By Ludo Thomas

Portfolio Day

It’s always good to reflect, you realise where you went wrong and equally important, where you went right. 

Today was the sponsors portfolio day. The lack of sleep the pervious night probably wasn’t the best way to prep, but the booked needed the tweaks so needs must. 

Learning 1, seemingly the bane of mine and Arthur’s partnership, time management. For the next portfolio day in a weeks time we’ll not be staying up to the early hours crafting, our deadline is set the day before, because you need all your energy on the day, it’s long.

Learning 2, don’t panic, captain Mannering. There were nerves waking up today, there’s always a big sense of vulnerability opening up your portfolio and letting other people scrutinise it, when it’s potential employers, the tension is heightened. That said, as soon as we did, the nerves went, we got into our stride, and realised all the sponsors are the nicest people. 

Learning 3, tips and tricks. Talking through our ideas with a conveyer belt of creatives is great because you get a conveyer belt of different ideas. Whether it’s a line, a visual, or an extra comm, if your ideas resonated people respond and offer their perspective and their creative brains. So speak to as many people as possible, the work will only be better for it. 

Learning 4, we already know this but reaffirmed today, we’ve got one hell of a faculty. Honor, Max, Ian, Marc (and Adeline for the day) did amazingly organising everything and making it run so smoothly. A massive thank you for getting us one step closer to a job. 

Learning 5, business cards. Arth and I weren’t keen on these to start with, but we were very relieved to have them on the day. They look professional, they’re an easy way for people to contact you, just get them — they won’t make you look like a briefcase wa*ker. 

Learning 6, you quickly know the best bits in the book. There’s not enough time per crit, so find your best campaigns and hit home with these. Leave as big an impact possible in the short amount of time. 

Learning 7, who says what. With the quick fire nature of crits you develop a rhythm. 

You speak, 

your partner speaks,

you speak,

blah blah blah,

it breaks things up, keeps things fresh, and your ideas come across in the best possible way because you both explain bits better than the other. 

Learning 8, we’re nearly there. You don’t really believe them when they say the course will fly by, but it’s starting to dawn that there’s only a week left. Now, the book is never finished, that’s the beauty of advertising, it’s progressive. But with a week to go before our final judgement day we can see the end. We’ve got work to do in the last 7 days but the rollercoaster is nearly over.