Gift of the Gabberer: Jeremy Wortsman
Art by Aïcha Wijland
Words by Phoebe Sloane
An interview about inspiration you say? Perhaps we talk to an extremely inspiring person? Done.
Jeremy Wortsman is the founder and director of The Jacky Winter Group, Australia’s leading creative services agency, and its associated gallery space, Lamington Drive. He also serves on the board of Craft Victoria, is the host of the Melbourne chapter of Creative Mornings, and a founding member of The Contemplary. He’s a creative entrepreneur, collector of domain names and someone who possesses a curiosity to learn about well, everything.
We’ll start with the obvious, what inspired you to start the Jacky Winter group?
JW A few different things had it come together. Mainly out of a project I ran called ‘Is Not Magazine’. A magazine that was printed on bill posters and put up around the walls in Melbourne and Sydney. My background was in editorial design, so when I was working in magazines as an art director, I got to commission an illustration each month.
When I relocated to Australia and we started ‘Is not,’ I noticed there were no agents to call for illustrators. At the time, I was also be-friending a lot of illustrators and kept on hearing that they were looking for opportunities. I was also running a design studio on the side and teaching (because I didn’t have my visa). It was a very weird process, something that began as a side project and started taking up more time than I expected.
Where are your artists currently finding their inspiration?
I think everyone’s struggling with that at the moment.
There’s almost like this inspiration overload. We’re either donating too much for the bushfires or stockpiling at the supermarket. Even I withdraw from it.
And I think especially with Instagram being a visual medium that we’re all peddling in right now, the more inspiration that people are taking on visually, the harder it is for everyone to design their way through that. Pre-virus, I was seeing a big groundswell, with people and artists withdrawing and going internally for inspiration, rather than to their peers or industry. And I thought that was a fairly positive direction to come and go in.
Black Lives Matter is an opportunity to confront some of our own and our industry’s prejudices. What do you think we should be doing to inspire change right now?
I think we need to take an honest look in the mirror and understand how our big portion of the advertising industry perpetuates some of the deepest mechanisms of systemic racism. At the same time, I think there are some genuine opportunities available right now to make some substantial changes, but it's up to everyone to actually speak up and take action in the lane most appropriate to them.
Staying silent is not an option anymore, and even the smallest gesture to the smallest audience has great potential to shift public opinion which is absolutely vital right now.
You’re also a big believer in sharing sources of inspiration with your clients, tell us about Open Tabs.
I love Open Tabs (laughs). It came about from a fundraiser we did from Is Not magazine. We needed to raise money and we had to be creative. We did this event called ‘YouTube Tuesdays’ and I don’t know if you remember all those funny internet videos people used to email around…but there was always that one video everyone was talking about. So, we got people together at Loop Bar every Tuesday and showed these.
I never want to market for market’s sake.
Because I think people get exhausted really quickly. And so would my staff. we genuinely want to know what our clients are interested in and what they want to see. What they’re looking for.
I always have about 60-70 browser tabs open at any one time.
If anyone looked at my browser tabs, they’d get a really good idea of who I was as a person, warts and all. So, I thought this could become a fun thing we could do with our artists. It’s another way to share with our clients who we are in this different way. It’s really an extension of what we do as producers and facilitators in terms of how we bring people together.
It’s private too. It’s not something that’s recorded, it only exists for our clients.
What I love doing is inspiring people in that way. It gives me a great feeling to see people connect with the event. It’s amazing when the penny drops, when people realise what the event actually is. And that it’s not a sales thing. It’s a great way to build relationships.
Do you have anything in your Open Tabs you’re willing to share with the Gabberish clan? I hear you like to collect domain names…
Ha, absolutely that’s something that’s always on. I do a lot of online studies. I love different types of training videos, especially with my meditation work.
At the moment, lock-in guides - trying to figure out how to adjust, work remotely, technical and etiquette guides. Some of them are so good, I’m poring over these.
There’s a site that I use every day called ‘Ask Metafilter’ which is a community-based question and answer site, you’ll find me in there.
And just basic escapism, I guess. One of the things I love about television right now are shows that have all of these secondary layers to them. Ones that have podcasts and reddit threads, where audiences can participate in solving mysteries or finding Easter eggs. You don’t just watch the show, but you engage with it further.
What are you personally doing to stay inspired given the looming uncertainty?
I’ve had a meditation practice for around 20 years.
I consider every time I sit down and do a practice as a little deposit in my own bank of my own well-being.
And even though it’s hard to see day by day, I feel that in a situation like this, that has definitely lifted me up a bit. I think this situation will allow people to be more outspoken about their mental health and talk about it more seriously. All the barriers are being lowered in current times, so I know that I’m being a lot more vulnerable, open and emotional when I’m talking to my staff and colleagues.
Maintaining a connection, video chat with everyone and checking in. But it’s such a dynamic situation that’s changing hour by hour. In some ways I think, working in advertising has prepared us well for such a fast-moving situation, because we have to think about things very quickly and are used to walking fast.
Do you think art and creativity has the ability to uplift us during troubling times?
It’s pretty incredible to see how much charts and graphs are being used right now and how it’s so important to visualise information to take action.
An example I love is Edward Tufte. A design teacher, who has been the godfather of data visualisation for ages.
He has this great example of how a very famous spacecraft disaster could’ve been diverted if different information about the engine’s reaction to heat and altitude were displayed and done not by engineers, but for people. A designer could’ve perhaps looked at this differently.
It’s great to see how all these crises have a graphic representation of it in so many different ways. It requires a certain way to take information, process it and put it back out there to get these points across. It’s a very civic-minded thing. At the core of this, is that people who think visually.
I’m hearing that a lot of public health policy has been changed because of the way people are absorbing information now.
The second thing is, I think there is another fundamental part about connection, that any piece of art takes you into the mind of its creator. People have been looking at art for centuries, to get out of themselves and have a feeling of connection.
And I think right now, the most dangerous place to be is in your head, just wallowing there.
I think people are looking for quick ways to connect and get out and art, in any form is the easiest way to do that. TV, podcasts are most engaging but still images as well are still very potent. Especially now that people are staying home and don’t have as much stimulus in their lives.
That’s why we’ve created our Homeroom series. A week’s worth of activities by our artists, open to anyone wanting a little bit of escapism.
Do you have any advice for freelancers navigating our industry at the moment?
I think the whole re-ordering of the world is affecting everyone in such unique ways that it's hard to find a piece of advice that will work for everyone.
Overall, I'm seeing that creatives who really specialise in something, whether it's a certain technique or aesthetic, tend to be in the most demand right now.
The flip side of that however is that even then you need to innovate, as trends are moving so fast, so learning how to adapt quickly is also essential.
If you'll allow me a chance for blatant self-promotion here, we've been having lots of these conversations recently on our Corvid (terrible name at the moment, but when we launched it a year ago it was a bit less controversial!). We have a whole private slack community where we talk about these things with other artists in our 'Community' offering. We also have a 'Companion' service which offers freelance production for artists as well, so it's been a really interesting way to broaden our own perspectives around these things.
Do you think there’s anything we should be doing more of as an industry at the moment?
I think we all need to encourage everyone to take care of themselves first.
That’s really important. I think our priorities are getting vastly re-aligned very, very quickly. So, who knows by the time this article goes out? But for a lot of people, it’s hard to focus. Like, it’s hard to sell beer right now if that’s your thing. It’s hard to turn your attention to that and do that job well given everything that’s happening.
I feel it’s important to look at what’s behind you and look at the deeper ways we can be doing things. Even though everything we’re doing might seem superficial, there are still ways we can actually help people. Because there are very fragile economies and lives behind all those things.
So, I don’t know if there are any big shifts we need to make, but maybe it’s just looking at things from a different perspective, with more empathy and more care. A gentleness. Seeing where things move.
