Alumni Spotlight – Sarah Gatling Latz
Creative Circus Alum - Senior Copywriter at FCB Chicago
#AlumniSpotlight The Creative Circus graduates the most sought after creatives in the industry. Take a moment to read about the lives, careers & personal stories of some of our fantastic alumni.
Sarah Gatling Latz – Senior Copywriter at FCB Chicago
Creative Circus Alumna- Copywriting (2011)
Advice to the Graduating Class:
There are going to be unexpectedly awesome opportunities no matter what account you work on. There are also going to be a lot of crappy banner ads and social media posts you have to do as a junior. Work hard, stay hungry and stay humble. Kim Kurtz always said, be the person your coworkers miss when you’re out of the office. If you can live by that motto, you’ll go far.
Advice to the Incoming Class:
You’re going to encounter so many different personality types. Everyone will have a different style of writing, a different design aesthetic, a different way of concepting. Some people will be the best kind of weird you’ll ever know. Be kind and always support each other. You’ll soon see that everyone has something interesting to offer—something that’ll make them unique to recruiters two years from now. Accept feedback with grace, but when you start putting your book together, keep in mind that a campaign one person loves, another person will hate. Stick to your guns, learn what you love, and build a portfolio that embodies you as a person.
What do you wish you knew while in school:
The days are long but the years are short. Find the fun in every day. Enjoy every afternoon spent in an eclectic Atlanta coffee shop, every pool-side concepting session, every Thursday night out. This may be one of your last chances to live without a typical day job or schedule.
What does The Circus mean to me:
You don’t realize the domino effect of your decisions until years down the road.
The Circus was dog friendly, so I got a dog. Two years later, said dog and I drove up to Chicago. I’d planned on working at Leo for maybe a year, then moving to New York. But I met a guy when he commented on the dog. I really started to like him when I walked in one day and he was singing to the dog, a song he made up about the dog.
Fast forward a few years. We got married, got another dog, had a baby, bought a house. Now Chicago is my home. I love my career here, teaching here, the friends who became family, family that became best friends.
I can’t help but think, maybe it all happened, because I went to the Circus, a dog friendly school. And that means the world to me.
Describe a monumental, light bulb moment for yourself while you were at The Circus:
I didn’t get the hang of writing consistently good headlines until, like, 7th quarter. I loved writing longer copy, but in a world where brevity and wit was celebrated, I felt like I was failing. I was losing sleep over it and made myself sick with stress. I’d always been good in school, you know? Always creative, always the writer, always the top of the class. Now I was in a place where everyone was amazingly creative. Not excelling right away made me question everything about myself. Was I even good enough? What was wrong with me? Should I just drop out? But then somewhere in late 6th quarter, early 7th quarter, it just clicked. My teacher Alice Jankowski suggested trying word trees, and that word association technique just really worked for me. I remember sitting in the library outside of the dark room for 5 hours one day, filling a huge sheet of paper with a giant word tree, then slamming out good headline after good headline. I was so proud of myself. I finally thought, “Okay, you got this. You are just as qualified as anyone to be here.”
I teach now, and you better believe word trees are the first things I teach my students about haha. But I also remind them that not all techniques work for everyone, and eventually, everyone will find their groove and know their worth.
Favorite campaign (post Circus):
The Allstate Mayhem campaign, hands down. But my favorite Creative Director was when I worked on Hallmark. He made every project so fun.
Making the switch to recruiting and then back to creative:
I switched to recruiting when I came back from maternity leave and was instantly overwhelmed with the hours and travel demanded of creatives. I asked my CCO at EnergyBBDO if I could try recruiting for a while, and I will always be grateful to him and that agency for letting me try it out. It kept me sane through my first year as a working mom. And I really liked looking at portfolios and meeting with people. But things settled down, my family found our footing a little in a routine, and I realized I missed writing. I also felt like I saw more long-term opportunities for myself as a creative. So I switched back two months ago, and it’s been good so far. But truthfully, I’m just taking it day by day, trying to find balance, trying not to let the plates drop. It’s tough. I think this industry could do a lot more to support creatives who are also parents. You can do it. You just have to find an agency and a creative director that works for you.