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CAROLYN HADLOCK
YOUNG & LARAMORE
Carolyn Hadlock is a principal and creative director of Young & Laramore in Indianapolis IN. As creative director, Hadlock has pushed, prodded and inspired teams to do original, effective creative for Delta Faucet, Stanley Steemer, Goodwill Industries and Carmelite nuns. Deciding early on between nursing and advertising, she chose the X-Acto blade over the hypodermic syringe and has a B.F.A. in visual communications from Indiana University, Herron School of Art. Since joining Y&L in 1991 as an art director, her work has garnered recognition and many awards, including The Art Directors Club, Advertising Age, Adweek, Communication Arts, Cannes, Effies, Graphis and The One Show, and has been featured on NBC's "Today Show," Wall Street Journal, NPR, LA Times and USA Today. She also has done guest reviews for Creativity and Adweek, and in 2005 she judged the Communication Arts advertising annual. Says Hadlock, "To me, graphic design is not so much a career as a lifestyle. It's an appreciation of communication paired with a beautiful aesthetic. From a career perspective, going from nursing to advertising might seem extreme on the surface, but there are parallels. I use my minor in chemistry daily — anticipating reactions between clients and creatives, art directors and writers, and the combination of fonts, visuals, music and writing. Nuance is critical and requires experimentation."
Where do you turn for inspiration?
My strategy is to try to have projects in different cycles going on at the same time and, more importantly, to be in constant collaboration with the many talented people at the agency. Being in the strategic phase on one brand, the creative phase on another and execution on yet another, keeps me moving and from getting stuck. It allows me to think dimensionally and to cross disciplines. If I get stuck even then, I stop everything and get away from it. But it's ultimately the talents around you that un-stick you. Studying how children process things and ideas has also greatly helped get me past a mental roadblock. They don't have any boundaries of correctness or learned thinking. To approach something simply is a gift. I think it was Picasso who said, "At the age of 12, I could draw like Raphael, but it took a life to draw like a child again." Pure, unfettered consciousness of life.
Should graphic design be an instrument for positive social change?
Absolutely. We strive to align brands with social causes where it makes sense. There are a few examples of this. We began working with Goodwill Industries in 1996 and have helped create marketing communication that has acted as a financial engine for their programs. The decision was made to focus on the benefit to the consumer — the shopper and donator, in this case — not the beneficiary of the funding. It would have been easy to do a feel-good campaign about the mission, but it wouldn't have been financially productive.
We also do work for a group of cloistered Carmelite nuns. In 2001 we developed a website called Praythenews.com. The website acts as a virtual ministry and a recruiting tool. Each week the nuns write about current events from a faith perspective. They wrote about the Taliban before 9.11 and continue to write about controversial current events from Darfur to the war in Iraq. The website draws over 250,000 people annually from all over the world — 23 countries in 2006. We are also developing podcasts that deal with different topics such as politics, compassion and unanswered prayers.
Now an example of where we've taken a for-profit brand and aligned it with a social cause — the symbiotic model. In 2003 Brizo began working with DIFFA, The Design Industries Foundation Fighting Aids. We began working with A-list designers such as Michael Kors and Isabel Toledo to create awareness for DIFFA and it's mission. We've continued the partnership through collaboration with emerging fashion designer Jason Wu. He has designed garments for Brizo that will be auctioned off with proceeds benefiting DIFFA. Brizo is committed to DIFFA as a long-term social partner.
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