Art and Copy review

I remember trying to see this at Hot Docs last year and it was sold out, so I rented it a few weeks ago. For anybody who's interested in the advertising industry or communications more generally, Art & Copy is definitely worth watching. (view trailer)

It has great access to some of the legends of the business including Dan Weiden, Jeff Goodby and perhaps most interestingly George Lois.

The film does a great job illustrating that it is, in fact, the "creative" people that drive the world's most pervasive industry. It also shows that many of them aren't inherently creative or artistic people, rather just hard workers with the drive to see their ideas through. 

After getting stuck for ideas one day Dan Weiden came up with the now iconic "Fail Harder" wall at Weiden + Kennedy's Portland office. The wall was designed to impart the message that the only way to succeed is to fail harder. It took 100,000 push pins and 351 hours of work, and instead of creating the letters with the pins, they did it the hard way and filled in the whole wall around the letters:

If this kind of thinking appeals to you, or if you want some behind-the-scenes insight into some of the most famous ad campaigns of the last 30 years, check it out.