The studio itself was amazing. It didn't look particularly special from the outside, but the inside was very inspiring, with several floors full of creatives as well as stacks of advertising awards scattered amongst shelves. We were taken to the bottom floor, which had a pool table, table tennis, fusbal as well as a lounge area with a TV (very cool). Here the first year students were set an advertising task based on Tennents beer, in which they had to come up with a campaign. It was interesting to see how they worked, basing their pitches more on the idea, with rough sketches, rather than final outcomes, which is the way i'm used to working. While this was happening, the second year students, and myself and Corey from Graphics, met with Gareth for portfolio viewings. Me and Corey went up to his little office together, and talked through our portfolios with him. Gareth gave us some good advice on our work, saying what he liked about it and what he would maybe change, but i felt that he gave us his opinion from an advertising aspect, wanting to see initial ideas rather than final pieces. However, the experience was good and he seemed impressed with our work, even saying that we'd find a job with the quality of our work (which is always nice to hear!).
Following this visit, we took a taxi to the next studio, which was the Leith Agency.
While the Leith Agency had a big studio, we were taken to a very cool extra studio that they had set up, which was on a boat! Although it was very hot inside, it was a really interesting place. It was quite small, but had two floors and a big table which they obviously used for meetings, and a TV set up.
We were firstly shown several adverts that the company had created, some which were world famous! It was amazing to see some of my favourite adverts in the showreel, and we were even given a sneak preview of the new ALDI adverts that they had created, which were very funny.
The process then followed the same as the first agency, the first years were set a task to do, while the second years showed their portfolios to Andy Archer, one of the head creatives at the agency. Myself and Corey both went to see him together again, and he was far more critical on my work than Gareth at New Haven was, which i prefered. He gave us his opinion on what he thought didn't work, and also what he liked about our work. He even said that he would try sort out one of their designers to come to our final show, as he thought the quality of our work was excellent, which was really nice to hear!
Andy then took us to the main studio where the rest of his team work. It wasn't as spectacular as the previous agency, but it did have some very nice rooms, especially where they kept the hundreds of awards that they had won!
After the agency visits, we had a long wait before our train which was at 9pm, so we went to a few pubs in the area and then had pizza before hopping on the train back home! The advertising students were all very friendly and made us feel welcome throughout the trip.
Overall, i felt that this was a good experience. While the trip wasn't exactly design based, it was still a good opportunity to get advice on my portfolio and to meet some of the leading design agencies in the UK.
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