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" If somebody says to you, 'MTV,' you think of Mick Jagger on a phone screaming at that phone: 'I want my MTV.' That, to me, was always the epitome of great advertising. "

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" Whatever the creative industry, when you're confronted with the challenge of coming up with a Big Idea, always work with the most talented, innovative mind available. Hopefully... that's you. "

George Lois

Challenge

You

Work

" Doyle Dane Bernbach was a great, great agency when I got there. There was an arrogance that everyone had, but it was a closed club. I was a guy who worked a little differently. Edgier. More punch-in-the-mouth. "

" If you're working, and you're not trying to be great, give up. "

" I may have destroyed world culture, but MTV wouldn't exist today if it wasn't for me. "

George Lois

Culture

May

" I've done truth to power all my life. It's got me into trouble, but who cares? "

" With the way I worked, a client can give me everything they know about something, and then I go away and come back with advertising that knocks them out of their chair. They finally understand what kind of a company they are. "

George Lois

Advertising

Back

" Look at the news stand, you know? I mean, it's a cacophony of famous people or people who want to be famous with blurbs all around it, and it's supposed to be, you know, that's supposed to be creativity in journalism. My God, it's unbelievable. It's shocking. "

" What I taught myself was that in any problem you get, you've got to come up with an innovative, brilliant, kind of unusual, stunning solution. "

George Lois

Problem

Solution

" Because advertising and marketing is an art, the solution to each new problem or challenge should begin with a blank canvas and an open mind, not with the nervous borrowings of other people's mediocrities. That's precisely what 'trends' are - a search for something 'safe' - and why a reliance on them leads to oblivion. "

" A truly great magazine cover surprises, even shocks, and connects in a nano-second. "

" All the people who run agencies, all the important people in agencies have taken communication courses, marketing courses, advertising courses, and courses basically teach advertising as a science, and advertising is so far from a science it isn't even funny. Advertising is an art. "

" Ad agencies do all kinds of market research that ask people what they think they want, and instead, you should be creating things that you want. If you do something and you get it, the rest of the world will get it, too. Trust your own instincts, your own intellect, and your own sense of humor. "

" Nothing great can come of more than three people in a room. If you had 10 incredibly bright people, nothing would come out of it. "

George Lois

People

Great

" A graphic designer, you know, who understands ideas and understands that ideas are what makes the world go round, could change the world with a magazine. If one talent could do it right now, and everybody would stop saying it's the death of magazines. "

" When you create advertising, always start with the words. "

" Nobody should force you to do a bad piece of work in your whole life - no client, no creative director, nobody. The job isn't to please the client; the job is to produce something for the client that makes them incredibly successful. "

" Trends can tyrannize; trends are traps. In any creative industry, the fact that others are moving in a certain direction is always proof positive, at least to me, that a new direction is the only direction. "

" Museums are custodians of epiphanies, and these epiphanies enter the central nervous system and deep recesses of the mind. "

" I talk to all the creative directors today, and they take me aside, and they say, 'You know, it must have been great back in those days when you could do anything you wanted.' I say, 'Huh? Excuse me?' I mean, we fought. In the '60s and '70s, you fought wars with clients, and you have to continue fighting wars to do great work. "

" The whole area of creativity is constipated and frightened. "

" The computer has played a role in destroying creativity with the Photoshop. Everybody thinks they're a designer. "

" What Apple did for technology is brilliant, but they didn't do nothin' for our economy. "

" When I lecture kids, I say, 'You've got to be ambitious by the advertising' - ambitious. You've got to say, 'See, this product? Maybe I can change the world with this product.' They look at me like I'm nuts, but that's what you can do. "

" When you think of a brand, you should immediately understand it from the advertising attitude, from the words and visuals. "

" You can't test great advertising. You can only test the mediocre. Not that I don't care about demographics. You have to understand who you're going after. "

" I'm sounding like an old fart talking about how bad advertising is today, but it's true. Advertising sucks. Guys like me and Bob Gage and certainly Bill Bernbach and two or three other guys, we exemplified and led the creative revolution. "

" My concern has always been with creating images that catch people's eyes, penetrate their minds, warm their hearts and cause them to act. "

" I look in the mirror, and I work with the brightest person I know. "

" When I teach classes at the School of Visual Arts,, I'll ask the students, 'How many of you have been to a museum this year?' Nobody raises their hand and I go into a tirade. If you want to do something sharp and innovative, you have to know what went on before. "

" You don't create a magazine for your readers. You don't take a poll, you know, like the politicians do, and find out what they're thinking and what they want... You're supposed to be telling people what the hell you think is exciting and dynamic and thought-provoking, and do it - and do it your way. "