Creative is an adjective

Chuck Norris doesn’t believe in Germany. I don’t believe in creative – as a noun.

For those that don’t work in the ad/design industry, creative is commonly used in the following ways:

“Jim, have you and Todd finished working up the creative”?

“Where’s Todd, is he in creative?”

“That’s Jim, he’s a creative”

So, creative is used as a noun to describe a product, location or role. It sounds wrong, and that’s because regardless of what dictionarydotfuckingcom says, it is. Ask anyone you know who has nothing to do with advertising, and they’ll say it doesn’t sound right. For those of you who do work in adland, think back to the first time you heard creative used as a noun…see, I bet you thought is sounded odd.

As we kick off a new year, my resolution is to stop using this word, and simply refer to the creative work as the ‘product’, the location as the ‘factory’ and the job as a ‘factory-hand’. Quite fitting I think, It’s not fucking art after all…and I know it hurts, but just accept it – you’re a COMMERCIAL artist, busying yourself pumping out product and helping to further bastardise the English language.

P.S. – dictionary.com defines creative first as an adjective, and second as a noun. The most amusing thing is, the noun reference gives an example of its use in the advertising industry only. Collins – at least the mini version – only cites its use as an adjective.