Empathy.

We are fortunate to be in a creative industry in which our job is to create. Our time is spent creating and designing products and digital content for people who aren’t completely like us—people of different socioeconomic classes, races, genders, sexualities, political parties, and generations. This is why empathy is so vital in any creative vocation.

Comprehending and formulating how other people think is analytical on the surface, but it is also about understanding the underlying emotions of people who come from a background different from yours. Emotions run high and low. Every person, with their own past, present and future, is living their own life. Now advertising comes in attempting to target certain generations, genders, sexualities, races, and socioeconomic status’. It is worth noting how empathy is applied differently to each categorical target. People often dehumanize generations, as a category, more than others. This is interesting because they are the biggest umbrellas of targets. Regardless, I think it is crucial for us to approach problems in this field by finding human truths and applying them to find our insights and creative solutions.

Grace Gandolfo 5/9/18