Hey Reader

Almost nobody I know grew up wanting to be an art director.

I've now taught architects. Engineers. Marketing professionals. Graphic designers, video creators, motion designers. And the pattern is basically always the same. We all fell into this job. Very few of us had a clear path or found it early.

I was a video maker/"content creator" through my entire undergrad ad program. Right up until the last three months before I graduated.

I used to think falling into it was a problem. Now I think it's just indicative of the industry. Of how little effort has gone into building clear roadmaps and resources for aspiring art directors. Some of that might be intentional gatekeeping. Some of it is just the nature of the job, ambiguous and conceptual enough that it's genuinely hard to describe. Either way, it's a big part of why I started making content and resources for art directors in the first place.

At my first job as a junior art director, the culture shock hit fast. I realized pretty quickly I didn't know what I was doing. So I worked hard to soak up whatever I could from the senior creatives around me. I bookmarked everything! That note-taking habit became my first real resource, the Art Director Toolbox, a PDF full of links and sites other creatives had shared with me that I thought would be valuable to other juniors who might also be stumbling through all this.

Putting it out was scary. I was a junior art director asking myself who am I to share this. What if I don't actually know what I'm talking about. But the response was positive. Turns out nobody cared how much experience I had. Everyone was in the same boat, learning from each other. Simply sharing what I was learning while I was learning it was a valuable thing.

Eight plus years later, the mission is the same. This is a weird, fun, genuinely rewarding career, and I don't think enough people are articulating that well. Might be our insecurity. We're all a little unsure about the parts of our own path we can't fully explain, so we don't talk about it.

I was chatting with my friend Taylor about this recently. We've been working a bunch together on a new resource. We realized we know more than we think we do. There's a lot in this job, tools, tactics, vocabulary, methods for building different types of presentations, that we've just picked up and internalized without ever taking inventory of it. Quick internal decks. Full campaign pitches, client facing. Production briefs. Vendor decks. Director's treatments. Photographer briefs. Feedback decks and playbooks. All of it learned by being around great art directors, at great agencies and brand side creative teams.

You'll keep seeing free content from me, more videos on YouTube. Some lower priced, accessible resources. And of course the deeper bootcamps and course programs too. Enrollment for the next October bootcamp is actually going live soon. (note to self: need to just publish the enrollment link)

But ALL OF THIS is exactly why we built the latest resource from Modern Art Direction, MAD Decks Vol 001.

There are plenty of template decks out there, especially general design templates and brand identity resources. Genuinely, go find them and use them. But I haven't seen many presentation resources built specifically for creative marketing and advertising art direction. The kind that present a conceptual, insight-driven big idea and the art direction look & feel before getting tactical with individual executions, deliverables, and channels. Concepts first. Like I said I also haven't seen many universal resources for putting together a director's brief, or for collecting feedback internally.

So MAD Decks Vol 001 isn't just a template pack. Yes, it has template slides, but also includes instructions and guidance on each slide, an example spec campaign built with those same template slides, plus a mini course behind the thinking.

It won't solve every problem. But if you want a consistent method behind your art direction decisions and how you share your ideas, I think you'll find it valuable. If you're learning, this is your foundation. If you're more senior, take it, customize it, make it your own!

It's $57, available this week only. After that we're taking it offline to collect feedback and keep improving it for the people who grab it now.

​Check out the decks: MAD Decks 001​

If you've already grabbed them, let us know your thoughts.

And lots more coming soon, including some visual techniques I've been diving into that I'm excited to share.

Let me know if you have any questions.

— Jason

Inside MAD Decks 001

Here's a more detailed look inside:

THE DECKS

I. The Quick Pitch Deck

Example decks are blurred since they're built around a real global brand. Full reveal is inside.

II. The Full Pitch Deck

III. The Vendor Deck

IV. The Feedback Deck

+BONUS MINI COURSE

A short breakdown of some of the conceptual principles behind the decks, including 2 lessons straight from our bootcamp NEXT Art Director about insights & big ideas.

MAD Decks 001 - the presentation system built for modern art direction:

Buy Now

​Learn More​

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