Today we have a lecture on “Graphic Design agency vs. Ad agency.” These two types of agency looks like have a same condition in the industry, but they play different roles and aspects in the industry. Professor has said, “Ad agency is selling product and graphic design agency is create product.” The working environment in ad agency and graphic design agency is very different, there have pros and cons.
Graphic design agency is basically an agency have huge variety of works and projects. For example, just a logo or a whole branding guide line. You can learn and gain experience in graphic design agency. In my opinion, the graphic design agency maybe is good to start with because you can learn so much new thing in the agency, and you will adapt to doing different things in the graphic design industry. I think graphic design agency is a great place for us to learn and gain experience because you will get touch on design a logo, poster, billboards, and etc.
Ad agency is a very competitive in the industry and they mostly doing a big project for the company or client. Compare to graphic design agency, working in a graphic design agency is more relaxing than ad agency, but ad agency pays more than graphic design agency. Ad agency will have internal design teams to work on one client. According to wikipedia, “An advertising agency is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients.” Ad agency is to selling client’s products or services, so they will create a whole advertising guidelines, poster, headline, mockup, and etc for the client.
Graphic design agency and ad agency has different ways to get the client down. The most common way is by networking and build a relationship. For a graphic design agency mostly shows the designer’s portfolio to the client. However, for ad agency they will go to pitch; an organization called REP will send the case document to the ad agency, and the ad agency will come up with there concept and new ideas for the pitch; lastly, wait for the client to pick the most satisfaction idea.
To sum up, the different between graphic design agency and ad agency is, “A design firm designs the package, the ad agency tells you to buy what’s inside of it.” However, they doing a same design work. In the class, professor has said, “always aim high…and go for the place that you feel comfort with.” This very touching me because of my race and my language is the biggest challenge; but I want to be successful and I set my goal very high. Only when you aim high, you will try. Even you not reach to your goal, but you still in a very good position because you try you best to be there.
