By Steve Spatucci

A designer friend once criticized text I wrote for a brochure I’d been designing – he thought it was too friendly in tone and didn’t have a strong enough marketing bent. I was reasonably happy with my output, and besides – my client didn’t have the budget to hire a copywriter, so he’d asked me to assemble a few short paragraphs from a variety of bullet-pointed presentations he’d developed on his own.

So after my friend gave me his opinion of my writing skills, he added this zinger: “But it’s okay – you’re not a writer.”

I… guess.

I mean, I had the same English courses everyone else did at college, but it wasn’t my major. I’ve taken many screenwriting courses, but I haven’t sold a screenplay (yet). I’ve always enjoyed creative writing, especially when integrated with my own art and design (websites, comic books, animation – that sort of thing), but I’ve never had been paid JUST to write something – it’s always been part of a bigger design project.

So is it wrong that I still think of myself as a competent, passable, even “decent” writer? Or is that too cocky? I think not.
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By Steve Spatucci

When I’m well into my septuagenarian years, I’d like to take a decade or so to devote to studying the idea of talent. I’ve been hearing the term for over thirty years now, and I still have no real understanding of what it means.

Trusted dictionary definitions of “talent” turn up phrases like “a characteristic feature, aptitude, or disposition” and “a special, often creative or artistic aptitude”. I can work with that.

But the thing is, I hear “talent” used all the time to describe what I think of as skill. I recently heard a friend described as a “talented database programmer”. That friend is truly great at his job, but I think he’d be better described as a very skilled programmer. His talent – the qualities he’s shown since youth – were probably more along the lines of organization, analysis, and structure. That was, I believe, the basis for him to learn his database skills. I daresay he was not hitting the code books while in preschool.
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By Steve Spatucci

When you work in a creative field, certain assumptions are made about you. It’s assumed that you listen to bands that no one has ever heard of (guilty), people are predisposed to believe that you’ll eat strange foods (uh oh), and you’re generally expected to look and behave like an “artiste” – dressing like you’re from the future, not paying attention to schedules, being unresponsive to e-mails – that sort of thing. The image of the turn-of-the-last-century Parisian impressionist – complete with beret – is not wholly invalid here. I’ve seen it happen.

It didn’t take me long to learn that even the slightest professional behavior – wearing an ironed shirt, preparing detailed outlines – even speaking clearly on the phone – has earned me points with clients. These things aren’t exactly huge efforts – in fact, I once believed they were necessary to running a business – but apparently, not so.
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