Ten crit tour of London
Tuesday
We arrived at Tunbridge Wells, had a coffee to talk through what we would say and then went to the first agency, Nexus/H. We had been here before for a crit with James Callahan in first year and he told us to come back in second year, so there we were. He looked through our work and realized that we had put a lot more work in over the last few months, so he decided to give us a placement. Our first placement!
On the train back to London, to add to our grins, we got a text from BBH saying they could fit us in that afternoon. This was good because we had both just finished reading John Heggarty’s new book, so we could sell ourselves a bit by talking about that. We were amazed at the size of the agency and looked at each other as if to say ‘this is out of our league’. We met a junior team called Martin & Jonny and luckily the liked our stuff. Jonny told us it was better than his book in second year! We realized that if BBH are saying this then we must be ahead of the game. They finished by writing ‘Yeo! Thanks for dropping by, great start. Keep going. Stay in touch.’
After a few drinks to celebrate we got an early night to get up for an early morning.
Wednesday
It took a long time to find JWT but we eventually got there at 10am and met a team called Mandy & Laura. Like the other agencies they picked things out from our book that we needed to work on like bits of art direction and arrangements of the ads. There was a general pattern that people noticed of the same mistakes, which was great because we then knew exactly what to change. They also gave us some good tips of how we could develop the ideas and work on the lines to make them more relevant.
Bandstand was the next agency that day. We talked to a guy called Mark who had big John Lennon glasses on and he looked through our book without much discussion. Afterwards he said they are not an ad agency but a design agency and they don’t usually do placements. We thought it was a bit pointless us going there because of that but he then said that he liked the graphic visuals we produced in our Pamper’s and Waterstone’s adverts and he said that if he gets sent work that he thinks would suit us he would send us the brief and we can work freelance for him.
We left the agency and with a burst of excitement when we realised that we had been offered a job at the start of our second year! Our ego’s were now huge so we went to the pub to bring ourselves back to normal. From the YCC (Young creative council) we know a girl called Dani who was also at Sunderland Uni before we started there. She is now at an agency called GCP and as we were in Soho and she was just down the road, we went to show her and her new creative partner Tara our work and talk about how the week had been. She loved the fact that we, and others from the second year Sunderland course like Mark and Callum or Dan & Darren were getting an early head start, as it was partly from her coming to Sunderland to talk about the digital advertising world that gave us all some encouragement. She looked at our stuff with more tips on what we need to change and gave us some new ideas.
Thursday
The first agency on Thursday was called VML where we met a very young creative team called Joe & Steve. They helped us to develop our idea for Match.com and told us what we need to keep and develop, or totally get rid of and said to come back and see them with the next stage of our work.
We then had a big gap before seeing the next agency so we dossed around in London, had a curry and got a bit pissed like we would usually do on a day in London when we are bored. Eventually the time came for our seventh book crit at Inferno where we were seeing Mike and we had a good selling point as we had a book crit from his girlfriend Laura a few days before at JWT and she liked our work. The agency was probably the best looking we have seen as it’s decorated like an old western bank but without looking tacky. Mike looked through our book and gave the feedback that we needed, also saying that he liked the fact we put graphics work in the back. He said he wanted a copy of one of our graphics pieces to put on his wall and then took us on a tour of the agency.
Friday
On Friday we had three more agencies left. The first was AIS, where we met a team called Pete & Leanne who looked through the work and loved our early start saying ‘Imagine what you could do by third year!’ And they told us to come back as soon as we had some fresh new ideas.
We then went to one called Albion, which looked like a warehouse, similar to this years New Blood in Brick Lane. Here we met Andrew and Pip who looked through our book of signatures saying they knew everyone in there. We then realized how small the advertising world is and what a great circle of contacts we already had!
Finally, for our last book crit of the tour we got to meet the head of ideas at Draft Fcb called Alistair Ross. It was good to see someone with plenty of years in the business because he gave us a strong criticism, which is exactly what we needed. Luckily we looked at his work before we got there because he asked us what work we had done and we were able to tell him. He said we had a great book for our age but work on strategy and keep it simple.
Saturday
We are now hung over on the night coach back to Sunderland and about to have a well, deserved sleep.
Joe & Ary
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