A day in the life of…Chad – Creative Director at Torpedo.

What’s it like to be part of our in-house creative team? Well, we asked our Creative Director, Chad, to share his experience of working at Torpedo.

What’s your role at Torpedo, and how long have you been here?

I’m a Creative Director at Torpedo and I’ve been with the team for 4 and a half years.

What exactly does your role entail? Can you run us through what you might get up today, for example?

Primarily, I help define and create the overall direction of a project and then ensure that concept extends through all aspects and assets of the project.

I also talk with clients about how we can help their business, plus pitch and present creative solutions to win new business.

As part of the Creative Leadership team, I direct and feedback on creative project work and help support and manage some amazing and talented designers. I also help steer and refine agency processes, and also get to help recruit and inject exciting new talent in to the design team.

What tools/resources/people do you depend on to get your job done?

I definitely depend on our team to collaborate and create incredible things, together. Our client services team are amazing at keeping things organised, flowing and on time. A big namedrop for Phil, our Studio & Production Manager, who schedules all of the work across the entire creative department and carves out time for everyone to work their magic. And I love getting to work with all of our in-house, creative specialists, from copy, strategy, 3D, motion, illustration, editing and production.

In terms of the tools, since the pandemic, we’ve hugely relied on a strong flow of communication and collaboration using Microsoft Teams and Miro. Obviously, Adobe Creative Cloud applications and I’m a huge fan of using an iPad and Procreate to get ideas started, and sometimes finished. Another application that I use way more than I ever expected to, is PowerPoint for client presentations. But don’t tell anyone else that.

What do you love most about your job at Torpedo? What’s the highlight of your day?

One of the most amazing parts of my job at Torpedo is getting to come up with creative concepts and then having the help of so many incredibly fun and talented specialists on the team to help bring it to life. We get to create things together that no one person could ever accomplish on their own.

Is there a particular piece of work/project that you’re really proud of?

Insanely hard to pick just one. I would have to say the AutoCAD hero image projects, where we’ve had the opportunity work with such a great team at Autodesk, to design things like a houseboat and a café. Those felt like dream projects to the part of me who always, secretly, wanted to be an architect.

And the recent branding and launch of Autodesk Tandem. A dream branding project for a product that feels like it’s plucked right from sci-fi films and such intelligent, helpful and trusting clients, on top of all of that. It spanned from; strategy, branding, site design, development, right to campaigns and across so many talented members of our team. I’m sure, any Creative Director’s dream.

What did you see yourself doing when you were a kid?

Spiderman understudy, for sure.

If you weren’t a designer/illustrator, what do you think you’d be?

Start a maple syrup brand and an ice cream truck company, shape surfboards, coach youth basketball and paint. Is there a job title for that?

What made you choose this career path? How did you get to where you are today?

The honest start was a combination of a ‘jobs for artists’ poster on my art teachers’ classroom door and a less-than-helpful guidance counsellor in high school, in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. But as soon as I actually started studying Graphic Design, I was hooked and knew that I was where I should be.

My career path, geographically, hasn’t been the most straight-forward, but the flexibility that designers have to work internationally, has felt like one the luckiest elements about what we do. I’ve been lucky enough to work with some incredible businesses in amazing cities, like; Beijing, San Diego, Shanghai and London and that has hugely formed the person and designer that I am today.

Our industry and roles can obviously come with challenges, but overall, I feel so incredibly lucky to do what I do.

When your OOO is on, what are you likely to be doing?

Playing with my kids, playing basketball or at a gig, gallery or restaurant with my wife and friends.

What’s your favourite memory of working at Torpedo to date?

It probably should be something project-related, but I have to admit, the time we all went go-cart racing was incredible and the first time that I got to have so much fun with the wider Torpedo team.

And finally, what’s the best piece of professional advice you’ve ever been given?

The three that spring to mind and have stuck with me are:

1. “People having fun produce the best work.”
2. “Don’t compare yourself to others.”
3. “Create more than you consume.”