Breaking In

Check out some great work from Philip Bonnery.

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

PB: You’re looking for new, fresh ideas. It sounds a bit cliché, but that’s it: innovative work. Stuff you haven’t seen before. Portfolios are pretty tight nowadays. I’ve seen students from ad schools with really good books. Most of them do internships so they get to work like any other full-time teams, some even get awards from doing a three-month internship.

WS: Do you think just a book of sketches is okay if the ideas are good? 

PB: Perhaps as a teaser portfolio piece to get agencies’ attention and stand out from the crowd. But when reviewing books, agencies will want to see finished ads as they want to know you can execute all the work, especially for art directors. Yes, in essence you need to come up with great ideas, but agencies want to see finished pieces the same way clients want to see finished pieces.

Continue reading →

Philip Bonnery is a freelance Art Director and Creative Director in Miami.

Hummer

Google Demo Slam

Continue reading →

Check out some great work from Alvaro Sotomayor.

[ … ]

WS: Do you like to see finished work that’s been laid out on a computer or are sketches okay for you?

AS: I like to really look for personal stuff—personal diaries, drawings, or photography—it just shows more character. You need to remember that the basis on which you are going to get hired is 50 percent skills and 50 percent how you fit with the culture of the company.

WS: Is it different for writers and art directors? For art directors, do you want to see some design ability on a computer?

AS: I look for bravery overall in ideas as well as in design. But for art directors, I look closer for a sense in space, color, and type. Photography is so overused that I really react to other expressive crafts like illustration.

Continue reading →

Alvaro Sotomayor is a Creative Director at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, Instructor at Miami Ad School, and Founder of The Kennedys, a 6-month apprenticeship program at W+K Amsterdam.

Heineken

Levi’s

Continue reading →

HB: …I think the best way to get in is to be really hungry. You have to be. So start out by going to as many things as you possibly can. I don’t like to “shmooze” at all, but I recommend it. Get all the trades [publications], really know the business. Just learn. And then make lists of all the agencies while you’re still in school. Just start figuring out who you like and why you like them and make notes about it. If you see an ad, and you think it’s great, write down that ad, even if you’re not graduating for two years. Write it down, write who did it, why you loved it, and why it inspired you. And maybe when you graduate, send a letter thanking them for inspiring you and more.

I once had a candidate who did something which I think is truly conceptual with branding herself. She created a wallet and made a fake license and credit card of the creative director and dropped it in the bathroom of the agency.

Continue reading →

If you missed it, check out some great work from Neil D’Souza.

[ … ]

WS: What do you think of showing work that is not advertising?

ND: Everything that makes you creative is relevant. And a good creative director will recognize your “multifaceted-ness” for what it is: the ability to see creative ideas everywhere. It’s a prized gift. You just have to look at the non-advertising interests of the best creative people and you’ll realize that they all have this gift for seeing creativity in everything. And it shows in their work.

WS: Do you have any other advice for a student or junior trying to get into the business, either in putting together a book or how to actually start looking for jobs?

Continue reading →

Neil D’Souza is Creative Director at The Partnership, Dubai.

Better Life Appliances

Al Ain Water

Continue reading →

Check out some great work from Crockett Jeffers.

WS: Do you think books have changed recently?

CJ: From when I put my book together, and I finished at the Ad Center [now VCU Brandcenter] in 1999, it’s changed so much that I feel like I kind of got in when it was still relatively easy to get a job in advertising. Because it was just print ads, and you could do spreads and maybe you might have an outdoor idea like a bus shelter, or a billboard, or something like that. But this was before people started putting guerrilla ideas in their book or anything interactive. It seems like that came not too long after, but now you have to. I think you have to show so much more of who you are and show that you’re an interesting person and can think beyond just the page. Like a print ad, I think now, is pretty boring to a lot of people; but at the same time we still do a lot of print and you still have to know how to write a headline. And so I think there’s probably some sort of balance or a sweet spot in there where you can show that you do a headline, and a great headline, and then you also can do a website and write in the interactive space.

WS: How do you think you should show your personality in a book? Through ads, or through other things than ads?

Continue reading →

Crockett Jeffers is Creative Director at BBDO West, San Francisco.

Barclays

Chef Boyardee (CW: Brad Phifer AD: Will Geddes)

Continue reading →

Take a look at some great work from Susan Hoffman.

WS: What do you look for when you’re looking at a student book—what impresses you?

SH: Well, I think the thing that I’m sick of in student books is that they all look alike, and they all sound alike. And so I look for new ways to communicate, whether it be from a layout standpoint or a communication standpoint. But if I just see another “good headline” or another “good visual,” I’m not so impressed with it. So that’s the main thing, is looking different than any other book that comes in.

[ … ]

WS: Do you think long copy is important to have?

SH: What I would say to writers is it’s okay to have a lot of conceptual ads, one-liners, television maybe, that doesn’t even have copy in it, but what I think you have to have in your portfolio is some long-copy stuff. Don’t put a novel in a portfolio because nobody has time to read it—but if there are some great short stories a writer has done, or some long-copy ads, that at least shows the voice that a writer would have. I think that’s really important. That’s what I look for now, and I think there’s not much of that in most portfolios. I think they’re all typical “conceptual one-liners.”

Continue reading →