"I know it when I see it"

So I'm looking at creative tonight, a revision to some outdoor. The art director has incorporated a bunch of feedback and done a great job. Except there's something that's not quite working right.

Something indefinable.

Unfortunately, that's not a phrase you get to use in this end of the business. Unlike, say, Supreme Court justices dealing with pornography, it's our job to define this kind of stuff in an actionable way.

Clients get to say, "I don't know why, but I don't like it." Sure, we don't want them to say such things, but it's been known to happen; and because they pay the bills, there's not too much we can do about it.

Account people don't really get to say it, but it's also been known to happen. They often don't have the vocabulary to discuss pictures and words, but good suits will get their point across, even without the right technical terms.

Creatives have to be able to say why. They have to be able to put real, articulate sentences together in a way that others in our peculiar profession can understand and respond to. You have to know why this collection of words and pictures work together better than that very similar collection of words and pictures. If you can't do that, you're not going to be much good in the natural back and forth that making creative takes. And chances are, you won't be much good at selling stuff to clients, either.

So I had to spend a fair amount of time tonight figuring out why my gut was telling me whatever it was telling me, then coming up with words that made sense of that. Sure, sometimes it sounds like you're making excuses for whatever goofy biases you're prone to. But you're often smartest when you listen to your gut, because in the long run it seems to have sensory apparatus that aren't hard-wired to your brain.