Hasta La Creative!

Alex Witchel, a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine spent some quality time with Matthew Weiner (pronounced WHY-ner). Weiner is creator, producer and head writer of “Mad Men,” the original series on AMC. The show begins its second season on July 27th.

It’s a long article with lots of interesting detail, like the fact that Weiner is a meticulous control freak from an over-achieving family and somewhat insecure for a man with industry cred spilling out of his golden pockets. But what interests me most is Witchel’s conversations with George Lois and Jerry Della Femina, two ad guys from the “Mad Men” era.

Weiner chose advertising as a subject, he said, because “it’s a great way to talk about the image we have of ourselves, versus who we really are. And admen were the rock stars of that era, creative, cocky, anti-authority. They made a lot of money, and they lived hard.”

Some of those rock stars are less than enthralled by Weiner’s interpretation of their careers. George Lois, the legendary art director who co-founded Papert Koenig Lois in 1960 and recently had an exhibition of the iconic covers he designed for Esquire magazine at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, says: “When I hear ‘Mad Men,’ it’s the most irritating thing in the world to me. When you think of the ’60s, you think about people like me who changed the advertising and design worlds. The creative revolution was the name of the game. This show gives you the impression it was all three-martini lunches.”

People like me who changed the advertising and design worlds? That’s bold, even if it’s true.