Be an Apprentice, Not a Worker: Navigating the Organizational Culture of Commercial Art

• In Event: 365 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Culture and Markets

Abstract

Drawing upon two years of participant observation, hundreds of field interviews, and 47 three- to six-hour interviews with graphic designers and account executives, at an East-Coast entertainment-based graphic design firm I call ArtCorps, I find that culturally, the company is similar to many creative firms in placing a premium on intense engagement with work, both in terms of the artistic quality of the product, and the long hours that are seen as necessary to assuring this quality. However, in terms of company culture, this commitment to hard work and good art is seen as valuable only when it is enacted through a specific personality orientation, that of the earnest and modest apprentice, who approaches work with the fervor of a calling. On the cultural level, ArtCorps is, then, best understood as a network of masters and apprentices. Combining the cultural reverence for the apprentice mindset with the cultural abhorrence of bureaucracy, I argue that the company is organized as a set of mini empires. Much as kings and queens bestow authority to landed nobles to rule over their territories, so the rulers of ArtCorps’ mini empires exercise considerable—seemingly unchecked—latitude in managerial approach, creative standards, mentoring, and eccentricity. Maintaining a position or moving up at the company requires a thorough knowledge of how to navigate this system of mini empires, and I present two case studies of attempted mobility at the company to analyze how the elements of culture I identify in this paper are negotiated in practice.

Author

• Gabrielle Raley, Knox College