Talented’s quest to transform designers into multidisciplinary creative leaders with ‘Thinker-Doer’

• Designers and art directors are often execution resources rather than creative leaders, unlike copy talent.

• Thinker-Doer aims to teach young art and design folks (1-4 years exp) how to leap to becoming multidisciplinary creative chiefs.

• It is a hybrid programme with modules such as ‘How to crack an idea’ and ‘How to pitch your idea in a presentation?’

• The educators involve folks from Talented and people such as Bernice Chao, Ashwini Deshpande, Huei Wong, among others.

“On a creative floor, you are more likely to see writers who are expected to understand the business, develop the client relationships, or figure out the gap between the creative strategy and the creative leap,” remarks Binaifer Dulani, creative and founding member of Talented, a Bangalore-based creative agency.

It is a statement which will find representation on most agency floors. Ask people to name the biggest names in Indian advertising, and most will take names – many will say, Piyush Pandey or Prasoon Joshi – who propelled their career and the life of many brands with their writing skills.

To grow from a wide-eyed fresher into a creative leader should not be the path paved only for writers, but for designers, art directors, and visualisers too, believes Talented.

“A lot of the times, because of their executional prowess, designers and art directors end up becoming an executional resource, when they know they can give more,” states Dulani.

The creative agency intends to correct this equity imbalance with Thinker-Doer, a 12-day hybrid boot camp for design-first creatives where a select bunch will learn how they can get on the path that will take them from where they are to becoming multidisciplinary creative leaders.

It is a program Dulani and fractional CMO Meghana Bhat (former Webchutney NCD and COO; most of the Talented workforce is from that agency) have built together.

Thinker-Doer has over five learning modules that range from ‘How to crack an idea’ to ‘How to pitch your idea in a presentation’ with a faculty that includes folks from Talented, and across the world.

Dulani, during her interactions with junior and mid-senior design talent as part of the Indian creative women community or portfolio reviews, observed the talent possess mature executional work in their portfolios, but “struggled to present it as a creative case.”

If they are not able to move forward and remain stuck being executors rather than ideating and becoming creative leaders, there is a good chance, as per Bhat, of imposter syndrome seeping in.

“Education and experience are the best antidote to imposter syndrome,” says Bhat who adds that as the advertising agency fights for creative talent with other industries, “we have a mandate now to sort of develop that talent internally and invest in serious talent development.”

The two met many people before building this program and realised there were not enough courses for the design-first creatives. “The demand far outstrips the supply, there are not enough courses and there is not enough being taught,” states Bhat.

This is where the idea of course germinated and the two further fleshed it out at a WeWork.

“It is a foundational course in advertising, and I think the challenging part is going to be how do you deliver all the information that you have,” answers Dulani when asked about the challenges of putting it all together.

While it is a foundation course, Bhat reminds us, “This is not a course which teaches you your craft. So, we needed to take people who have already a strong craft portfolio.”

She further says this course does not compete with a MICA or a Miami Ad School and that “there is enough room for different kinds of educational programs in advertising because there is is enough talent out there.”

The program ends with a capstone project which the two say will reflect Thinker-Doer's effectiveness. The program will take place from March 4th - March 15th 2024.