Guy Vickerstaff - Craft

After going to Australia in his early twenties - because Alan Wicker said, through the magic of Sunday evening television, that it was the most optimistic place on Earth - Guy Vickerstaff was called by a place called home. He came back to Scotland and eventually found his way into advertising the long way round, via market research, a direct marketing client, and a junior typographer role where he quietly decided he could do better than what he was seeing and just started doing it. He is now Creative Director at Bright Signals in Edinburgh, still has a Pilot V7 on his desk, and still believes the industry is a wonderful place to be, which in the current climate is either mildly delusional or infectious. What this conversation keeps coming back to is care. Care about the work, care about the people making it, care about what goes out into the world with your name on it. We talk about the Bright Storm, the process Guy has built for unlocking ideas from unexpected people, about the Detect Breast Cancer Early campaign that he describes as one of the proudest moments of his whole career, and about the Scottish bullshit detector, which is highly attuned, nationally. We also talk about unlearning the pressure to always have the right answer, and what it actually gives a team when their leader is willing to say, honestly, I just don’t know. If you’re feeling stuck, or just want to think out loud about where you’re headed, you don’t have to figure it out on your own. I offer free 15-minute conversations for anyone who wants to talk through what’s in front of them. Whether that leads to working together or not doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve got someone in your corner, even for 15 minutes. Head to http://www.growwithadamjennings.com and book a call. I’d genuinely love to hear from you. Want to support Awaiting Approval? Remember to rate this episode, and subscribe to the show. And you can get your hands on amazing Awaiting Approval caps, mugs and more, here: https://adam-jennings-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit growwithadamjennings.substack.com/subscribe