Go on. Seize it.
An opportunity to spend time in the workplace should be viewed as just that. An opportunity.
Whether it’s an internship, a placement, or unpaid work experience, opportunities don’t come along every day.
In fact your big opportunity could take you months, possibly even years to land.
So when that opportunity comes along, please please please don’t waste it.
Because you never know when (or if) you’ll get another one.
You know that old adage of you need to learn something 7 times before it becomes a habit?
A young art directing wannabe came to show me her folio the other day. As usual I gave her my standard spiel about too many press ads and not enough digitally enabled ideas.
Anyway. One piece in her book was a damn clever visual pun using the logo of a brand. A brand I’d worked on when I was in London.
Suffice to say I loved the idea. When she asked me why, I told her it was because I knew that you’d never be able to do that idea in real life.
Obviously she asked me why.
And the answer is brand guidelines.
A somewhat weighty tome of rules and regulations designed to stop people doing whatever they want with a brand that has taken a lifetime to perfect.
“Oh”, she said. “Does that mean I should take it out my folio?”
Absolutely not, said I.
You see when you’re not constrained by brand guidelines you’re free to do whatever you want.
So do it.
Because one day you’ll spend most of your working life trying to break or bend those guidelines.
We may be in the digital age – but this week Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com) reminds us that paper and pen is still king.
Last week I did a big presentation to a client I’d never worked with before. In fact we’d only met ever so briefly the previous week.
As is usually the case, I chose to present my ideas as hand drawn layouts.
I generally do this on A3 paper but given the scale of the project I chose to do this presentation on A2.
Actually I don’t know why I’m telling you this, as the size of the paper is irrelevant.
What is important is that I chose to present drawings not professional looking layouts done on a Mac.
Suffice to say the client loved the ideas and at the close of the presentation made special mention of my “old school” approach to layouts.
I’d never thought of pen and paper as old school to be honest. It’s just the way I like to do things.
And whether I’m presenting a press ad, a direct mail piece, website designs or an app, I’ll always do it using hand drawn layouts.
Why?
Because when you unveil them to the client their sole focus is on the idea. Not the choice of font. Not the colours you have chosen. Just the idea.
And in 2012 the idea is more important than ever.
(http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com)
Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com), what are we going to do when people are screens (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=9c6W4CCU9M4)?
I’ve heard a lot of talk this week about designing for screens.
Mobile screens. Tablet screens. Touch screens. Big versus small screens.
Which is all good and well.
But what about me?
Yes me.
The humble consumer.
Or as the webby wizards like to call us – the user.
Why not design for us?
I know it seems such an obvious thing to say, but are you doing it?
There’s nothing like a spring clean to get you thinking.
I spent the last few days clearing out the cupboards in my study. We’ve lived in our house for almost ten years, so there was a lot of stuff to go through.
Anyway tucked away at the back of the cupboard was something I had not seen for over five years – my print folio.
Believe it or not most of the ads in the folio still looked pretty good. Sadly the same could not be said for the dusty old cd-roms of digital work.
And therein lies the problem many young creatives face today – being current.
Digital is changing so rapidly, that today’s hot new thing will be old hat within a year or two.
Don’t believe me?
Well let’s just say that on one of my cd-roms was a 5 year old MySpace campaign. And even though the idea was still good, the medium dated it. Badly.
I don’t have a solution to this problem.
In fact I never even realised it was a problem until I saw that MySpace campaign.
But it is definitely something you should bear in mind if you’ve been hawking your folio around for a while.
Now, Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com)‘s not saying you should all become bad-ass Juniors and grow a ponytail like he did in his former years, but a little rebellion never really hurt…
“Rules are what the artist breaks. The memorable never emerged from a formula.’ Bill Bernbach
Used to be you had to learn the rules before you were considered worthy of breaking them.
In our digitally enhanced world however, new rules are being created everyday.
And rules that have yet to be written have probably already been broken.
But as Mr Bernbach said all those years ago, nothing memorable comes out of the formulaic.
So if you’re working on ideas for a banner ad, think about the idea, not the format.
If you’re designing a logo, don’t use existing logos as reference.
And if you’re writing an album or gig review and you want to get it published, don’t go writing something that could easily have been written by somebody else.
Those aren’t rules by the way. They’re recommendations. But you can call them rules if you want to.
How often do you wish you could quit your job, and do that thing that you really want to do instead? Yeah? Boom! Maybe you just should.
A lot of juniors these days talk about doing personal projects, which I find quite fascinating.
Not because they have a personal project they want to pursue, but because they see it as more of a hobby or interest, rather than something they could do for a living.
Now I don’t know about you, but if I was talented enough to dream up an idea for a food franchise, a mobile app, a niche brand of alcohol or even a movie, I’d be making that my primary focus. Not my job.
But hey, what do I know!
It’s a difficult lesson to learn at first – just because it’s run, doesn’t mean it’s good. Repeat after Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com).
I can still remember the very first ad I ever had run. I felt so proud. Especially when I saw it in the newspaper.
I’m sure many of you reading this have experienced that same feeling.
You may have done that piece of work while you were still in college. You may have done it during an internship. Or you may even have done it at an agency you are now looking to leave.
The thing is, just because it’s your first real ad doesn’t mean you should be putting it in your folio.
Unless of course it’s as amazing as the Carlton Draught Big Ad or the recent Three Little Pigs for the Guardian.
But somehow I suspect it’s not.
So please leave it out of your folio.
Please.
Because no matter how proud you are of it, most first ads really aren’t folio worthy.
Seriously.
Try living by these rules this week.
Hat tip to my friend Mona (http://exileonmoanstreet NULL.blogspot NULL.com NULL.au)
You’ve got to go beyond the checklist if you’re going to land the job of your dreams.
Aspiring Creative Checklist:
-Website to showcase your work
-PDF of work to email to people
-A3/A4 portfolio to take to interviews
-Neatly laid out, easy to read resume
-Cute little leave behind for interviews
If you’re a regular Junior reader chances are you have every item on the aspiring creative checklist.
But is it enough?
Maybe. Maybe not. But it’s definitely a good start.
But before you go patting yourself on the back for ticking every box on my list take a look (http://dearinstagram NULL.byalicelee NULL.com/) at the lengths that 20 year old Alice Lee went to to get a foot in the door at Instagram.
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