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Like a portfolio review in reverse, creative leaders will share work they created when they first started out and critique it as if were a book that had just landed in their inbox. Then, tell us if they’d hire their younger selves knowing, and expecting, what they do now.
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I have a feeling that it will be hard to find a junior AD job in NY with this book. Both the level of art direction and the level of conceptual thinking are rather wobbly throughout.
My first book was worse. But I started in a third world country where everyone learnt on the job. Now, after having interviewed hundreds of juniors, I think I was incredibly lucky.
Your home market is significantly tougher. Your book is competing with the books that have been crafted at Miami Ad School under a close supervision of senior creatives. Those juniors are going after the same jobs you want. Then there’re all the young lions winners. Then there’re all the influencers who call themselves CDs but happily take junior jobs. Google them all. Look at their portfolios. There’s at least a hundred of them in NY right now, desperate to get in.
If you study your competition, you’ll quickly figure out a way to improve your book. You’re clearly talented and eager, it won’t take long.
Switching from Account to Creative is super hard, but you seem driven enough to make it work. But the work needs to get better to get hired in NYC.
I’d start by taking an honest look at your problem/solution statements. The Music one: does the graphic of an apple tree with an apple logo on it really, honestly do anything for the brand? There isn’t an idea there. You should kill it.
Harry’s. The idea of a mustache hall of fame is funny. It’s about taking pride in your face, your grooming, an opportunity to talk about facial hair in a way that doesn’t call to mind urban lumberjacks and the guy from Parks & Rec. You can get empowering with that. Earn your spot in the mustache hall of fame. But you can’t tell that story with just a hashtag on a billboard. Forget the medium for a minute, and focus on the message: what’s a clever way of telling people they need to start caring about their face? That anyone could be a candidate for the hall of fame? Is it historically terrible athletes who had amazing facial hair? The idea that you can be bad at everything else as long as your mustache looks good — that’s kinda funny. Does Harry’s even sell mustache wax and stuff? Maybe pick a different brand, too. But that could be good.
Tic Tac. Again, start with the problem/solution. Does fresh breath actually make these situations better? The first woman violated the law. Rather than showing the situation and having a headline that explains the joke...start with what happens if everyone DID use tic tacs. Like your Lebron/Lance ad. Lance is annoying tf out of Lebron. Now go look up the Benetton ad with Barack Obama. Now imagine an ad where Lebron and Lance are literally kissing. Headline: What happens when you TicTac. The idea is, when breath is fresh enough, everyone will get along, fall in love, etc. It’ll take some clever photoshop, but it’s not impossible. A dog cozying up with a mailman. A baseball manager all up in the face of an umpire, but they’re not yelling, they’re entranced with each other. Etc. TicTacs bring the world together. Show the benefit in a funny way, rather than showing a problem.
Warby Parker. The blurry text idea is really funny. I’m sure it’s been done for glasses, but I haven’t seen it. I don’t think you need to do the whole WP thing. That’s not the idea. That feels gimmicky. Be honest: is a bunch of headlines with the company’s initials going to actually do anything for the company’s image? No. You know what will? A whole subway station domination of Warby Parker ads that are too blurry to read. Banner ads. Every format. It’s fucking funny!! That you need to actually get glasses to read the ads. Don’t feel the need to give it away with the “through glasses” panel. Just make everything blurry. Maybe then there’s an insert in glasses packaging when your glasses do arrive that like unlocks the campaign somehow. Idk what the line is, either. But just make it weird. Blurry ads for a glasses company. “See what you’re missing. Warby Parker.” Maybe don’t choose Warby either. They would never do this, and their marketing is great. Don’t make spec work for brands that are already killing it.
Bose. The idea is okay — that Bose headphones create a bubble isolating you from the rest of the world. But the art direction is a mess, it feels like what I’m trying to avoid with Bose. That might be intentional, but it just makes me think of Skullcandy or some other trashy headphone. It’s like TicTac: you’re showing the problem, not the solution. Show people something clever and let them figure out how you got there. Bose comes in peace. Create a twitter ad that is like one word per line, for like 20 lines, creating a nice piece of white space in your busy twitter feed. Idk. How can you project calmness? Show what life looks like inside the bubble, instead of how much it sucks outside. Also they would never put their products inside a bubble, you can’t see them. But everyone knows Bose makes headphones. So you don’t need to show them in your spec ad anyway.
Your site. I’d kill a lot of the work, you don’t need so much. For you, three killer pages is enough. Less is more. Kill your welcome page. It does nothing for you and it’s really busy. Not so good. Just open on your about page. Also, is anyone really going to type that linkedin url with all the numbers in it? Go in linkedin and fix it, or scrap it from your site. If someone really wants to see your Linkedin they’ll search you. Your paintings and drawings are REALLY cool. Probably the best stuff you have so far. Another reason to have fewer ad stuff. You don’t need it.
Hope this is helpful dude!
This is really good advice. I second all the suggestions.
Your paintings and drawings are awesome!!! Can you bring more of that into your AD work?
Thank you so much everyone for all of the fantastic advice! Excited to go back to the grind stone with all this great feedback. Will be sure to keep you all updated
For starters, update your site, not user friendly or current.
Go to squarespace and such and pick a simple, responsive template that allows you to show your work elegantly without interference.
Your bio looks really good. If you’re looking for stuff to change, I would at least consider removing the Kanye bit. Even if you haven’t canceled him by now, I don’t know it if that fact is distinctive/memorable enough to balance out the risk of seeming callous or out of touch. I used to love his music, but now I think he is definitely not a force for good in this world. Then again I tend to be pretty sensitive about that stuff.
I can’t find a way to get to the work from your landing page, at least as it shows up when linked out of Fishbowl. A lot of CDs would move on if it took them as long as it took me to get to the work: I had to click Time to Explore, then find Menu, then click Work. I’d fix that before anything else: have a clearly labeled way to get straight to the work from the front page.
As for the work itself, I’m not an amazing judge of design or nothin', but I think a lot of it is really cool! Well executed and strong concepts. The Apple work left me scratching my head a bit. I’d also consider removing that - I think you have much better stuff in there.
Good luck!!
Resume, even if it’s not filled with agency experience.
The ad work isn’t good, you need better ideas. Have fun with it and try being more concise.
I’d get some layout work in your book to better your odds being brought in as a Designer. Work your way up from there.