Tait Ischia: finds this wallpaper quite mesmerising.

Tait Ischia, known to his friends as Tait Modern, is an absolute go-getter. He was working for zeitgeisty Melbourne custom publisher Right Angle Publishing while still a student in RMIT’s creative advertising program, and last year his blog, The Wayfarer, was anointed as one of Marketing magazine’s 50 most forward-thinking marketing blogs.

Now Tait is the Cultural Director at multidisciplinary agency The Surgery, and last October he started Junior, a site of solidarity and advice for Australian junior advertising creatives. At Junior, Tait grills creative directors, editors, producers and other well-established creative types for tips on landing that first job and getting noticed at the bottom of the agency pecking order.

He also runs meetups on the second Wednesday of every month, when young creatives can come and listen to an industry guest speaker before getting righteously drunk. And he turns 23 tomorrow, which is enough to make me cry old, irrelevant tears.

The Enthusiast: Tait Modern, you are cultural director at the Surgery. What gives? What does a ‘cultural director’ do that a ‘copywriter’ or ‘art director’ doesn’t? Are you basically just a resident hipster?

Tait Ischia: You can call me the resident hipster if you like. But I wouldn’t admit to that title of course. To tell you the truth, I’m the copywriter who art directs and makes sure that our ‘cooler’ clients think we’re ‘cool’ enough to make them seem ‘cool’ too.

What place do hipsters have in the ad industry? Are juniors necessarily hipsters?

Advertising makes its money predominantly from middle Australia, who as a general rule don’t even know who Animal Collective are, let alone what a hipster is. So if a hipster thinks they can go into an agency and make ‘cool’ ads, it ain’t gonna fly with Baz and Shirl in Carrum Downs. Feel me? Hipsterdom feeds off very niche markets, so the cut of their jib don’t make sense in adland.

Juniors aren’t necessarily hipsters, but they are young and can have a skewed sense of what middle Australia wants, which can dramatically lessen their value to a creative business. Having said that, juniors are definitely more hip than their older counterparts, although you probably wouldn’t find many at a Fabulous Diamonds gig. So I guess they’re hipper than most but not that hip. Confused?

Nah, but that’s probably because I’m a dirty hipster myself. So are you doing the job you wanted to do when you were a kid?

Yes and no. At 12 I wanted to be a journo, at 13 I wanted to make films, at 14 I wanted to be a graphic designer, at 15 I wanted to be a musician, at 16 I wanted to be a web designer, at 17 I wanted to be a motion designer and then I turned 18 and just wanted to get drunk. So I guess if you mash all those things into one person you get an overworked advertising creative. Which works just fine for me, because this isn’t something I really want to do, but more something I feel compelled to do. And I guess being compelled to do something is what you do when you’re a kid with specific career aspirations anyway.

What was the inspiration behind Junior?

First and foremost we wanted to talk shit with awesome people. It’s one of our favourite things to do in the whole world. Second, we had a bunch of unanswered questions about what to do with our lives and careers that we needed to ask someone about. Third, we were just itching to do something that wasn’t going to be cut down by stupid clients. True story.

But now that it’s up and running, we’re beginning to realise we do actually have an agenda. We want the kids at uni, the kids who’ve just left uni, and the kids who’ve just got a job to know we’re just as confused about everything as they are, and that the amazingly successful people we interview were just as confused when they were juniors too. So really it’s helping the juniors see that it ain’t so bad being at the bottom, and if they get their booties into gear, they can climb the ladder sooner than they think.

My uni mates Amy and Luke landed their first job by sending Amy’s kid sister into reception, dressed as a clown, with two Junior Burgers and a note saying, “Here are the two juniors you’re looking for.” You’ve published other tales like this on your site. Do you have any personal hard-luck stories about getting your first job? Was it hard? Was it awful?

It was neither hard nor awful. In fact, it was easy and pleasurable. I was sitting on a plane to Auckland at the beginning of 2007 and I said to myself, “I’m going to get a job at Right Angle Publishing, just one day a week.” I knew they did cool stuff and I wanted to be a part of the machine while I was studying. So I went home and did all the research I possibly could on the interwebs to see what the place was all about. I was going to make business cards and a website and a blog and make a little package to send to them and everything. I had it all planned out.

I thought it’d be pragmatic to set up the blog first and fill it up with a few entries. So for three or four days I posted a couple of posts a day until I got an email from Chris Barton at Right Angle asking me to come in and have a beer. It blew my mind. So I scrapped the business cards, the site and the package and talked shit and drank beer instead. Soon I was going in a couple of days a week writing and designing and photographing and buying sushi. It was the best thing I ever did.

Moral of the story is: blogs get jobs. If you want a job somewhere, start a blog, post often, write well, and link the place you want to work at on the blog. I guarantee you it will work. And that’s why it was neither hard nor awful.

Who else is involved with Junior and how did you all get on board?

Well my main partner in crime is Ed Howley. We went to uni together. We also used to live together. He works at another agency in Melbourne called AJF Partnership. We just started having meetings and drinking goon a few days a week until we were prepared enough to put the site up. We pulled as many favours as we could from our talented friends. Monica made our website work properly, Amy made our pretty little logo, and Jason at Sweatshop gave us the bar to use for our nights.

What’s the best thing about life at the bottom?

Long lunches are amazing.

And what’s the worst thing about life at the top?

Long lunches are all that’s amazing.

Are juniors really at the bottom of the agency pecking order? I reckon baby suits would have to kick more shit than creatives.

Yeah, you’re probably right. Stan, our mentor, says that no matter what goes wrong, always remember that your job beats real work. So yeah, baby suits probably do have to kick more shit than us creatives, but we don’t say that. Otherwise we’d all be enjoying ourselves way too much and never push the boundaries.

What’s the bright side to being a junior in these dismal economic times, when agencies aren’t hiring, or are operating a ‘last in, first out’ policy?

That’s easy – we’re so goddamn fucking young! We’re the age (18-26, give or take) most people wish they were all over again. You can take risks and you won’t have the mortgage to worry about. Or the kids or the houseboat or even eating. Clemenger BBDO creative director Emma Hill told us, “It’s the toughest that it’s ever been for juniors. That being said, their advantage is they don’t cost much. So you can look at it as glass half empty or full.” Really, the economy being in the dumps doesn’t mean anything. If you’re awesome someone will hire you and keep you hired if you continue to perform.

What’s been the response to the site from people in the industry – especially from seniors?

Amazingly good. It seems that seniors are the overly excited readers. We get the ‘I wish there was something like this back when I was a junior’ thing quite a bit. A senior suit at Ed’s agency once told him she read every post from top to bottom the first time she went to the site. It’s nice but it’s all a bit inconsequential to us. We just want to change the way the kids think, not get our egos rubbed by the oldies.

What do you hope to get from the site? (Cynics might think those networking drinks are just a cunning way for you to get laid!)

Ha, you’d think that, but alas, getting laid ain’t a top priority. Seriously though, we’re looking for the meaning of life. No joke. Why the fuck does anyone get a full-time job in the first place? Money? Ambition? Boredom? Momentum? I know I’m questioning why the hell I’m doing what I’m doing. If we can get a little closer to understanding why we should be working our arses off for little money at such a young age then we’re progressing well. And maybe somewhere along the line a struggling junior will tell us they got a job because we helped them. That’d be pretty ace.