If You Can Win An Award for It, You’re Chasing the Wrong Thing
They said the only thing that mattered was the size of the big idea and the work. But today, I'm not so sure.
I remember being a young creative at the VCU Brandcenter, sitting with a stack of books that felt, at the time, like scripture.
Communication Arts. D&AD. The One Show Books. Do they still make these?
We flipped through them not only to see what had been made, but to understand what was possible. To understand, quietly, what kind of accolades might be available to us if we followed the path of breaking the rules correctly.
There was a path that was sold to us.
It was not spoken outright, but it was understood to me.
You would become a creative director. You would work on global brands. You would make work that would be seen. And in being seen, you would become something. Maybe blazer and chucks wearing important someday - that was the uniform of the successful creatives back in the day.
I remember being asked, in those early days, what I wanted my life to look like in ten years.
I did not have language for it then. But I had images.
I would be an award winning creative director, working at an award winning agency, working on award winning global clients and making a lot of noise doing it.
And so I walked toward that image.
And a few months out of grad school - I found myself inside those images i was supposed to do in 10 years.
I was working on global brands. I was making work that was recognized. I was being paid more than I had ever been paid before.
But what do you do when you reach your dreams a lot sooner than you thought. You realize your dreams were shit and you find new ones.
I turned to the awards. Those will make me happy!
One Show Pencils. Clios. Cannes Lions. Effies. Bring them on!
They arrived, one after another, like confirmations.
I remember working on a small brand in Seattle, Nuun. My first award - The One Show Pencil.
Years later, I still see that work in the wild. I see it in stores and in hands I will never meet, and I am struck not by pride, but confusion. How did something I made so long ago travel this far?
To this day, I tell my cashier at Whole Foods that I designed this logo.
“Oh, wow.” They Say. “That’ll be $450 sir.”
The awards, when they came, did what they were designed to do.
They opened doors. They brought calls. They placed my name in rooms I had not yet entered.
But they did not do what I believed they would do all those years ago when I was studying the books.
There was an unspoken belief that these objects would grant a kind of arrival. That they would secure something inside of me. That they would confirm that I had become who I was meant to be.
I did not say this out loud. But I carried it.
And yet, when the awards were in my hands, I found that the feeling did not arrive with them.
The object was real. The recognition was real. But the transformation I had imagined was not.
It was around this time that my work began to change.
I stepped away from selling things that did not need to be sold, Vodka, Tequila, promises of joy and happiness, and I moved toward work that asked something of me, and perhaps asked something of the world.
I remember making a film about maternal mortality.
It was not made for awards. It was made because there were stories that needed to be told.
When people watched it, they wept. Not out of politeness, but because something in them had been moved. The film hit different.
People would ask to show it at non-related conferences, at bible studies, and small gatherings of people who felt compelled to share it with others. I do not know the full extent of what it changed.
But I know this. No one left it untouched. Whenever I showed it to someone, I also had to offer them a hug to help with the shock.
And in that, I began to understand something that the awards had never given me.
There is a difference between recognition of big ideas and making big impact.
ideas are measured in attention. Impact is measured in feeling.
One is held in the hand. The other is carried in the body.
The industry continues to move, it’s looking really different now. But It always has. I started my career back when “Non-traditional advertising” was the buzz of the day.
What is valuable today becomes ordinary tomorrow. What is celebrated today is forgotten in time. Look out influencers, AI is coming for you too.
The awards, for all their shine, do not resist this.
Eventually, the blue check will wear off.
They guarantee nothing.
But the people we sit beside. The people we create with. The people we choose to see and to be seen by. And hug. And Toast. And cry with.
They remain.
I think often now about the young creatives I have worked with, the ones I have mentored, the ones I have shared long nights and uncertain mornings with.
It is not the work that stays with me.
It is their presence. Their smiles.
It is the off topic conversations. The laughter. The shared effort of making something together, even when we did not know what it would become.
Our quality of a life or success or accolade that we chase is not found in the objects it accumulates, but in the relationships it sustains.
And it’s the people that have nothing to do with the work that makes the work meaningful - the people in your life, your family, your friends, your lovers, your kids or future kids.
I missed so many personal days, and birthdays, and holidays, and weddings, and even my grandmother’s funeral - working late nights and early mornings in service to a big award winning campaign idea.
One day, I will be gone. And on my tombstone i hope it says nothing of my big award winning work. But only the people that i stood shoulder to shoulder with to get them.
Remember me by how i made you laugh. By the ways in which I showed up for your joy. By the ways in which I made space for your bullshit. By the ways in which I chose to care for your pain.
And so, to the young creatives who are just beginning to look through the books, and build follower counts and collabs with big brands and whatever external validation that y’all get all hot and bothered by these days, I offer this:
Be inspired.
But you must be careful about what you believe those blue checks will give you.
You are not only building a career.
You are building a life.
And in this life, you will be asked, again and again, what matters.
You will have the ability to create almost anything. Well, fuck it - anything.
You can create work that takes from people. Or work that gives something back.
You can create images that tell people what they need. Or stories that remind them of what they already got.
I despise ad campaigns that speak of love. Ad agencies sell oppression in the name of love to make them feel better about the work they do. Insert image of handing a Pepsi to a cop in riot gear, here. This happens because we mistake talking about love in the work with showing the love while we make it. Do not hide behind the campaigns about love, but may you be the definers of what love means - with your lives.
You can use your talent to sell the dreams of our billionaire benefactors and multi-trillion dollar companies. OR YOU CAN USE YOUR GIFTS to TOPPLE CAPITALISM, PATRIARCHY, XENOPHOBIA, GREED, LUST from within.
If you are going to chase something, let it be the boundless qualities of life - for which there are no awards.
Kindness.
Sympathetic Joy.
Compassion.
Equanimity.
Let these internal practices be your hardware. Because the external awards you chase, will never give you what you think. And I wish I knew that before I started running.
My name is Shabazz Larkin I’m a writer, painter, fine artist, former Executive Creative Director to the Gods and un-offical unc to the creative industry.
I’m available for hire > creative@Shabazzlarkin.com
Brand Portfolio: Shabazzlarkin.myportfolio.com
Fine Art Portfolio: www.Shabazzlarkin.com
This article was originally posted on my linked in.