Tom Eslinger: Saatchi’s old desk and why it’s brutal out there (and that’s good)

In 2000, Tom Eslinger became the first global creative director of digital at any agency network, at Saatchi & Saatchi, in a role that had no job description. It started in 1989, when a mentor in Minneapolis sent him a teaching job ad for New Zealand. Before long he and his colleagues were making ads on weekends and sending them to Saatchi, which led to work and then a job. These days he's an artist making collages from album covers, stickers and lyrics, an obsession that goes back to clearance stickers in his North Dakota hometown when he was five. His Festival of Design Aotearoa talk argues that tech upheaval, a bit of chaos and nobody watching make the perfect conditions for creative people, and that a healthy dose of anarchy is a good thing.