Breaking In

Sixth page of work from Scott Vitrone & Ian Reichenthal.

Starburst – “Tashi”

Starburst – “Kiki”

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Check out some great work from Gustavo Lauria.

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

GL: I like students who explore and have fresh ideas even if those ideas don’t work perfectly. I’d rather see a book with good, but not quite polished, thoughts than one with safe ideas or ideas that follow a typical advertising formula.

The majority of the books that we receive are pretty similar. They are full of two things: Visual solutions that maybe could win a student award but lack anything new, and excessive use of interactivity and technology just to show that they know about them, but lacking a strong concept.

I don’t care if a student has won awards, and I don’t care in what media they developed their work. The only thing that is important is whether they are really thinking—-it doesn’t matter what—-as long as they think, try, and show potential. Then, a CD can always help them make those crazy ideas work.

WS: So you would rather see something bold and daring even if it doesn’t totally work?

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Gustavo Lauria is Chief Creative Officer and Managing Partner at The Vidal Partnership, New York.

Volvo X-Ray App

Volvo “In Every Car” App

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Check out some great work from Bob Barrie.

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

BB: I look for work that would survive in the “real world.” This doesn’t mean that it can’t be smart, edgy, beautiful, provocative, and fresh. This just means it has to be viable, and not designed just for the pages of Archive Magazine.

Too much of student work is simply not very clear. It feels more like a MENSA test than a piece of marketing communication. And I don’t know too many consumers today who have the time, patience, or attention span to work this hard. Do a test. Show the work in your book to your roommate. Your boyfriend. Your girlfriend. Your mother. Your uncle. Your dentist. Anyone but your fellow advertising students. They’re your audience. They don’t have to like it, but they do need to “get” it. If they don’t, you perhaps have some revising and simplifying to do.

That said, your book’s main goal should be a collection of brilliant, likable, differentiating ideas that are spread across a broad range of media. But then, you already knew that.

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Bob Barrie is Executive Creative Director at Barrie D’Rozario Murphy, Minneapolis.

Chambers Hotel

United

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Check out some great work from Mike Sweeney.

WS: What about copy? How important is it to show that you can write? What is the best way to show writing abilities?

MS: I guess there’s two different ways you can do it. I think you should definitely know how to write a headline. It’s important to be able to get across a good, funny, intelligent idea fairly quickly. It’s kind of what we do. And then you should also know how to write [longer copy]. So I guess you can show that through copy in a long-copy ad or other writing samples. Because I think it’s almost like a lost art nowadays. A lot of people just do visual ads, which is fine. But I think if you’re called upon to actually write something, you should know how to do that. So, in getting a job, you’re going to have to show somebody that you can do that. Hopefully.

WS: Do you think it’s good to show things that aren’t ads in your book?

MS: As long as it has something to do with thinking. Let’s say you shot a movie—that has something to do with advertising. It shows that you can put a story together and do that kind of thing. Say you wrote a book—that seems to me to have a very close relationship with advertising. And it’s still pretty cool if you’re an inventor and you made this new thing. It shows that you have some ability to think of new ideas. And some problem-solving skills and stuff like that—that’s cool. So I think it should be somewhat focused on the job at hand…

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Mike Sweeney is Creative Director at BBDO New York.

AT&T – “Entertainment”

AT&T – “Rollercoaster”

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Check out some great work from Richard Bullock.

WS: Do you care if a book is full of sketches, or do you like to see finished, comped-up work?

RB: Historically, a lot of people go around saying, “Oh, we should just do sketches and that should be fine,” but the reality is that times have changed and if somebody has an ability to use the tools that we have now, a computer, a Mac, to do things up, if you have those skills you should demonstrate them. Because putting things down in a nice way is what clients kind of look for now. It’s like saying, “Boy wasn’t it nice when we could write beautifully with quill pens”; it’s just not the reality anymore for clients. And if somebody has also collaborated with an art director, and you’ve seen that come out through the work, then the more the student can hit the ground running and have those skills, the more valuable they are to the company.

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WS: Do you think it’s important to include things that aren’t ads in a book?

RB: Yeah, I think it’s really, really important. I think if people have anything that they do on the side, or if they’re into designing their own T-shirts, or they’ve written a short story, or they’re into illustrations and drawings or sketchbooks or photography, anything that shows their way, that they observe the world and their interpretation of it, is valuable. It shows that the person is a natural creative. And what we look for a lot is that advertising is one way of being creative in business. But there’s a lot of ways of being creative. And the best creatives are the ones who, if they get advertising taken away, then they’ll start fashioning a freaking birdhouse or something because they just have to be creative.

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Richard Bullock is a director with Hungry Man and former ECD at 180 Amsterdam.

Adidas – “Laila Ali”

Adidas – “The Long Run”

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Check out some great work from Jamie Barrett.

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

JB: I look for at least one piece of work that is undeniably great. I think a lot of students make the mistake of putting together a solid, smart, A-minus book but don’t have the one thing that separates them from the pack. Whoever I hire, I want to feel they have potential to do something genius, not just the potential to do good, smart work. Life is short, and it doesn’t reward singles hitters.

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?

JB: Sketches are enough, generally. If it’s a predominantly visual idea, then obviously, it’d be nice to see it more fully realized. But it’s not critical. On a day-to-day basis, creatives don’t come in with “finished” ideas. So creative directors are more than used to evaluating work that is “unfinished.” We often use reference, though, and that could be a good thing for students to consider…including visual references for some of their concepts. But generally, I’d much rather hire a diamond in the rough than a polished turd.

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