As a junior, your job to solve the brief. Always remind yourself when your work dies.
Your primary job is to bring in shit the senior creatives haven’t or couldn’t think up.
Your role is disruption.
You’re a handful of mentos dropped into a diet coke.
It’s easy to be jealous of older creatives, I know. I cursed my share of them when I was starting out. They know how to solve problems, get work sold, and get it made. Usually with an idea so painfully obvious I didn’t even consider bringing it in.
Don’t fight it.
Despite what they say, older creatives actually struggle with radically new ideas.
You might not see it, but weird stuff you’re bringing in is making their ideas better.
They have to beat the stuff you brought. They have to push themselves harder to be innovative in a responsible way. Maybe they can see how a few small tweaks to your idea can make it sing.
Every one of those is high praise.
And remember -
This isn’t permission to blow up the project in the name of craziness. Always try to solve the brief.
But solve it in your way, a new way, a way that seems impossible, a way that could only be made today and not a year ago.
Then watch, listen, and learn everything you can from how to turn those ideas into finished work.
You’ll be in their shoes soon enough.