the time feels right that includes the archival research, brand consulting, concepts and art direction practice.

Alongside all of that, I want to keep art directing. I want to work with the biggest brands in the world and make work I’m genuinely proud of. The honest version of this is that I create constantly and rarely share what I make, because I’m extremely critical of my own work and because so many of my ideas get diluted by politics on the way to execution. I also say yes to projects that are great experience but not portfolio pieces, sometimes for the relationships, sometimes to work with people I’m curious about. This year is partly about rebuilding the work I’m willing to put my name on. I removed so much work from my portfolio, because more people look at it now and I don’t want to ‘sell’ myself in a way that isn’t what I want to be known for. So a big clean up is in the works.

The other thing I’m trying to do this year is be more visible. Less hidden behind the research and the essays. It’s easy to stay safe behind a critique of the industry. It’s harder to step out from behind it. Not in a way of showing myself more, but showing up in a more personal way in for example the chat, Instagram and when my schedule clears up, in the form of mentorships. I recently started doing portfolio reviews and it’s genuinely been so interesting and fun. Also meeting new people and working with new people, because you can easily get stuck in a comfort zone working with the same talented people, but the work outcome and process will also stay similar.

So this is the start of that. If you’ve been reading for a while, thank you for staying with me through whatever this is becoming. And if you spot me at some networking event I’ve been pushing myself to go to, please say hi!

Love,

Zoë