All eyes on female creatives: The pros and cons - Miles + Smiles

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All eyes on female creatives: The pros and cons


Photography by: Angel Torres

As you all know I work as an art director at Target. What does that mean? Well, I get to create advertising campaign for target that include fun shoots and I get to go to LA and NY quite often. I say am an art director by day and a blogger by night and weekends but the truth is that art direction takes over my life most of the time whether I want it or not, it’s just who I am.

I spend most of my time in front of the computer for both my job and blogging. Lately I have been noticing that my eyes are taking a toll from all this years in front of screens but about a month ago I started using this Phonetics Eyewear glasses and I have noticed a huge difference! I don’t have a prescription and you don’t need a prescription to get them. They are just to alleviate digital eyestrain but if you need a prescription you can apply it to them. Who knew that was a thing right? They have helped a lot and I literally get a compliment about them almost every day! Use the code FRIENDS to get 10% off!



Now let’s jump into the gender dilemma. Being a woman in a man’s world such as advertising is not easy but I also don’t think it’s the hardest thing in the world. To be honest I never saw the difference. Maybe because I was, and have always been very outspoken and I ask for what I want when the time is right. There are many women out there who are pioneers that are paving the way for us, the next generation of advertising professionals.

But one thing is for sure, I can assure you none of these women are sitting complaining on their desk waiting for handouts to them. None. I have met a lot of women thru my career, some were ahead of me, some where my same level and some were more juniors. But very few of them had the drive and the unapologetic attitude to keep moving forward.

I can acknowledge that the ratio between male and female is not the same because I’ve seen it with my own eyes and that women are under-represented specially on the higher up positions BUT I also think that not enough women in advertising out there are not asking for what they deserve. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had PLENTY of people (men and women) in my life whom have tried to silence me and tried to dial down my personality. I learned from them that from time to time I have to be more strategic and to pick my battles to keep moving forward but I also realized that just waiting for people to give me the recognition, the promotion, the raise or just the thanks wasn’t not going to get me anywhere so I decided to ask.

And I have been asking the most daring questions since the beginning of my career, why? Because the worse they can say is no. So, at my first agency I asked if I could stay after my 1 month internship and I scored my first agency job. I asked if I could have the old computers since they were replacing them, and I scored a quite decent Mac Pro tower. I asked to be part of my first production when my first Target campaign was sold and I flew to LA for the first time to record my first commercial at the Paramount Studios. I asked for a raise after I helped almost double one client’s fee to my old agency and I got a pretty nice bump.


My one piece of advice for future female creatives is ASK, the worse they can say is no. Keep asking for what you want and what you believe in, be restless and never get comfortable. Oh! And get a good pair of Phonetic Eyewear glasses because while we get to fly to fun places, stay at fancy hotels and do fun photoshoots, reality is that the bulk of our time will be behind a screen.






3 comments

  1. Asking is so so important! It's like we give ourselves an automatic no because we don't ask out of fear. That's worse then asking and getting no!

    ReplyDelete
  2. In the end not asking is worse than getting a no.

    ReplyDelete
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