There are plenty of intermediaries between a customer and a doer in the world of advertising. Advertising agencies, production studios, designer companies use illustrating, photo and retouching service. Young, well-read, stylish and witty people who read the same magazines, listen to the same music and watch the same movies work there. That is why you intuitively anticipate their adequate attitude to the creative work.

But they behave as if they have got something wrong into their heads.

Illustration by Andrey Flakonkishochki

1. Being sure that a doer is a slave to them, they choose threats, pressure and armtwisting as the most effective ways of business administration. “It’s shading time, folks!” “Aren’t you able to do the same thing twice as fast?” “Be quick, the client is waiting!” “What the heck do you think of yourself?

2. They don’t appreciate the contribution of the artist to the result of the work. They can think the idea over for weeks and leave a night for an illustrator to put it into practice. As a result the major part of the project is done in a hurry like a sort of blind useless work, and the illustrator is the one who is blamed for the sad result.

3. If the project is a success they never state the illustrator’s name in the team when announcing the work on the websites. They make no mention of the illustrator. If they do, what on earth has the art director been doing?

4. They don’t bother with the definition of the task given, any comments that could help an illustrator do his/her part of work better. However, they are always ready to get terrified by the picture that doesn’t correspond to what they have thought of and to demand alterations from the artist.

5. They don’t want to study. To get elements of knowledge about printing, know about drawing matters. All they do is just forwarding the customer’s letters to the doer and to be at customer’s command.

6. They don’t fight for the quality of there is a matter of argument. Having no position, they are always obsequious towards the clients. It’s easier to say “yes” to everything and to get money than to explain what is better for the project. As a result there’s no progress.

We’ve lately been more and more maddened with all this stuff. Let’s put our affairs in order as soon as we must sail in the same boat.

You should be proud of the illustrators that work for you.

You should have respect for the doers and their work.

You can always tell the customer that he(she)’s wrong when he(she)’s wrong.

There’s no getting away for them.

Don’t be nervous, don’t panic, don’t put pressure on artists.

We are not barbarians. We are all not blacktoppers but cultural workers.