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Herb Briggs – The stories keep on coming!

Posted on August 23, 2023August 23, 2023 By Hey You

I have heard about, read about and i have posted the stories that others who have written about — Herb Briggs.

The Prince Of Pranksters

Herb, beyond being an art director and some­times a copy writer, also was an adver­tising art teacher — he was an advisor to the students who had port­fo­lios to show their best efforts. I was one of them in the early 1960s:

“I made very many appoint­ments. The top art direc­tors and artists, in those days, would give a personal inter­view and offer a critique of a student’s port­folio. A few that viewed my port­folio were: Herb Briggs, Sam Hollis, Tom Gleason (ad agen­cies)– and Richard Evans and Lowell Herrero (art studios). Given allowance for being young and a student, everyone was very kind, but I didn’t find employment.”
https://​geezers​gallery​.com/​p​a​g​e​/​59/

Sue Larson, who wrote last month of her first entry into the ad biz (scroll down to view it). Sue sent this Show­case inter­view to me.

The San Fran­cisco adver­tising commu­nity has a number of people to thank for Herbert Briggs career as an art director. One of them was his grand­mother, who raised him and. says Briggs, ​“spent her life­time doing book­plates and Christmas cards” She taught at the Art Students League in New York at one point and as she reared her grandson, she no doubt instilled him with his first artistic sensi­bil­i­ties. Another was Jerry Andelin’s father, who gave him a job dressing windows (“although Jerry Andelin’s a little tired of hearing that,” says Briggs)
And although there were prob­ably many other Influ­ences as well — the person who hired him to letter the entire UC Berkeley stadium score­board, for example-the most unusual by far is the U.S. Forest Service. ​“I always wanted to be in the Forest Service. and I had built up almost three years of solid time in the Forest Service,” he explains. ​“I real­ized it was not what I thought it was. And I met a girl who was going to Art Center and boom‑o, I went to Art Center. Ifs more because I was mad at the Forest Service; I don’t think they cared’.’

The U.S. Forest Service also prob­ably doesn’t know that the man they disap­pointed is now one of the most talented and respected art direc­tors in the adver­tising commu­nity. Getting to this point was colorful. to say the least.

“I got kicked out of Art Center and I thought life was over, so I burned my Art Center book. I got a job as a garbageman at night and I made another book. I used the book for 15 minutes, and then burned it again,” says Briggs.

Briggs finally went to work for Young & Rubicam in New York in 1950, and then moved back home to Cali­fornia in 1955 to work at one time or another for nearly all the major agen­cies around: Young & Rubicam (twice), BBDO (twice), Foote Cone & Belding. Then in 1972, he started his own agency with Brice Schuller and five years ago, they were bought by Doyle Dane Bern­bach, where he works today.
(Editor’s Note: This was written in 1985.)

When Show­case decided to inter­view Herbert Briggs, we talked to his former partner, a few colleagues, and a former student. There was nothing but high praise all around. Briggs himself quickly admits that he occa­sion­ally is at odds with parts of the adver­tising commu­nity, and remains modest about his abil­i­ties and accom­plish­ments. However, his defenders vari­ously call him ​“the most lovable curmud­geon that ever drew breath”,
​“the best instructor I’ve ever had. Including grade school and beyond to college”, ​“the last and best of the old-time art direc­tors”, and ​“someone who doesn’t settle — who never compro­mises happily”.

Show­case talked to him on DDB’s rooftop a day before the Blue Angels were to perform in the skies above San Fran­cisco. It was a bright. sun-drenched after­noon. and the inter­view was punc­tu­ated by the occa­sional sound of planes prac­ticing over­head and Briggs resulting fascination …

We found him curious about the world, talk­a­tive, insightful, smart and much too modest.

Show­case: A couple of people have said that you’ve done pretty much every­thing there is to do as an art director.
Briggs: No. Heavens. no.
Show­case: Well, at least that you have a rather broad range of experience.
Briggs: I share with a lot of people my age the expe­ri­ence of watching broad­cast devel­op­ment — but largely as a spec­tator, though not entirely; I’ve had some expe­ri­ence. I’ve been primarily print-oriented. Our whole lifespan has been the devel­op­ment of broad­cast; that’s the single most impor­tant story.
Oh boy, look at that. (An Angel streaking across the sky.) Hm‑m, in one sense, yes, I have a lot of different kinds of expe­ri­ences, but broad­cast offers so many vari­a­tions today that I have not experienced.
Show­case: You’ve been in adver­tising for 35 year now. so you’re obvi­ously completely dedi­cated to it.

'65 AAW 2nd Prize
’65 AAW 2nd Prize 
'65 Pacific Telephone
’65 Pacific Telephone 
'67 Chevron
’67 Chevron 
'67 Chevron
’67 Chevron 
'78 Intersil
’78 Intersil 
Himself
Himself 

Briggs: (Hilar­ious laughter). Oh, I think I work hard at it. But at the same time I don’t know how you can live in this busi­ness and not work hard at it. Next month. I’m gonna do six hours for the kiddie ad club on how things hove changed. And one thing that has changed is the atti­tude of the people in it. I think the people today are better than they used to be. They’re smarter. they’re infi­nitely more sophis­ti­cated, and they’re — geez, did ja see that one? [Another Blue Angel circling the finan­cial district… Briggs also knows the plane’s model number, and why it’s used: ​“They’re rela­tively inex­pen­sive and they’re small”] I think that the best of the young people today are better than the best of the young people a long time ago, because I think that they have expe­ri­enced many more things than we did. I look back and I’m amazed how naïve we were. Well, it’s very tough to make gener­al­iza­tions ​’cause they’re very vulner­able, but I’ll make a really rash one and say that I think I see less just plain sheer effort behind the younger ones. The younger ones get tired quicker and they get discour­aged more easily.
Show­case: Instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion, maybe?
Briggs: I realize that sounds like a cliché, but at the same time I think it’s
true, that it’s not the typical old atti­tude, you know – ​“Kids today. Let me tell you I walked bare­foot through the snow to school!’
The best of the young crowd is better. Things are better; every­thing’s better. I have no overall gripe. I think I’ve watched things improve steadily, including the people. I just wish there was a little hustle in the average child. I wish they were impa­tient with them­selves; I wish they were less tolerant; I wish they asked more of themselves.
I wish they were less secure in their answers and less quick to form judg­ments. I wish they exper­i­mented more. I wish they were more nervous.
Show­case: Do you think you’re a nervous adver­tising professional?
Briggs: Sure; so’s every­body I know. I screw things up all the time and I’m constantly amazed that I’ve been so unper­cep­tive, that I’ve been so foolish and I think we all are. I don’t know any people I respect who think they’ve got it made. They’re all good people, but they’re all hustling, trying to improve, at least trying to de-bug what they’re doing-with varying degrees of success.
Show­case: Do you think that you could have approached
any other profes­sion with the same tenacity that you have for this one?
Briggs: Certainly. And I think anybody else in that period would, at the risk of being overly dramatic, people my age were chil­dren in the depres­sion. Now the depres­sion was pretty easy out here. You didn’t come from the bad side of Chicago, where things were really not very nice. Berkeley, Cali­fornia — -if you’ve got to be poor, it’s a great place to be poor. You don’t even know it; you’re having a pretty good time actu­ally. I feel very fortu­nate. It was very easy, but at the same time you had to work. And I think almost anybody my age who did not inherit the crown title feels the same way. You hustled simply because that’s what you did. And it’s just a lot more fun that way, it really is.
Show­case: One of your former students, Shig Takashita, says you chal­lenge your students so that it helps them decide if they really want to be in advertising.
Briggs: You have to do that. I’ve done a lot of research, written a lot of letters to get infor­ma­tion that is surpris­ingly hard to find.
I’ve finally got some approx­i­mate figures. Kids never realize how few people there are in this busi­ness. As of 1985, there are about 103,000 people in the busi­ness nation­wide, about 32 percent work in Manhattan.That’s every­body — the girls at the desk,PBX oper­a­tors, home econ­o­mists, media depart­ment, every­body. The figures are not broken down well in my specialty. There are appar­ently some­where around 9800 or 9900 art-related jobs; that goes every­where from New York to Johnson City, Texas which in ​’82, had seven agen­cies employing a total of 14 people. So, depending where you ore and what you are, the title means very different things.
The year I wrote my last set of letters, there were about 300,000 kids in art school. Now if you said that for the sake of argu­ment 10 percent of those were inter­ested in adver­tising, and l think ifs much less than that, and you said they were all in four-year programs, which Is not true; and that year there were about 7500 people in busi­ness of whom 5000 could be remotely called an art director. the bottom line is that if all those things were true, 7500 kids would be out looking for 5000 jobs that some­body already had. You get these frequently nice, some­times not-so-nice, often obnox­ious children
sitting in front of you. Ten percent will make it, and another 20 percent might. Its lousy to realize you’re sitting there taking money from people who haven’t got a chance in hell of getting it back.
I don’t like to see kids who are panic-stricken. They pay a lot of money, they get out of the schools, they can’t get anything back and they can’t under­stand why.

Show­case: Jerry Gibbons says you’re very nice to students.
People come to town and you’re the one person to see to get pointed in the right direction.
Briggs: It’s kind of a self-elected role. I kind of appointed myself grand­fa­ther. When my group got out of service we could have taken our discharge papers and gone to agen­cies and sat down. They didn’t care. if you went to Art Center. Nobody’s been along in five years. There were 14 guys in my class. But now ifs really tough.
I have done a lot of scratching in my life, but I haven’t had to scratch in that way and I feel sorry for ​’em. Also, they’re not tough. I’ve been trying to make ​’em feel as good as I can within reality.
Show­case: Do you think there’s any validity to this seem­ingly hot, new topic of how much Son Fran­cisco adver­tising is affecting the adver­tising landscape?
Briggs: In the last seven or eight years, San Fran­cisco has really come a long way. It’s very compet­i­tive. It’s not just a nice place to live anymore. And ifs not as pleasant a place to live anymore. It’s a more compet­i­tive busi­ness, and ifs harder to hide.
Show­case: Speaking of hiding, Jerrold Woods said to ask you about ​“calcu­lated truculence”
Briggs: Oh dear. I occa­sion­ally have been called a rather surly, sour indi­vidual, and not very lovable. At the same time, I think if you indulge in this busi­ness, you’ve got to take your lumps and you’ve gotta be able to indulge on a totally unso­cial basis. It’s a lot more fun If you’re friends, but some­times that’s not possible. So I’ve been known. espe­cially with kids in school who want Mr. Briggs and Uncle Herbie to love ​’em dearly, to do exactly what the Marine Corps does. I don’t like to yell at kids, but I want them to listen to me. So I’ve been known to adopt ​“calcu­lated trucu­lence”. I wasn’t doing it to be a lousy guy. I was doing it just so I would be the instructor and they would be the kid.
I’Ill do anything I can think of that works that’s halfway legal.
 — — — — — —
Written by Sheila F. Gadsden for Show­case Maga­zine 1965
(Editor’s note: For our purpose, some para­graphs were removed, as the subject went off subject.)
 — — — — — —
Reading that Herb Briggs, during a students inter­view, wished:
(I just wish there was a little hustle in the average child. I wish they were impa­tient with them­selves; I wish they were less tolerant; I wish they asked more of themselves.
I wish they were less secure in their answers and less quick to form judg­ments. I wish they exper­i­mented more. I wish they were more nervous.)

I remember feeling all those things and I would guess, that other students were also inse­cure regarding their abil­i­ties to fit into agency work.

Ann Thompson


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