D&AD Student Pencils / Placement

I've been neglecting this blog a great deal lately, but with good reason. I've had a very busy couple of weeks, on placement at AMV BBDO. More of that later, but big news first.

Olly and I won a D&AD student award for our "EA Peace Day" idea in the Open Brief category. And then we won the award for D&AD Students Of The Year! Here we are with 50% of our awards...

Needless to say we're over the moon, but of course it's as much about the opportunities it opens up as the actual awards. So we're very much hoping to get placements as good as the one we just had, because AMV's system should really be the benchmark.

First of all, they have a system in place - you're looked after by someone outside the Creative department, which actually works wonders. This means that you're not constantly hassling busy creatives for briefs or help - instead, you're making phone calls to Account Managers, Planners, Project Managers - all of whom are invariably happy to help.

There are the little things, too, like the fact that they create an email address for you, and put you on the agency-wide and creative mailing groups. This means that from day one, you actually get emails - and even if they're just telling you that some left an iPhone in the 3rd floor ladies', they still make you feel part of the organisation.

Oh, and they pay placement teams, and there's free porridge before 9am. What more could you want?

Unite V (Young Creative Council event)

On Wednesday night, Olly and I went down to this event, and damn it, if it wasn't the most worthwhile decision we've made so far in our careers. At the end of the day we came away with several business cards, a handful of invitations to visit agencies, and an immediate offer of a placement.

The first half of the night consisted of a "Creative Stand-Up" session, with each of the 20 teams being given 2 minutes on stage to do - well, whatever they liked. It's fair to say the results were mixed; those teams who went went for a funny approach tended to either triumphed or bombed. Still, at least they gave it a go - the teams that just showed some work didn't really impress anyone.

We ploughed a middle course, talking about our 3 golden rules of advertising, and plugging our portfolio at every opportunity without actually showing the work. And it seemed to do the trick - we had plenty of industry guys coming over to look at the what we'd previewed, and luckily none of them seemed to think we were all mouth and no skinny jeans, so we just about pulled it off.

My only regret is that because we were so busy manning our corner, we didn't really get chance to network with other students or check out their work - but the atmosphere seemed to be one of friendly rivalry, and I think YCC can take a great deal of credit for the good-humoured nature of the evening. Overall they're just a fantastic organisation and I can't recommend getting involved with them highly enough.