By HUSH, the SCA Intake of 2018/19

 

Reflections on PB1

This week Marc set us our very first portfolio brief. Tension and nerves were high. We eyed each other up – sussing out who would pull of the best case study film. Would it be Tej and Forrest? A slick filmmaker and an even slicker wordsmith. Or would it be Tom Flynn and Joe C? A brewing bromance tied together with Irish wit, English sarcasm and broody glares. Or would it be Lucie P and Lucy P? Two bringers of light – one French, one Brit, who felt so in sync even their menstrual cycles matched up. Or would it be Charles, Andy and Joe F? Three hombres with such excitable, extroverted and exorbitant personalities you knew they’d pull something out the bag.

 

Well, if you keep reading – you can find out how our first portfolio brief went.

Let us tell you ALL about it.

 

Brief: Get under 12s or recently retired people to take up a new hobby by partnering with a brand who may or may not have a vested interest in that hobby. Must get them to trial it and overall not make a loss.

 

Lucy P: Scary at first. But overall a glorious experience. Enjoyed every moment. Lucie was a joy to work with. Pls can we keep her Marc???

 

Lauren: I really enjoyed the brief and it was the first time i realised that not all mentors would agree on which idea to go with.  There was one idea that some mentors hated and others loved so I found the process of deciding which idea to go with difficult and in reflection now we spend way too long on that part which meant that the actual execution of the video and app components to go with that suffered a lot. All in all, a big learning curve

 

Alex T: Not bad, yeah.

 

Zoe: Great brief inspired so many ideas, many babies were killed. I think we got too excited about our idea, and then too into our case study video, and missed out the bit in between in terms of thinking through and executing the comms. (TYPO. F***ING TYPO.)

 

Charles: Bit of a mixed bag really. I think the thing about this brief and all the work that we’ve been set for far is how much of a sweat you’re supposed to be breaking. I’m aware that nothing made during this term, or perhaps even the next is likely to be world ending – but at the same time you want to make work you’re proud of. What I’ve learned from this brief is to take pride in the process, even if there are things I’d change about the outcome.

 

Saph: Loads of ideas, loads of babies killed, loads of lost research, loads of trying to get into playful child mode, loads of stress, loads of opinions, loads of dead ends, loads of learning, loads of lessons. Not a lot of time.

 

Max : This week was quick, really quick. The hardest part for me was filtering out the shit ideas and going with the ones that connected to me the most. Sometimes the simple ones are the right ones.

 

Lina: Full of “how I should have to done”…. So my Smart goal for the next week: NOT make the same mistakes again. Can’t wait to meet PB2!

 

Holly: Knocked my confidence a bit. Art Direction is as much of a project as generating a good idea and I think that gets forgotten. Making something look good takes time and isn’t that easy, no matter how skilled you are in Adobe.

Gem : It was… intense. Now I understand why “creativity is a process”. Having a good idea is definitely not enough : you need more to build a solid story and bring concrete and creative solutions to solve a problem. This is why using the creative techniques and the strategy nailed. I could have managed my time better but it’s shown me that I can produce work under pressure in a short amount of time. It was a good learning experience for me and I am going to put these things into practice on the next portfolio brief.

 

Lucie : I enjoyed working on this brief. I fell in love with our idea. Lucy and I made a really great team, we understood each other so well, and we were going together on the same direction. It means so much for us to help kids going off of the street but finding a hobby. I grown up in a suburb with knives problems, so I am a 100% sure that our idea can solve a every problem. It was my favourite team and brief so far..

 

Tom: Eric B and Rakim it seems were wrong, one must in fact sweat the technique.

 

Joe R: I struggled quite a lot with this week’s brief, it was worded about as vaguely as a tory politician’s response to a question about brexit, or any text written by anyone about brexit. It was all very broad and non-specific, I presume that’s Marc encouraging us to write our own brief, which I failed to do. Also, fuck adobe for bailing on me at the last second.

 

Coco: I had a lot of fun working on this brief- really enjoyed coming up with an idea and not only an ad. Seriously need to work on my adobe skills

 

Phil: This brief was really fun! In a way, it became largely about managing that fun – because what we were set was so open-ended, we were tempted to creatively meander and pander to ideas which weren’t leading anywhere. Most of all, the importance of defining limits. You can push a boundary, but it’s easier if you’ve clarified where that boundary is in an initial phase.

 

Alysha: Morocco is a beautiful country. Bring on PB2!  

 

Mathieu : It was really exciting to work on this brief, we had the choice of the brand and the audience which is great to create something original and take some risks. I learned that I need to write down the full concept of the campaign (especially the marketing part) before work on every visual/video/mock up.

 

Tarun: The first PB for me was kind of like the first time you have sex. You just need to refer to it as a learning experience and make sure you get better at time management next time. I learned a lot about myself this week and there’s a lot I need to work on.

 

Mary: I found it tough. I found it tough not being able to really get to grips with the brief. What exactly passes for a hobby? It turns out that what passes as a hobby is subjective. Some are just fads or projects. Also the fact that ‘the brand’ couldn’t make a loss. A loss overall? Or just at the start of the promotion?  I did feel a little at sea but on the upside have now learnt a great deal of in depth knowledge on a range of options to get my 10 year old step daughter off her iPad.

 

Alexis : Well, it was quite an adventure. The more we asked advices from mentors, the less we we’re confident about our idea. Looks like sometimes you sure have trust your guts.

 

Ruby: Having to rustle up a product for a defined audience was quite tricky – we’re so used to following a different path, with the product first. We spent longer than needed jumping between ideas, when we would have profited from really stretching the idea that we settled on. The brief did give us a chance to put together a lot of moving parts that we’ve learned, especially the 6 hats thinking, which helped, and putting together our own brief. It was a pleasure working with Marta and for a first bash it came out ok.

 

Forrest: I think something I have learned time after time this year is not to get too excited by a brief on the very first day, at the very moment it’s set. Every time I have done this, I’ve set off sprinting in the wrong direction, and then had to spend the following days making up for misspent time. My jaw dropped when I read the brief and the amount of possibilities left me feeling a little unrestricted, which meant it took a while to narrow my thoughts down and be a supportive and productive creative partner. Next week I’ll try to do better giving myself some restrictions and, from those, direction.