Breaking In

Check out some great work from Kevin Roddy.

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

KR: I might be different than some in that regard because I look, first and foremost, at the thinking behind any creative solution. Even more than the idea or execution itself, I look at how they are solving the problem…what’s the thinking behind that. Because what I find is that there are a lot of people who approach a problem in a straightforward way and, I think, when you do that you’re on quite a crowded highway. A different way at the problem leads more easily to a different idea. A unique idea. It must be relevant to the problem but it will stand out to me more when its approach isn’t something I’ve seen before or easily expect.

Beyond that I look at what I imagine are the clichés of portfolio reviews: quality of the idea and execution of the idea.

But more so today than ever before, I’m never more disappointed than when I see a book that’s filled exclusively with print ads, television spots, and maybe the occasional microsite thrown in. You’d be surprised at how many of those I still come across. Again, I think more than anything, and this goes back to the first point, I look for big ideas—big ideas that can and are executed in a lot of different ways. I’m never interested in ideas that are executed in a limited fashion. I don’t want to see the limits of an idea, I want to see how unlimited it can be. I want to see it live in more than a couple ads. I want to know that the person behind the book knows the value of a big idea to a brand.

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Kevin Roddy is Chief Creative Officer at Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco.

Smirnoff Raw Tea – “Tea Partay”

FoxSports.com – “Feet”

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

RC:I look for variety and unique projects. Variety in the kinds of campaigns they work on. Not the typical student clients: Snowboards, movie festivals, etc. Somebody who has taken a fairly unique product or service and done something kind of cool with it. And, on top of it, something that’s not your traditional three-spread ads, three-spread ads, three-spread ads, because that’s really completely unrealistic. I mean, even our most senior teams here never work on three-spread ads. It’s very unusual. What have they done with some interesting fractionals, newspaper, guerrilla postings, websites, anything like that, that’s just a little different that approaches advertising in a unique manner other than the super-traditional print. Because, if you can come up with something really unique, I’m assuming, you can probably do a great print ad too.

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Check out some great work from David Covell.

WS:What do you look for in a portfolio coming from a student or someone who hasn’t worked in the industry before?

DC:For students, I look at fundamentals. And I find that it’s really hard to find students now who [have that]. I don’t know what it is—whether it’s the university courses that are being taught now or what—but it seems like those fundamentals are going by the wayside in lieu of what I see as “style,” especially illustration style. There is this weird thing happening now in design, where the designer has become the artist. Where selling your wares, as, say, a T-shirt designer, has become the thing…the utmost in the young students’ minds. It’s too bad because I find that a lot of the fundamentals like grids and typography, and even mark-making, has really gone by the wayside. Just simple, formal training, like how to create tension in the composition—you don’t really find that as much anymore. So that’s what I look for: typography, the ability to make a clean, beautifully drawn mark that also has good content in it as well. Not just for style’s sake, but just a very good story within the mark itself.

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David Covell is Creative Director at JDK Design, New York.

Vermont Mozart Festival

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Check out some great work from Graham Fink.

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WS: When you say “a point of view” do you mean an approach to ads or just a way of looking at the world or both?

GF: If it’s an ad campaign, I want them to show me something coming from a distinct angle. And remember you’re selling something off the page. But there’s many different ways of doing it. What tone of voice are you going to use? If you ever had an argument with your girlfriend, you might talk to her in a particular tone of voice which would be different to talking to your mom if she’s very ill. It could be very different when talking to a car mechanic who fixed your car. If he’s made a complete hash of it, you might talk to him a bit differently if you’re expressing your anger, but then, if you want him to sort it out and fix it, you would use a different tone of voice again. There’s many strands, some of them are quite subtle. You need to decide which one you’re going to use to talk to your audience.

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Graham Fink is Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy & Mather China and a member of the Ogilvy Asia Pacific Executive Committee.

British Airways

Land Rover

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Check out some great work from Pat McKay.

PM: [ … ]

WS: So that was my next question: How important is the finish? Do you think sketches can be enough? Or do you think you have to show finished ads?

PM: Yeah it’s a funny thing. Obviously we would be able to see an idea off a sketch. But in a way, the people who get away with doing sketches are when you’re in a situation where your work kind of precedes you, that people know enough about how you work and what you’ve done. After you’ve worked in an agency for a while, and they get to know you, you can sketch out an idea and they can see what the idea is, and they kind of know the process you’ll go through from there. But when you’re a student, your work doesn’t precede you. That is your work. That sketch is your work. So if it’s a good idea, that’s fine but it’s just like, face it, there are just so many books out there that have good ideas and are really tight, execution-wise. So you should really try to avoid doing sketches.

But, that being said, if you have good ideas, I wouldn’t be afraid. It’s going to be hard to get a job on sketches—really hard—but you can get some great feedback on sketches and it can be part of the process. I wouldn’t be afraid to take sketches and put them in front of smart people that you would like advice from.

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Pat McKay is a freelance Copywriter/Creative Director in Seattle.

Ameriquest

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Check out some great work from Matt Vescovo.

WS: What impresses you in a student book?

MV: I think an interesting thing is a balance of voices. They have a voice to their work—there’s a tone of voice—but at the same time, that doesn’t override what’s appropriate for the assignment or the product. Every campaign needs to feel different and have a distinct point of view.

And that they’re saying something that’s not ambiguous. They’re really making a statement that’s clear. And I think that’s something that helps you empathize, and connects with you, that’s relatable. That kind of touches you and hits you that way. And obviously something that’s unique, which is hard. Something that has a unique voice and unique ideas, but at the same time, isn’t so out there that it’s not relatable. And that’s a tough balance to get because you don’t want to create poetry. You have to create something that people are going to respond to, and that people are going to understand.

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