Daniel Romero: “Keeping up to date is a must”

Diseño

Daniel Romero is a visual creator with more than ten years of experience in the industry. He has worked as an art and creative director, senior designer and art technician for international agencies. For the last six years he has specialized in branding, packaging, editorial design, visual strategy and creative processes. Enthusiast, practitioner and promoter of collaborative creativity, he combines his work life with teaching at L’Idem Barcelona, where he teaches Advertising to Digital Design students. This week we talked to Daniel to find out more about his professional career.

10 years dedicated to advertising

Daniel is an art director for the love of art and a career publicist. For him everything must have an order and an intention. He defines himself as a creature of habit who uses science, anthropology, semiology, cinema and music to play on that blank sheet of paper that greets him every morning.

When and why did you decide to dedicate yourself to Advertising?

I always knew I wanted to work in advertising, since I was a child I fell in love with 30-second stories and I was one of the few teenagers of my generation who didn’t suffer with the dilemma of having to decide what I was going to study.

How has your career developed?

As a visual creator I’ve tried to work in all the possible trenches that visual design has to offer: Art technician in my early days, junior and senior designer in my first agency; and creative and art director in my last 5 years. Throughout my career I have tried to be as versatile as possible, updating and complementing my skills year after year, which has helped me excel in branding, packaging, editorial, photo retouching, video editing, graphics animation, copywriting and art completion.

Who have been and are your references / sources of inspiration and why?

The world of advertising has many sacred cows and I’ve never been a groupie. But I have figures like Paula Scher, Michel Gondry, Milton Glaser, Anthony Bourdain and Gabriel García Márquez who have given me a lot without having had the opportunity to meet them.

What has been your biggest professional challenge?

My biggest professional challenge was the first time I took over as art director of the same team of designers that I was part of.

And how have you faced it?

It was a trial by fire, but with professionalism, order and common sense I became the support point for the team, where many profiles grew and found their way, which in the end is what I think a good leader should do.

As a professional, how have you adapted to the new demands of the sector? 

Keeping up to date should be a necessity and not an obligation. I in particular am a bit of a victim of my passions and my career is in the TOP 3. Research and experimentation should be part of every professional’s agenda, and in the case of design it is essential to attend events, talks and exhibitions that highlight the latest.

What would you say is your most outstanding professional project?

I couldn’t single out just one project, I’ve worked my heart out on all of them and their realization has made me the visual creator I am today. But the project that has demanded me the most was working as creative director of my first 360 campaign, where we put messages in all possible media articulating the work of several agencies, production companies and media centres, the result was to go to Cannes in 2013 and be pre-selected in the TITANIUM category.

And which one have you enjoyed the most? 

With a campaign for a hotel group in which we convinced the client to avoid the conventionalism of promoting their hotels with photos of rooms and so on, to create posters inspired by the local gastronomy and the hotel offer.

Tell us about your latest project, if it’s not a secret 😉

My latest project worth highlighting is the conceptualization and creative strategy for TerraView, a platform that aims to combat climate change from the cultivation of grapes, monitoring vineyards with satellites and drones to digitize all the data from the growing year and obtain insights that give key information to growers and their environment.

Apart from teaching, what are you working on now?

At the moment, apart from teaching at L’Idem, I am project manager at Its Greener – BCN and visual creator for TerraView. Apart from that I have other personal projects.

Do you want to tell us more about yourself?

Yes, I want to make design and animation work together.