Creative Is Native: Nadia Karim Is at Peace with Other People's Subjectivity
Nadia Karim proudly describes herself as ‘self-taught’ though this wasn’t always the case. France, where Nadia is from, “is very academic,” she says, meaning that only people who studied a particular subject can be considered experts. Since Nadia didn’t study art or advertising, she says it made her feel like an impostor. Instead of the ‘traditional route’ into the industry, Nadia studied medicine first before moving into painting, illustration and even coding before finding her footing in advertising full-time.
Creative from a young age, Nadia was also always interested in problem solving, critical thinking and subjects with a scientific angle. Instead of seeing the elements as opposites, she finds them necessarily connected and all are essential to her approach to creativity today. The multidisciplinary mindset is always an asset in an industry that strives to overcome challenges and innovate. It’s then perhaps no wonder that Nadia’s work has picked up numerous awards from Effie MENA and Ireland, Dubai Lynx, Ad Stars, and Sharks Kinsale for her work with Durex, Trocaire, Nescafe, and KFC.
Charley Stoney, CEO of IAPI, says: “Nadia is one of an increasing number of international creatives that we’re delighted to have made their home in Ireland. As well as an unerring commitment to producing best-in-class work, she is also passionate about championing and uplifting women in advertising. I believe it’s a real testament to the vibrancy of our creative industry that global talents like Nadia want to be a part of it.”
Today, LBB spoke to Nadia about her attitude towards awards, embracing the ‘self-taught’ label, and how thinking about what’s possible instead of what’s probable is key to her creative successes.
LBB> Nadia, tell us a little about yourself - what were you like growing up? Were you always creative?
Nadia> Where do I begin? I feel like I need to lay down and tell you more about my childhood. As far as I remember, creativity has always been a significant part of my life at every level. From a young age, I’ve been sketching, drawing, playing music and painting. However, I believe that creativity is more than just artistic expression. It involves problem-solving and what I call lateral thinking to find solutions. That’s what I found in scientific thinking and my medical studies, critical thinking and problem-solving.
I’ve always been curious about how things work, I loved biology, chemistry, as well as the mechanics of machines. The most beautiful place in the world when I was a kid was my dad’s atelier, he’s passionate about working with wood, he has all the tools, all the machines and I would spend hours building stuff with him. I always had projects, plans, sketches of what I wanted to build.
LBB> And what was your path to becoming an art director?
Nadia> If I had to summarise my path to become an art director, I’d say, convoluted! But I don’t regret anything. Everything I know, I’ve learned by myself.
My path to advertising hasn’t been a straight line but c’est la vie! I started my journey by painting and illustrating. There's a lot of conceptualisation in illustration, it’s not just technical, it’s finding a way to show an idea in its simplest form. Art is meant to make people think and feel, that’s what I’ve always loved about it. There’s a meaning behind and an intention (sometimes the intention is just to make you smile and that’s enough). Then I started to work for small businesses and startups as a graphic designer. Along the way, because I needed a website and I didn’t have enough money to pay someone to do it, I had to learn a new skill, coding. I coded my first website from header to footer in 2008. I was young and had to make websites for my clients as well, so I’ve learned four different coding languages, and I was fluent at some point but I’m afraid I can only read it now.
I realised that what I love really is the conceptualisation. Don’t forget, I'm a ‘self-taught’ person! And for many years I took it as something I should be ashamed of. France is very academic, if you don’t learn it and study it, you can’t be good at it. At least that’s what I felt - imposter syndrome I guess.
I was reluctant to tell my employers or even my colleagues, because I thought they would think less of me. But one day during an interview, I’ll always remember the day my mind switched. I was in Ramzy Moutran’s office, in Ogilvy Dubai. He was interviewing me. I had several interviews the same week, I was tired and I just opened up and told him my full story, my path, and all the multiple obstacles along the way. He stopped and told me to never be ashamed of your path, wear it with pride, it’s a story of dedication, of passion, and if your portfolio doesn’t deflect every single doubt in your employer’s mind, then that’s simply not the right agency for you. Since this day, I’m not afraid to say that I didn’t study art or advertising, but everything I know, I’ve figured out by myself, trying, failing, trying again and persisting in learning everyday. I’ll keep learning, because I’m always curious to know how things work.
LBB> What does creativity mean to you? How do you nurture yours?
Nadia> Creativity means curiosity to me. Always be curious, the minute you think you know it all, you think you have figured out everything, you’re on the wrong path. Creativity never stops and never leaves you. There will always be a parallel path, always a different way to think, always a new way to do things. That’s what makes life fun, doing things differently. We often oppose science and creativity, as if they were not compatible. To my opinion that’s the exact opposite, they are intricately connected. One doesn’t go without the other. One quote that resonates the most with me is “imagination is more important than knowledge”, every discovery starts with one hypothesis, and to formulate this hypothesis you need to think differently, allow yourself to think that something else is possible, imagine other possibilities. Always question things, criticise and find another path.
I had a great maths teacher in high school. So many people think maths is just right or wrong, like a sort of binary system, but to him, it wasn’t. Finding the result and solving the problem was great but if you had a different reasoning to solve the equation, you had extra points, and if you didn’t get the right result at the end of the equation, he would still give you points, because your thinking was creative and somewhat new.
LBB> Your work on Durex Celebrations picked quite a few awards. Can you tell us about the brief, how you made the campaign, and the cultural context around it?
Nadia> Ok, there’s a lot of things about this campaign. Let’s start by saying: advertising condoms to the Saudi market isn’t what you would call an easy task! Firstly, you have to avoid censorship (as you can imagine) and secondly you have to be relevant to the target audience. Condoms' perception in Saudi isn’t the same as Europe or anywhere else. I won’t go into details, but that’s very different.
The brief stemmed from a World Cup campaign for Durex. The insight was simple, Saudi is passionate about football (very!) and after every World Cup there’s a spike of births, so people are “celebrating” (wink wink) during the world cup. It was a proactive project that turned into a big project. Our clients RB loved it and the passion was shared between the agency, media and the client. We were designing some posts live from the games!
After this campaign, we strengthened the trust with our client. The campaign was very successful and my favourite thing in the morning was to read the comments! Then we proposed to extend this to an on-going campaign and give them a fun reason to celebrate everyday. It was a lot of teamwork, brainstorming jokes about film releases, about specific days, about everything and anything to be contextual and put a smile on the audience’s face everyday and give them permission to celebrate everything, everyday. We had a lot of fun but it wasn’t easy to pull off, because that’s a year long campaign and imagine the number of approvals needed. But in the end we made it happen. Big thank you to the team at Havas Middle East (Dubai), some people are still there, some have moved to different countries and are working for Red Bull, TikTok or P&G, but we still have a group on WhatsApp (and you can be sure, I’ll send them this article!).
LBB> As someone whose work has won awards, what’s your attitude towards awards in general?
Nadia> That’s a very good question, I think my answer to that is changing every year. I’ve always been awards focused, burnt myself on some, got frustrated, got hopeless sometimes, got angry at “I had the exact same idea before and couldn’t make It happen because X,Y or Z”.
My attitude towards awards is overall conflicted. As a creative, I need them, and have to win awards, no question about it. That's my creative currency, especially moving from one country to another. That’s increasing your market value as a creative, that’s a fact. Is it right? I don’t think so, as a creative you should be judged also on other things, like how you’re selling ideas, how you're building trust with your client, how much you’re bringing to the business, awards are NOT everything, but they are important for your career and for the business.
So I’m constantly putting myself under pressure to get more and more and that’s your currency to evolve your career in a way. But I’m also taking it with a pinch of salt.
Now, I’ll never stop trying to win awards, because that’s a benchmark, that’s a guide in the level of creativity I want to bring to the table. The first thing I think about when I see something with potential in a campaign is, what would be the case video? Or what’s the image on the case board, because by doing this, you’re simplifying the idea to a few sentences, you know your insight, you know how it’s called, you know what the metrics you want to move to make a difference.
The more senior I become, the more I know that as an agency you also have to balance your personal ambition with your client’s ambitions and see where it can meet in the Venn diagram of life. It starts with a good relationship with clients and with colleagues, and a shared ambition to do good work and get recognised on an international stage. It all starts with building trust.
Above: Durex 'Every Day'
LBB> Before Dublin, you lived in Dubai. Do you miss anything about that part of the world? How are you finding Dublin?
Nadia> I miss some parts of Dubai, I miss people, my friends, and colleagues… I had a great time in different agencies there, and because you’re far from home, your agency becomes a second family, and your colleagues become friends. Also, I miss the eternal sunshine a bit but hey, can’t have it all!
But I’m extremely happy to be here, I love Dublin and I really feel good in this country and city. I’m planning to stay for a good while, it feels like home.
LBB> You’ve been with Core for almost four years now. What do you like most about working here and how has your role evolved from when you first started to now?
Nadia> Moving from one market to another is always hard, you have to prove yourself again and make a name for yourself again…But, I’ve been lucky to start with Core, I liked the fact that they were starting their journey with a creative department and I felt that it was a great opportunity to be a part of building something new. I think they let me add my little touch and my mark to the agency.
What I like the most, is the fact that I feel valued and trusted. On a more day-to-day basis, one thing I appreciate greatly is to be very close to media, research, data and having the flexibility to have access to them, ask for their guidance and vice-versa makes a big difference in my approach to any brief and creative response. We have several clients that are part of the ‘Core Full Solution’ and this is actually making things way smoother from my creative perspective. I’m learning a lot from the different practices as well.
But I’m not going to shy away from my ambition, eventually I want to step up and move to creative direction; I’m working on it.
LBB> What kind of work do you find yourself most drawn to or seek out deliberately?
Nadia> Funny ads! Honestly, I’m a strong believer that humour is what makes your ad work, be remembered, humour sticks, that’s all you want an ad to do. I think that’s what I’m naturally drawn to, and that’s what my creative partner (Conor McDevitt) and I love working on. We are in the entertainment business, humour is key. If you analyse what it is, humour is insightful, it’s funny 'cause it’s true”, it’s funny “cause I do that too”, it’s funny “cause it’s absurd and it surprises me”. I’m telling you, humour will save the world one day!
Above: KFC
LBB> What are some of the pieces of work that you’re most proud of? What makes them stand out?
Nadia> I'm really proud of the KFC reversed drive-thru project. It was quite challenging, but I am grateful to my team and the client for trusting me on it. The Durex ‘Celebration’ project is another source of pride for me. It involved fantastic teamwork, and we had a lot of fun (and a few tears) while working on it. Oh, and I can't forget about the ‘Maggi Diaries, Women of Change’ project. Meeting those inspiring women who were making a difference in different levels of society was truly remarkable. I had the opportunity to interview them for the comic book, and working with talented artists to portray their stories was simply amazing.
I see every project as a precious creation, almost like a baby. It's important to protect, nurture, and care for them so they can face the world.
Above: Maggi 'Diaries'
LBB> In your view, what’s essential to being a great art director?
Nadia> Wow, that's a tough one! A good thinker, someone who can come up with great ideas and conceptualise them well. A great art director is curious and ideally possesses strong technical skills, as it's much easier to convey your ideas when you can demonstrate them with a proof of concept. It's all about sharing your vision with others, and I personally find it simpler to sketch or create mock-ups so that people can better visualise and connect with my ideas.
LBB> Finally, what advice would you give to any aspiring art directors?
Nadia> TRY AND FAIL MORE. Be at peace with people’s subjectivity, because what we do is subjective, and I know it’s hard to have someone criticising something you’ve spent time thinking about and crafting. Be at peace with it though it doesn’t mean don’t fight for what you think is right, just don’t let it get into you, it will happen and it will keep happening. I used to be very offended when someone would criticise my work. Now I’m trying to let go deep inside, I know when it’s good and when it’s not and I’ll push back if I really think it’s worth the battle.
Be curious, keep trying things, they might not work but eventually you’ll learn from that. Failing is not a problem, it’s your way to the solution.
