Hyper Island Admission Days

Last week I attended the Admission days at Hyper Island in Stockholm for the Interactive Art Director course 2010. It was pretty neat. I booked a hyper cheap hotel quite next to the school which is a bit outside the city center of Stockholm. The whole thing started at 9.oo o'clock in the morning, after we were greeted and divided into groups the first thing to do was a creative test. Two and a half hours to identify ten common needs people have, pick one of them, explain it and create an interactive idea around it that would fulfill that need and make people happier. Great start for the first day in Sweden. My concept was based around the need of people wantng to experience new things – like trying new food. A service called 'Eat the Frog' that helped people with accquiring a new taste. It was good fun to work on.

The next step was a presentations by students who are doing the course at the moment, telling us what the school is all about. I was surprised by their methods, there are no teachers, no classes and no books. It' all about active participation and learning by experiences. It looks like there will be no spec briefs, all or most of the work done for the course will be created for real clients and have real value. After this session with a lot of questions and answers the next part was the interview process. Mine was with a current student (they always seem to involve students in everything) and an external consultant. 20 minutes with them in a room, I tried my best. The second day started with the easiest part of the process, a written English exam. Afterwards was the way more exciting part, the outside bit. Which was all about team work and self reflection. Very demanding but the best example of what the school will be like.

I think they had around 90 people there, and this was already the third round of admission days. Of all who applied only a third will be taken on. I got my result earlier this week, I got admitted to Hyper Island.

Wal & Banksy in Bristol

On Saturday the national train took me to Bristol so I could have a look at the new Banksy exhibition (watch this video). It was one of the best museum visits I've been to. After queueing for almost two hours we saw the entrance area, fully taken over by Banksy. Inside there was another queue to see the 'Banksy Room' with lots of his stuff and tools. The next room was full of cages with the best animated sculptures I've seen. But that's only where the fun began, the rest of the museum looked normal but if you'd be very observant you could discover the details he changed, sometimes more prominent, sometime less – like a dildo in between different stones and minerals. Because of those hidden goodies you would doubt many things in the old museum. Is this real? Is this Banksy? Very very amusing. Go have a look if you don't mind a ride to Bristol. A train journey makes for a nice place to think about ideas.

I'm writing this from Stockholm. I arrived in my Hotel a bit ago and will go to sleep now, as the Hyper Island fun will start tomorrow rather early. I'm excited. Don't know what to expect.

The Next

I'm back in London from Kazakhstan. It's been great being there and seeing many new things. More pictures will follow. But for now I'm planning what to do next. There are three routes I am considering. The first one would be to do a postgraduate course. I haven't applied to the Watford course, neither to Falmouth one. My application went all the way up north to Sweden, to Hyper Island where I applied for the Interactive Art Director course.

It's a one year course for people with work experience to dive in into interactive media. I think combining this with my former studies in design and creative advertising makes a lot of sense. So far I've passed the first application stage and I've been invited to the admission days in Stockholm next week.

The other more than interesting thing is W+K's Platform. Wieden+Kennedy is opening their own creative school for 12 people for six up to nine months. The deadline for this is in two weeks (3rd of July) so right now I'm working on an entry. Remembering my friends participation in the W+Kside application process, I know that there is going to be fierce competition from all around the globe for spaces on this program. I'll do my best to get a shot – how great would that be?

The third option is a direct one, looking for a new creative partner and get a first placement and turn it into a permanent job. Tough, but possible, it's just about finding someone who fits. So if you know anyone looking for an art director, send an email my way – write (at) creativeinlondon (dot) co (dot) uk

Share your thoughts with me on those things, I was considering Watford but many of you told me that agency experience is way more valuable, which I agree to. Thus Hyper Island, most of the time they teach at agencies and there are great work placements available. But to be completely honest, I'd prefer to stay in London and finally start off in a permanent position here.

Goodbye Scamp

On sunday my favourite blogger Scamp announced his last post. Good luck on his way and I'm sure he'll be back sometime, at least for a post or two.

Wal in Kazakhstan

As I have some time off I've taken a flight and arrive in Almaty, Kazakhstan last Friday. I haven't been here for over three years now so I'll have two weeks to visit my grand parents, explore the city and do some packaging design and print advertising for my Dad's company.

The weather is great, it's super hot, around 30 degrees and it's a complete different world. It looks like my camera charger died on me so I'm taking blurry pictures on my iPhone which I'll share below. If all works out I should be back in London on the 15th of June.

And no, it's not like in Borat's movie.

Jai / Wal

We've been holding that down for a bit but we'll share it now. We're not a creative team anymore as we've split up. The main reason is that we have different ambitions in advertising and they don't seem to go along. We still have a couple of projects we're working on together and it would be awesome if they work out. Jai' accepted another three months at the Bank which he's following up at the moment. I'm making a new plan. I applied for a postgraduate course outside of London and I'm waiting for a reply. In the meantime I'll be looking around and speaking to agencies on my own. See what happens.

The great masters of advertising

Last thursday we went to the NABS talk at the London College of Fashion. It was all about TV advertising. The talk was moderated by Sir Hegarty and the panel consisted of Tony Davidson of W+K, Ben Priest of Adam&Eve, Nick Gill of BBH and film director Danniel Kleinman. What a great lineup! They've all chosen three ads each and I enjoyed watching all of those oldies and gems on the big screen.

Some of the things they've said stuck with me, one of them was that television is a shared media, people watch it together and talk about what they've seen. They also shared insights about the craft, like the importance of characters in a piece of film, sometimes over the plot. The right choice of music being crucial and of course they discussed the current question of 'Is Tv dead?'.

The answer in my opinion is simple, it's film what's important and impactful, no matter on what screen it appears on. And clearly, no matter the media, it's all about the story being told, right?

You ain't seen sexy till you've seen us

Jai & Wal will be doing the same thing today at Regent Street at 4pm, come and watch ;)

Weeklyish campaign

We've been bad at keeping with posting new work weekly as the Bank is keeping us very busy, we'll try harder, for now a campaign for J2O that's been in our book for a bit now. For those who don't know, J2O is a bottled juice drink that is sold in bars & pubs and is often drunk instead of alcohol. We're happy with the strategy, we know we need to change the executions and make them work harder. We've also got lots of stuff for digital and ambient media on it. We'll post it once we change the poster executions.

Quick one

Quick update, we'll post more when deadlines allow. Busy at the Bank. Got tickets for the NABS talk next week, it's a great lineup. Also thinking about going to Portfolio Night 7 in Amsterdam, why not? And it looks like some agencies are looking for talent, which is good news. Maybe intersting stuff happening. No swine flu between us yet.