Graduate Guide...

A little while ago, I promised I'd stick up this little graduate guide from Open Ad, NABS & Liz H... We picked it up about half way through our final year, perhaps it will be useful to someone...

Basically it's a Creative graduate, scrap that, Junior Creative handbook if you like, some points seems obvious, others not so much, but take it or leave as you will... everything from resources, finding a partner (that you get on with), industry advice, book pointers, getting out there, book crit tips, placement tips and then what to do once you've got your dream job... 

*We've not got to that bit yet...

Some of the people/places are a little dated, but the actual information is spot on. 

Hold on to it. It's useful.

Here's the linkage to download it...

Mikeandphilarama

So what's going on in the World of Mike & Phil...

Well, the last couple of weeks have been full of long days, longer nights and the occasional morning here and there. But that's to be expected right? Most of you guys on placement - or working will appreciate a tough days work followed by an evening of spec work can take it out of anyone - In my opinion, you have got to know when to rest and when to work. Keeping an even mix of both in order to stay fresh - i'm not saying that by any means i've worked it out yet. 

Anyone else find it difficult to switch off? I think it's a nature of the job that you can turn it down but you can never truly turn it off.

On Monday, we received a call from Liz H to nip over to Karmarama in West Kensington to meet up with the infamous Caroline Pay. 

A little background - When we met Caroline Pay a couple of years back with a Uni trip it was actually our first time in front of  a Creative Director - which now seems like a lifetime ago. As far as I'm aware she has worked at Kessels Kramer, Mother, BBH and Wieden's and now Karmarama. So her advice and feedback was of course well received. It took that nervous edge off that you inevitably get when your putting your work in front of a CD. On the whole a real positive response, she has asked us to keep in touch and we've got to go back and see her in a few weeks. So, whilst juggling the placement and working on our book I'm sure we'll be able to show that we're both interested and motivated. A Little disappointed that we didn't get to see any of the Ping-Pong antics that adorn their blog pages though :(

You might have noticed i've put up a new thought for the week, something I nabbed off of Scamps comments section a few weeks back. I'd be interested to see if people agree...

Friday Fun...

...And now for Friday. The busiest day of them all.

It was quite intense, firstly the morning was quiet, just working away on our book before breaking into the afternoon where we headed off to Meet Sam Kientsch at LIZ H for a quick chat - which turned into quite an insightful conversation. He gave us a review on our work, before discussing what he could do for us, where we had been and what we were up to - and ultimately what we wanted to achieve both in the long term and short term.

LIZ H isn't at all how we expected, it's so comforting - no corporate feel, no big offices, it's practically an apartment - two big comfy sofas, a coffee table, a shelf full of books and even a little desk in the corner. (Apologies for the poor quality photo - London was actually bright that day). There was something quite nice and warming about the visit amongst all of the flash, glamourous buildings we've pop into over the last few weeks. Like nipping to your mums for a cup of tea! 

We were a tad early for Leo's so we stopped off at Coffee Republic - who says you can't be a kid at 21/22? Some of the most fun things happened then! Ever realised how bubbly the coffee are at CR? Exhibit A...

Once we'd finished our coffees we nipped over to Leo's to see Trevor Webb this time, and what a nice bloke. Instead of heading up to the creative floor this time we sat in the canteen/bar, some music playing definitely felt comfy there. Again, feedback was mixed, some keepers, some top quality bin material, although the ones he was most interested in were the ones that almost worked but weren't crystal clear... It was these ones that he offered insight as to what was right about them - what was wrong and what we could do about it. Definitely interested in heading back there for round 2. 

Some of our eagle-eyed readers will have noticed we had a crit with Ed Morris (The other one) the week before, and the opinion were quite varied, both had different methods of critiquing the work, and thoughts on where to go next - but they were both equally as positive about our work. 

A suspicious Mike - admiring the free granny smiths on offer

This post is getting quite long - so i'll attempt to keep it brief, after Leo's it was straight on the train right across town to Play, the digital wing of M&C Saatchi to meet Jesper & John who turned up with a couple of free beers - always a nice way to start a crit! 

To our surprise, the whole crit wasn't about digital this that and the other, it was all about ideas, they were looking to the barest sense of the idea itself, it that didn't make sense then nor did the ads. Pretty obvious when you think about it. Again, the back of the book section went down a storm, with a good couple of ideas that were definite keepers, others needed expanding - and some just weren't communicating what wanted to say. It was good to know that even in the ideas that weren't 'quite there yet' - our initial thoughts were still well received even if the execution wasn't quite right. 

Well I'm all blogged out for a couple of days - so until then...