The traditional role of the creative director is changing, says the D&AD president.
Last autumn, Laura Jordan Bambach became president of D&AD, the veteran organisation that exists to promote excellence in design and advertising worldwide - an occasion we marked with this exclusive interview.
Now she's settled into the role, D&AD has released a new two-part video interview (shown above and below). In it, Bambach - who's also creative partner at Mr President and co-founder and director of campaign organisation She Says - discusses her career history, her involvement in D&AD and a number of issues affecting the design industry today.
We're especially intrigued to hear what the former creative director at Dare says in part one about the changing meaning of that job title. "The industry's changing," she says. "That whole thing of the creative director being the one that is leading the charge, and without their heroic leadership this amazing piece of work would never have happened, it's just not true now. It takes lots of people to make that amazing stuff.
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"When you look at the really transformative digital work, some of the stuff that R/GA is doing for example, stuff that AKQA is doing, stuff that Crispin is doing [...] the creative director is still very important, but it's a different role and the role of creativity is different. The creative department includes more than just copywriters and art directors... so you can't be a creative director now and make all this interesting stuff and say it's purely down to you."
Tom May is an award-winning journalist and author specialising in design, photography and technology. His latest book, The 50th Greatest Designers, was released in June 2025. He's also author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Great TED Talks: Creativity, published by Pavilion Books, Tom was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine.
