miami ad school
Submitted by tavarua on Thu, 07/29/2004 - 04:48.
Oh. I see you*re quoting Paul... Haha. I got the book as a gift some months back. I was preaching it to my friends for weeks, driving them mad. I*ve stopped quoting it now. Heh, actually I was talking to my flat mate earlier about the book. He works at Mother and they had Paul Arden visiting, talking about his book. Apparently one of the founders of Mother used to work with Paul. My flatmate was telling some weird stories about Paul being totally absentminded, talking about people on the bus having green ties when asked about some campaign. Strange.
RE Warsaw being a hot bed for creativity. It*s true that it is pretty creative... What Poland in general lacks is a history of advertising. The business is about 12 years old. The wall came down 89 and then it took them some time to get rid of communism. There is hardly any senior creatives and most of the creative directors uptil recently came from west European countries and America. Last thing I heard was that there*s been a small revolution. A lot of agencies fired non polish creative directors and hired Polish ones.
Yeah. I guess I*m supposed to be working. I*m having some issues with Lucozade. They havent been giving us portfolio cliché briefs here. Hovis Wholemeal bread, Persil, British Museum, New Covent Garden Soup, Smint, McD SaladsPlus... Heh. Not a lot of briefs left untouched since our 100 products. We*ve been playing aroung with most of the products they are talking about giving us. Vorsprung der concept.
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Does anyone know anything about the miami ad school?
I haven*t studied at the School - but i know a few people who did and I*ve
visited the headquarters in Miami.
The big giant plus point of MAS is that you do "a quarter away" - and get
on placement in large ad cities. If I remember correctly you get four
different placements 3 months each, and night classes by guest tutors in
the city you happen to be in. You might be in NYC, Chicago, London or even
Amsterdam. The guest tutors are people who are in the biz - and usually hotshots at that.
They always say that experience is the best way to learn, so kudos to the
quarter away deal - you may be able to make ads on your placements and
have produced work in your portfolio when you go looking for a real job.
Not to mention you*ll have quite a few contacts in the biz who may help
you with pointers on who to see and recommend you and so on.
the people i know from MAS I met when they did placements at agencies
where I worked. My only reservation is that most of them think of
advertising in a very American way (and may or may not grasp the concept
of a proposition that should keep the campaign together). The perfect MAS
gig would be to study in Miami and score a quarter away in London once. smile
all IMHO - naturally.
grin
_________________
everything is so random there must be a pattern.
I went to Miami Ad School. And I*s a copywriter.
Yeah, the school has it moments. Especially the year you spend in Miami. Lots of partying. Massive amounts of sex with beautiful exotic Latin women. A bit of concepting. Here and there.
Did the quarters away, too.
Bottom line?
You get out what you put into it. The best way to become great is to try and be. Find your creative heroes. Study your heroes. Work hard. Surround yourself with great ads. And most importantly, pursue what interests you intellectually. The thing will happen like that.
The Ad School provides an excellent opportunity (and some structure) to begin the journey of being a great creative person. But they won*t do it for you. You do it for yourself. How*s that for a feel-goody cliché?
But that*s the truth. I interned in Amsterdam; Prague, and in a few other citiies.
The experience served me well; proved that I could spend 8, 9 , 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 hours a day working. Concepting. No school can push you to work that hard. So that*s why the internships are important. Teaches a bit or two about the creative work ethic.
The only downside I can point out is that not all of the teachers are as advertising-smart as they should be. But it doesn*t matter. Not all creative directors are as advertising-smart as they should be. The important thing is that you take a class, they give you an assignment, and you HAVE work to do. You strive for exellence, sometimes you fail, sometimes you get it right. It gets chalked up to experience, and you move on. Exactly as you do as a professional.
Go to the school. It*s a great way to start a career.
I like the idea of spending time in London, although I think Miami(the city) sounds like hell. I guess I never thought of Warsaw as a hotbed of creativity, but I*d gues that many people outside of advertising might say the same about Minneapolis. It*s great to get the opportunity to intern in different agencies, and as someone mentioned, get to show "real" work in your book.
For me though, I*m a bit older, and have too many other commitments in my regular life to be jetting around the world to brainstorm ads. Maybe if I was younger and fresh out of college I*d feel able to make that sort of leap. There seems to be an ample supply of coffee, blank sketchbooks and frustrated screaming right here in my hometown.
In any case, if you end up going to Miami*s Minneapolis campus, post a message here, and we can organize a Brainco vs. Miami dodgeball tourney.
Right now I*m sitting in Angel, London waiting for my financial aid to go through. This is me last quarter in Miami Ad School and I*m eager to start working. London is very tough and you have to work a lot to impress the teachers here. What I*ve learnt so far is not valid here in London. We*ve changed our approach to concepts and ads since we got here three weeks ago.
First assignment we got was to come up with 100 products and make campaigns for them. Two executions for each campaign. We got two weeks.
Every day of the week (except fridays) we meet a team at BBH, TBWA, Leo Burnett and a freelancing copywriter (won a silver lion this year for a print campaign) for class.
Tomorrow we*ve got class at Leo Burnett. Assignment Lucozade Sport.
Regarding locations
I*ve done the whole lot in Europe more or less. I started in Warsaw (closed since ten months. The tuition was too high for a country like Poland where a secretary makes about $300 a month), Amsterdam and Hamburg. The school in Hamburg, Germany is run by Oliver Voss (Creative Partner at Jung Von Matt) and Niklas Frings-Rupp (former account director at JvM) and has been around for a year. It*s a extremely well run school and if you ever consider joining MAS I would suggest you to start in Hamburg. It*s cheaper than US so far.
Miami Ad School*s got full time schools in San Francisco, Miami, Minneapolis, Hamburg and Sao Paolo. Quarter Away and internships vary depending on participating agencies. Check the catalogue for more information.
Catalogue (PDF)
www.miamiadschool.com/old/pdf_posting/10.01_cat.pdf
wow. sounds like you*re going to my old school. (It*s been closed since then, when Gillard retired). We used to call it bootcamp. Army. Thatsortathing. It was tough but oh-so-much-fun.
Don*t worry, the first X years in the job, you*ll keep going just like that, then you wise up and realise it*s now how hard you work... it*s... How smart you work! wink
Just follow Pauls wise words, he*s completly on target. It*s not how great you are, it*s how great you want to be. and all that. read his speech (and other stuff). Check Pauls speech there, it might not make as good of an impression as when he held it, but everything he says is totaly right.
Hörru midnattsmarodör, skall inte du plugga?
Lucozade.. Remember when they ran those campaigns about it curing the common cold? Way back then, was it the 50s? Anyway it was their positioning. In the 80s and 90s they changed it (succesfully) to being instead of the "medicine drink that taste like shit" to "the sports drink that tastes like shit". OK, so maybe they left the "taste like"... part out. All I know is, I thought it cured a hangover... Original Lucozade surely does, no? With the "replenshing X and Y minerals" It must, I figured and only bought it when hungover. Perhaps there is a strategy in there. Replace what you lost - hangovers - workouts - running around a lot - stressing out... Lucozade replaces.. .. Maybe. ALl I know is, you can*t run on "tastes like shit".
Bah, nevermind me. I*m just taking a break from a very tedious brief that needs to be finished tomorrow myself.
ta-ta