I have spent a lot of time thinking about and re assessing what an Art Director is, and more importantly what should they bring to a company.

What is the job of an Art Director?

Below is the best way I know how to explain it at this time……

You must create work which means something to you, for it to have any chance at meaning anything to the viewer. For it to mean something to you it must be connected to your life and intertwined with your interests ensuring your work and your life are one and the same. There can’t be a separation. 

Usually a collection I create comes from one source, I will have noticed something: a documentary, an album, a piece of art and felt there is enough inspiration, enough thought and interest in it for me to adapt into the work and build a collection from.
However over the past 12 months I have come to the conclusion that I was only noticing one or two of those things due to the pace of my life. In contrast during 2020, I, like a lot of other people have had more time to slow down and think.

I used this time to plan the next chapter in the hair identity of Davines, to read more, to watch the documentaries which had been on my list, to listen to new music and most importantly look back at my notes to properly research the things which had caught my eye over the previous 18 months, exploring what they could bring to future Davines collections. 

With this in mind I realised when sitting down to create the new Davines collections if I want the work to be truly intertwined with my interests and inspirations in response to this year there is no way I can limit it to one concept or source. 

The collections I have created for Davines 2021 are designed in reaction to the things which kept me stimulated during these unprecedented events, things which I feel have a natural kinship with the essence of Davines.

A lot of imagery, you look at it and it is asking you to buy something. But a small number of companies create photography which is asking you to feel something, that’s the side of the coin we want to be on. I feel I create my best work when I have fun, experiment and try new things. But, when you’re fortunate enough that creating new ideas becomes your full time job, there’s rightly an expectation that you’re good at it.

So if you aren’t careful, that play-full spirt in the work goes away because suddenly there’s consequences to something not working out as planned. It’s important to take that responsibility seriously and the investment people are making in the work. But you must keep the other things out of your mind in order to deliver what you need to.

Finally the conclusion I came to is this, as an Art Director, it’s not your job to create your vision. It’s your job to have a vision. Then it’s your job to bring in talented individuals, articulate it to them, and they then take the 2 dimensional elements of your vision and make it 3 dimensional. You don’t have to know how to light a model to get a certain effect on a photograph, or how to pre lighten hair to create our Pacific Ocean Green tone. That is not your job. Your job is to build a world, and from that world build looks which meet the aesthetic and commercial needs of Davines. And then express this world to the colour teams, photographers, stylists, video makers & Make Up Artists. Guide them, push them, pair them back where needed and shoulder any pressure that comes so those people are free to do their work un-impeded.

That is the job of an Art Director, and I’m privileged to do to it everyday for such a remarkable company. 

Written by Tom Connell,

Art Director of Davines

In this online masterclass, Tom Connell re-styles a models hair from start to finish, with no prior work being done before hand. The purpose of this demonstration is to educate on how a razor can be used in a technical way but at the same time allowing feeling and instinct to dictate the shape and direction of the cut. Find out more here.