Breaking In

Susan Hoffman is Executive Creative Director at Wieden+Kennedy, Portland.

Levi’s

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In case you missed it, check out some great work from Todd Lamb.

WS: What do you look for in a student book and what impresses you?

TL: I don’t look at very many student books because my attention span can’t really cope with it. It’s a shame, but most of them aren’t very surprising. I want to laugh out loud. A lot of the student books are too controlled.

WS: Do you think you can put together a book of sketches and, if the ideas are good, that’s enough, or do you think you have to finish work on a computer?

TL: I think that sketches could be enough. I would be more intrigued by a group of sketches that were really funny than a book that looks like it’s from the future, but dull. So, I think it’s very possible to have a hand-done portfolio, if it’s good.

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Todd Lamb is a writer and director in New York.

Loud People

10 cane Rum

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If you missed it, check out some great work from Peter Gatley.

WS: What do you look for in a student book? And what impresses you?

PG: Stating the obvious, your book needs to stand out and be remembered. This is, after all, what our clients want us to do for them. When I look at a book, I’m open to being surprised. And I’m hoping to see that you’re smart. This is your chance to show me. What impresses me most is a book that shouts, “I’m smart” and belongs to someone who has enough humility to not be too sure.

WS: Are sketches okay if the ideas are good enough?

PG: Anything is okay if it fits a brief of being able to surprise me and convince me you’re smart. Don’t spoil good ideas by producing them badly. The smart thing to do is show a good idea some respect. Sketches are fine as long as the sketches couldn’t be done much better.

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Peter Gatley is a Creative Director at Fallon, London.

Lurpak

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In case you missed it, check out some great work from Dave Bell.

WS: What do you look for in a student book? And what impresses you?

DB: Whenever we’ve hired people, it’s always—and it’s probably a cliché—but it’s always the things they bring alongside the book. So sometimes, for example, we hired a young Scottish writer here a year ago, I think. I had seen his portfolio. He sent a PDF and there were all these odd mock-ups he made in London, and [for] another agency here. There were ads, and they were quite nice but it wasn’t really showing any of his personality. And then he came again. I read his portfolio, then we chatted, and it was the same work—another couple of odd campaigns he made, produced while working his first job—and then he had a little bag with him. He was too shy to take it out, and he was probably thinking, “I don’t have enough time.” So I asked what was in there. He showed me, it was filled with his writing and it was great. I mean it was laugh-out-loud funny and he made his own illustrations which were good—really nice quality and very expressive and they told a lot more than the ads. We hired him on that basis. It’s good to know that you can make an ad, but in the end we always hire people based on their free work.

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Dave Bell is Partner & Creative Director at KesselsKramer, Amsterdam and KK Outlet, London. The explanations below are in his own words.

We set up our own publishing company some years ago, because we like books and we like making books. We’ve had them published by others, and through that learned the ropes and started our own publishing company which became a business in its own right. Eventually all this knowledge – which might equally have its roots in documentary-making or product design – can filter through to the work we do with clients. So, with the Brinker – after 15 years of work – we were approached to make a book about it. We saw this as the next ad campaign, just in a different form than before. We called it “The Worst Hotel in the World.” So now it sits alongside other hotel books in stores, propped up against “The world’s luxury hotels”-type books. It’s also at online booksellers like Amazon and guests can pick it up in the hotel lobby as a reminder of the stay they’ll have forgotten about because of the 1,700 heinekens they drank at the bar. The book contains stories from the night porter, a diary of a writer who spent 4 nightmarish weeks in a dorm; the economic case study of the Brinker’s success. And the ad campaigns.

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If you missed it, check out some great work from Yann Jones.

WS: What do you look for in a student book? And what impresses you?

YJ: Well, that’s a very difficult question to answer in a short sentence.

WS: It can be multiple sentences.

YJ: Okay, multiple sentences it is. I think books come in different leagues. I’m not sure where this analogy is going—I’m just thinking off the top of my head. Books from advertising colleges used to consist of seven or eight campaigns with four ads in each campaign. Each ad had a different headline and a consistent thought in a strap line at the bottom. This is now a very old convention of a campaign, you won’t get into a decent agency with a portfolio full of these. Some students make the mistake of thinking that advertising is a comedy sketch or a gag with a logo at the end. If you’re going to do your job well, you’ll have to go some way beyond this. For me this is a “division three” portfolio. I’m talking first, second, and third division, not the new “Premier League,” “The Championship League,” then “First Division” as we now have in football. That’s very confusing so you can delete that bit. I don’t even like football that much.

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Yann Jones is a creative and director, most recently at WCRS, London.

BMW

3 Mobile

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In case you missed it, check out some great work from Oliver Voss.

WS: What do you look for in a student book? And what impresses you?

OV: I think I’m old school. I like to receive books that I can either really flip through or look at them on a computer in a way that I see one page after the other—really structured, in a dramatic order. What I don’t like is a website where you have to search your way through…from this project, and then you go back and forth. I really want the book to be well structured and, yeah, give me 10 minutes of entertainment. What I learned in one of the first agencies that I worked in was: start with the best and end with the second-best thing that you have. And I think that’s still true. And then in between, I’m looking for campaigns that work with clients that are not too easy to serve. So if I see a book that only has Tabasco and those kinds of products—condoms, or something like that—then it doesn’t impress me as much as if somebody has a car in it or a washing detergent or something like that.

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