Interview by Trey Alston / Working Not Working Member
From the outside looking in, the advertising industry is in a constant state of flux. Creatives hold their hats to their head as they stagger down the street while the winds of change constantly try to force them back the way they came. New technologies, new cultural events, constantly changing positions. It’s a wonder that anyone in this creative field can exist, let alone thrive, in such a turbulent industry.
Felix Richter has been with advertising titan Droga5 for the past ten years, walking through the wind. For the last year and a half, he’s been the Co-Chief Creative Officer for one of the most well-known agencies in the world. His executive-level creative decisions have left his gargantuan fingerprints on some of the industry’s most well-known campaigns. He’s an inspiration to creatives everywhere — not just for his work in the industry, but also for his approach to being creative altogether.
I sat down (virtually, of course) with Felix to learn more about his definition of creativity, spearheading Droga5’s creative, and his philosophy for improvement.
That conversation can be found below, lightly edited for clarity.
As Droga5 continues to set the standard for the advertising industry year in and year out, what has driven your creative appetite?
I recently watched a documentary about a German painter named Neo Rauch who practiced a belief that I believe drives me and a lot of the staff at Droga5. The disgust of repetition. When you're a creative person and you do things over and over again, they get boring and you lose interest. On the flip side, there is something very exhilarating and exciting about doing things that you haven't done before, or that nobody has done before.
When did you realize that you wanted to pursue a creative path and how did you decide that you would exhibit that through advertising?
It's a very cliche answer, but I'm also one of those cases where I used to draw and paint a lot when I was a kid and I always loved art, but I also didn't quite have the confidence. I honestly grew up in an environment where being an artist was a decadent thing to do. So I studied law at first, but then I had two cousins who were in advertising. One is a director and the other one has an ad agency in Germany. Through them, I realized that I had to give it a shot. I gained confidence little by little and then went to the Miami Ad school in Europe. And then from there I was set on a path and really liked it. I just never looked back.
“I recently watched a documentary about a German painter named Neo Rauch who practiced a belief that I believe drives me and a lot of the staff at Droga5. The disgust of repetition.”
What led you to Droga5? What was the decision mentally to commit to this place long-term?
At the Miami Ad school, you have a year of school and then you have three internships over three months. Some of those internships were in New York. My creative partner Alex Nowak and I met the CCO of Droga5 at the One Show Student Award Show. I remember we had already signed with another agency, but were excited by Droga5 and so just kept in touch. A year later, they hired us.
As you've risen up over the ranks, how do you think that you've grown as a creative?
I think of my different roles in Droga5 very much like a player on a sports team, of any kind, where each position has a different job you need to do. Then I’ve tried to find out the rules of each position early and deliver on them as best as I can. So when you start out as the creative, I think it's all about bringing a fresh perspective and soaking up everything that you can. Then you start to develop your voice and see what you have to work with.
As a senior creative, it's more about being the driving force, owning things, finding the solution all the time, but also collaborating with other departments. Being a creative director is more about mentoring, growing other people, but also playing chess. Managing to get through these complex structures on the client's side, or even internally in an agency finding solutions that work for everyone, for all parties while still making creative that is completely uncompromised and interesting, but also fun, radical, and pure. So that's the challenge there.
At the CCO level, it’s been completely different once again where I feel now this is more about creating the right environment, growing the range of artistic voices we have at Droga, and making sure that we have that clarity and vision.
There's this idea that every time you move up it's supposed to get easier in some way, or your sphere of power grows. I'm not sure if I think that that is true or should be true in any way. Yes, sometimes you have more control, but you're always completely dependent on everyone else. So collaborating and working well together with others is pretty much the only constant that's important in any of these roles that I’ve had over the years at Droga5.
“There’s a lot of mystification around the topic and idea of creativity. That can sometimes be harmful. I think it’s better to be realistic about what creativity is. In my mind, it is really just finding unusual connections between things. Therefore references matter enormously.”
What’s your creative philosophy and how it's changed or evolved over the years? How does that impact the quality of work that you've put out?
I'm not sure I have a pithy creative philosophy that I live by. I have a few beliefs about how creativity works in general, in the sense that I think there's a lot of mystification around the topic and around the idea of creativity. That can sometimes be harmful. I think it's better to be realistic about what creativity is. In my mind, it is really just finding unusual connections between things. Therefore references matter enormously.
You look at what you've seen in terms of cultural things, but also just real-world happenings. The stuff you've experienced is the stuff you have to work with. As a creative, it's super important that you look at the things that everybody looks at, so you have a context of what's going on in the world. But you also have to look at things that nobody looks at. Whenever I talk to students, I first encourage them to visit some really weird corners of the internet. By doing this, you’ll have connection points that are unusual from the start. Talent is about making unusual connections in the right moment at the right time to solve a communications problem.
On some of the most taxing days as a creative, when there's a lot going on or maybe the juices just aren't flowing, what do you do? How do you find the drive or strength to create?
I'm very much a “work through it” person. I believe in powering through. In advertising, they're always so many things that can go wrong. Sometimes, like you described, you can have tough days. I used to tell myself that even if something dies or even if I can't find the right thing and I don't crack the idea, it's always training. So it's never wasted. When you make an effort and you try, you still get a little bit better, even if on the particular project you might fail. I’ve found that kind of thought helps you relax a little bit and just keep going and keep thinking.
“But you also have to look at things that nobody looks at...Talent is about making unusual connections in the right moment at the right time to solve a communications problem.”
In what ways would you say that you're planning on growing as a creative throughout your career?
I'm 34. I've been advertising for a little bit more than a decade. And so naturally I still have a lot to learn. I've been very fortunate and been supported by lots of great people that enabled me to try and do a lot of different things very quickly. But I'm very conscious of the fact that there's a lot to learn in all departments.
What message would you have for aspiring creatives who want to learn how to best express themselves and unlock their potential?
I do think that advertising, especially, causes a complicated structure for creating things. You have to be willing to collaborate and have a lot of your ideas die. At Droga5, we all believe the difference between good work and great work comes down to an original voice at play. When you're a creative starting out, always make sure that you feel that voice is developing in you and that your environment offers you a chance to ultimately put it into the work.
If you feel like you're becoming part of a system where you have no chance to bring yourself, your personality, your background, and the special sauce that you have to the table, then that's not a good setup. But at the same time, you have to have the resilience to get rejected a lot of times before slowly but surely you figure it out and find your way through. You’ll start making things that are satisfying because only you could have made them and because hopefully people like them and they're an interesting thing to come into the world.