We recently connected with Jo Skillman and have shared our conversation below.

Jo, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I have a communications design degree, which is perfectly aligned with my role as creative director, so that’s how it started. I was fortunate to be in a four-year program that prioritized HOW to think over WHAT to think, and I had professors that emphasized ethics and your personal impact on the world. It turned out to be pretty ideal for the purpose-led/cause-based agencies I would later work for. I’m sure they helped point me that direction, too!

I’m not sure how much I could’ve sped up the learning process since practice is absolutely a huge part of creative work, but I certainly believe that books and articles by the people who come before us can expedite your learning in ANY field. I’ve especially dug into leadership, coaching and change management reading, since I’d prefer to NOT learn those things the hard way.

As far as the most essential skills for this type of work go, I’ve gotta say a growth mindset. Few things have been proven to be more effective in advancing your career. Having a growth mindset simply means you understand that you’ll be better next month than this month, next year than this year. It means you’re open to new skills and you’re kind to yourself when you’re not immediately good at something. As a creative director, it means that you ask your team to be patient with you because you’re learning how to better lead them as they’re learning how to be better designers, videographers, copywriters, etc.

The field of design (my background) is so diverse, I think the need to specialize is its own obstacle. I’m not as knowledgeable about interactive or product design as I’d like, since I’ve had to pursue those areas outside of my nine-to-five. But I’m great in branding and campaigns and being knowledgeable about the impact space, because I’ve got a lot of practice in them.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a creative director who comes from a design and copywriting background. I specialize in building large-scale, strategic brands and campaigns that live within culture and engage people. I’m particularly good at novelty — knowing what makes creative work truly unique, memorable and sticky. I’m also an excellent writer of impassioned manifestos. :)

I’m the creative director for a fully remote, purpose-led consulting and creative agency called Spence, and we work with clients who are trying to do good things in the world. (For instance, one very cool project I just wrapped up was a new logo and visual brand for The Civic Trust, a program for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, that seeks to involve major brands in a push for increased civic engagement in the workplace and civic education in schools across the nation.) Inclusion and equity are huge themes with all of our clients, and that includes the medical industry, higher education, civic clients, and even space exploration.

Before I was at Spence I built up the creative department at a cause-based agency here in Houston called Black Sheep for nearly ten years. It was here that I rose through the ranks from graphic designer to art director to creative director, and none of those positions existed at the agency before I held them. This meant that I was majorly responsible for all of the design and a lot of the other creative from a very young age, which was excellent practice. It was also my first exposure to the impact space and a lot of civic projects (including Downtown Houston, the City of Houston, Harris County, and the WHITE HOUSE), which has been a theme ever since.

I’ve also always done freelance for clients doing a lot of the same type of work: Logos, brands, publication design, copywriting, occasional UX. Recently I got to work with a local Houston agency to write the video script for the Houston Botanic Garden, and it’s always the BEST to work on Houston’s cultural institutions.

Outside of my creative work, I have a few areas of focus: I’m currently in the second-ever cohort of the City of Houston’s Department of Neighborhoods “Complete Communities University,” where a select group of Houstonians learn to engage with local government. I volunteer as a marketing and brand mentor with Rice University’s Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator, and I also guest teach periodically in a colleague’s “Graphic Arts for Social Change” class through U of H Downtown. As a person from a small, rural area in Northeast Texas, I believe very strongly in doing whatever I can to open the professional creative and civic world to the younger people who come behind me. In fact, once I finish answering these questions I’m going to move on to building a presentation for a career day in Crosby. :D

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

I think the number one thing you can do as a team lead is to say goodbye to your ego. Good ideas can (and SHOULD) come from anywhere, so the more you can open the floor to the thoughts and suggestions of others the more effective your team will be and the happier your team members will be. Study after study after study has shown us that employees are the most effective when they feel safe in sharing their opinions and trusted to do their jobs. The more you can hire people with good judgement and then trust them to use it the stronger your team will be.

Actively talk to your team to check in on how they’re feeling and where they see their careers taking them. It’s always worth it to help people get where they’re going, even if it takes them out of your department or to another company.

Understand that sometimes good enough is exactly that. When perfection or “going above and beyond” comes at the cost of talented yet overworked employees leaving your company, it’s just not worth it.

In the leadership of creative careers specifically I can’t stress this enough: Do not impose your personal taste on your team. Does the proposed solution check all the boxes and achieve the goal, even if it’s not how you would have done it yourself? Then it’s a good solution!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I think it’s the fact that you bring so much of yourself to the work. You really get to put your stamp on things and leave something behind. It’s not just the logos or the billboards that no one else would have designed the same way; it’s the opportunity to really change how people see the world — you can invite a first-gen student into college, you can enable conversations about why our populace is so politcally polarized and how to make it less so. You can make homeless youth feel more welcomed. You can be a bridge between people and the city they live in. You can make stories visible that otherwise aren’t. Creators have immense cultural power. We need more people wielding it.

Contact Info:

• Website: joskillman.com | wearespence.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/jo_layne_s
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/joskillman
• Other: medium.com/@Jo_Layne

Image Credits
Cassidy Meade Alan Nguyen Torey Brown Circles Conference The White House