Breaking In

In case you missed it, check out an open letter from Rick Boyko to the next director of the VCU Brandcenter.

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

RB: What I have always looked for in any book are consistent conceptual and strategic solutions to legitimate business problems. No longer can books be filled with fun, little, easy-to-do, local-business print executions. We challenge Brandcenter students to take on real brands with difficult problems as assignments. Then they have to build out communications across whatever mediums best come in contact with the target, which in almost all cases include or begin with a digital, social component. Any book that does not demonstrate the ability to think about real brands strategically across multiple mediums will most likely not even get a viewing by most agencies today. 

WS: How important is finish? If ideas are the most important thing, can sketches be enough? Do you look at actual books anymore, or is it all websites?

RB: Execution is still very important because craft still matters. You have to be able to demonstrate that you are not just someone who can think strategically and conceptually but you can also execute. So, while ideas are king, being able to bring them to life is just as important. While most books today are first viewed on a website, I still believe having a tangible one is valuable to bring the thinking to life and helpful in judging craft.

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Rick Boyko is the outgoing Director of the VCU Brandcenter and former Co-President & Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy North America. Here is an open-letter he wrote to the next director of the school, for whom an active search is underway.

Over the past eight years it is has been my privilege and pleasure to have taught and learned from the over 700 VCU Brandcenter students who have graduated and gone on to work at just about every agency in the world including Wieden+Kennedy, TBWA/Chiat/Day, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, CP+B, Martin Agency and Droga 5, as well as with marketers like Target, Audi, Nike, Anthropologie, Lego, Google and Microsoft.

During my tenure, each class of students has demonstrated they expect and want to be challenged by someone who will instill in them a passion and caring for our craft. I’ve also witnessed a movement by them as they have transitioned from doing ads to having a distinct interest in solving marketing problems by bringing a brand story to life in new ways, which adds meaning and value to a greater good. One good example of this is our recent Still4Japan web, PR and social-media campaign, which will urge people to remember the tsunami victims.

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In case you missed it, check out some great work from Fredrik Carlström.

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FC: …I think it all comes down to how you thought about it. And how you solved the problem. At the end of the day, you have to walk in with your ideas and think that they are good, and if you don’t get hired it’s because the person who met with you didn’t. So what? You will find someone who does like your ideas and that’s where you want to work.

WS: What do you think about seeing books with things that aren’t ads in them? Other writing, or journal entries, or photography, or art projects?

FC: Good and bad. If you are looking for work in advertising, show that you know how to do advertising. If you can explain why your diary or poetry is relevant to me and why I should hire you based off them, kudos to you. But sometimes you see a book with lousy work, but great photography, or great something else, and you can’t help but think, “Maybe you should do this instead because you’re obviously better at it and you like it more.” Again, show anything that shows that—and how—you’re thinking and that you can speak about intelligently.

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Fredrik Carlström is CEO & Chief Creative Officer of Great Works America, New York.

Absolut Vodka

FC: The visionaries program was an entertainment platform created for ABSOLUT Vodka where creative influencers were asked to create a unique piece of content under the banner “In An Absolut World”.

“In An Absolut World, Friends Would Get Together More Often” by Zach Galifianakis, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim”

Part 2

“In An Absolut World, Would Machines Be Creative?” by Dan Paluska & Jeff Lieberman and Teenage Engineering

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In case you missed it, check out some great work from Brian Fraser.

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

BF: Freshness. But that’s a bit broad, isn’t it? I think the most difficult thing about putting a book together is to put a book together that looks and feels and sounds different from other books. And that in itself is really hard. Because I think part of the problem is you’ve got—as it is now—you’ve got an advertising course. What tends to happen, particularly in this country, whether it be Watford or Hounslow or whatever, a lot of the students come out looking and feeling the same. So that’s kind of a downside to that course, I guess.

But it’s a point of view of freshness—a way of thinking about solving a problem in a lateral way, really, because that’s what we do. I mean, we get paid for solving problems as creatively as we possibly can. Ability to think across media platforms is a given, I guess, and it’s obvious. Even though, surprisingly, you still don’t see a huge amount of that in student books.

For me, I have a bugbear about a lot of student books. I just did a D&AD [Design & Art Direction, a British educational organization] workshop, which I haven’t done for about 10 years, but I thought it’d be interesting to see. Simon and I did one and about 26, 30 of them turned up—a great bunch of kids, very bright. Fantastic ideas. But I said, “Who’s the art director? Who’s a copywriter?” No one put their hands up. They did both roles. So I think if you want to make a difference putting a book together, to have some sort of cross skills is a huge advantage. Particularly some sort of art direction skills because what I see a lot of is the inability to be able to put things together. Having great ideas isn’t enough. If you can’t convert them, then they’re not great ideas, they’re bad ideas. So that’s worth thinking about when you put a book together.

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Brian Fraser is former Executive Creative Director of McCann London.

Guiness

Heinz

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Interviewed at 180, Amsterdam

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

AB: What I look for is originality of ideas—big ideas. And then what impresses me is the personal piece. That’s a big thing we look for. Not just making spec work and what the young creatives think the recruiter or the agency wants to see, but showing a piece of themselves. So whether it’s photography, or personal projects, or things like that. That’s big for us [at 180].

WS: Are sketches enough, or do you want to see finished work?

AB: Nowadays, more finished work. Sketches are now almost old school for us. And we really look for craft as well. So, in terms of art direction, there needs to be some design influence and hands-on capability and for copywriters as well, no longer just little script ideas, they’ve got to be able to put the whole thing together.

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If you missed it, check out some great work from V Sunil.

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

VS: I think it would be a cliché, but we look for fresh ideas—new ideas that we have not seen before. Because typically, what happens is that most students are trying to do work they’ve seen before. They’re trying to do work that maybe will impress you. They’re trying to do work like what has won awards. But actually, what we’re looking for is new talent, new ideas, a new kind of craft which we never get to see.

WS: Do you like to see finished work—work that’s been finished on a computer—or are sketches enough?

VS: Actually it depends. Sometimes, for an art director, we’d like to see some kind of craftsmanship, of course based on an idea. But I don’t think the final finishing is that important, if the idea is strong. And from a writer, of course not—it’s just the concept. But as an art director, yes. Because that kind of shows you whether they will actually pull it off. A lot of art directors are very good at ideas, but if they can’t art-direct the page then I don’t know. As an art director, I think there’s a problem. Art directors need to know a lot of technical things because that’s what will make you a very good art director. Like from idea to executing in the most fresh possible way.

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Check out some great work from V Sunil, Executive Creative Director of Wieden+Kennedy Delhi.

Royal Enfield

Motherland Magazine

From W+K Delhi:

Motherland is the first Indian magazine to discard stereotypical “general interest” issues and instead provide an in-depth perspective on the trends, issues and ideas emanating from contemporary Indian subculture. Indian subculture is an intriguing, massive yet largely neglected category that includes everything from unknown rural communities to offbeat urban tribes. Designed to be a collector’s magazine, each issue follows a unique theme around which editorial and visual content is organised. The magazine’s look – reworking traditional Indian design elements – and the range of stories, ensures that the scope of the magazine is both local and global. Drawing from young and established, local and international contributors, Motherland is both a platform for and collaboration between stylish, insightful writers, photographers and illustrators.

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In case you missed it, check out some great work from Toygar Bazarkaya.

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

TB: What impresses me is when you take on tough problems and solve them. If a student came and showed me great work on Gillette, that would impress me much more than great work on Nike. Great work on a tattoo shop is not as impressive as a washing detergent. They are harder problems to solve. Often times you get hung up on the brand that you love and you get yourself in trouble because you’re not as good as the actual work that is out there. So you do yourself a favor if you take things on that are wrong in advertising, rather than trying to improve on things that are already good.

WS: How important is finish in a student book? Could sketches be enough?

TB: It depends if you are an art director or copywriter. And for art directors it doesn’t change if you’re a student or you’ve been in the business for 20 years. Attention to detail, good art direction, typography, layout is just as important for a student as it is if you’ve been in the business for a long time. I have a strong point of view there. I don’t like art directors who are not art directors. They have great ideas but they shouldn’t call themselves art directors. It’s a craft. And that’s the tough thing: you have to be as good at creating ideas as you have to be in your craft. As hard as it is for copywriters to write an awesome long-copy ad, art directors have to be good at their craft. Not everyone has that skill.

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