By Flavia Ventura

D&AD New Blood

Seemed so far and yet it’s here. We’re not ready. Whether still waiting in hope of an award winning idea to come through or having the idea but being a million miles away from the final execution of it, we’re not ready. We’ll be though.

One week to go. Funny, two weeks ago it seemed ‘ages’. Being used to solving portfolio briefs in a week, 4 weeks almost seemed too long. Jokes on us.

Never underestimate time. Craft takes time. We’ll definitely learn our lesson the hard way. Needless to say, there are sleepless nights ahead for every penguin.

What this crazy D&ad adventure made realize is that organization is key. Get the idea in the early stage and get it done. ‘Quit talking, start doing’ they have told us repeatedly. Last week was the time to stop talking.

Did we do it? Not really. Not the majority of us, at least.

We waited so long for D&ad to come, and I’m sure a lot of us pictured themselves winning a pencil. ‘You’re a strong intake, you’ll win more than 15’. I believe at this stage, very few teams think of being in that position — but maybe I’m wrong.

I’m sure Marc and all the other mentors are probably going ‘What the f**k’ in their heads. BUT, we still have time to prove them wrong. We can still turn it around, and I have faith that we will.

There are good ideas in the room. We just have to make them happen. We are still competing. We can still win.

After Effects can be intimidating. We know what we want our case study videos to look like but we don’t know how to get there. A blank sheet of paper can be intimidating, but an empty After Effects board is terrifying.

Mentors have been really helpful ALL along, but I believe now it’s not the moment to question our entire idea because of one opinion. Definitely time to fill the holes, tweaking a bit, but not time to panic and throw it all away in the bin. We’ve got to believe in it, go for it.

This week will be long, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it.

Good luck to all other pengs, we CAN still do it, so LET’S.