New Blood Shift – the life-changing D&AD programme that provides a free night school in London for young people without further education to get into the creative industries – is to open for the third year.
The invitation was sent direct to M+AD from D&AD, and specifically includes New Zealanders.
The free 12-week night school provides young people without qualifications with a leg up into the creative industries
“The programme aims to stimulate creative excellence by nurturing young creatives and working towards a fairer, more diverse industry,” said Hilary Chittenden, the head of New Blood Shift at D&AD.
“The programme has been hugely successful and seen wide support from the industry, with last year’s applicants going on to placements and employment with companies including Nike, BBC Creative, Iris and AKQA.”
The artwork for this year’s campaign has been created by the Shift Class of 2017, who came up with the concept, copy-wrote and art directed all creative assets.
Their campaign is based on the concept that talent can be found anywhere. They write: “Talent doesn’t need a university degree, or A levels. Talent pours our pints, serves our meals and delivers our post.
“Talent works through the night, and dreams through the day. Talent says the unsayable and makes the unmakeable. Talent is relentless, unwavering and different.”
“From the 2017 programme, 84% of Shifters have entered into paid creative employment.”
From the 2017 Shift London programme, 84% of Shifters have entered into paid creative employment (full time roles or placements of 1 month or longer). This compares to 41% of design graduates and just 24% media graduates employed in their sectors after 6 months of graduation. (Source: Telegraph).
Hilary Chittenden says: “The strength of the programme has been building year on year. We’re always looking at ways to reach wider audiences. Talent is everywhere, we need to look out of our traditional silos to diversify our industry and create a more level playing field.”
Lisa Williams who was on the Shift London 2017 programme, said: “Shift is for people like me – without a degree but with a burning desire to create.
“It opened doors for me and gave me the platform I’d been yearning for. We were pushed to our creative limits, doing things we’d never thought possible.” (Following the programme, Lisa Williams went on to a creative placement within the BBC, where she has just won her first pitch.)
Steve Vranakis, D&AD president and ECD of Google Creative Lab said: “We have a duty as creative practitioners to educate not just young people, but their parents about the viable career opportunities there are in the creative industries.
“The Shift programme aims to remedy that. It opens doors and opportunities to amazing creative talent who might not necessarily have known that they can make a living doing what they love. And it leads to a fairer and more diverse industry.”
Applications are now open for the Shift London 2018 programme. Details and entry requirements are available on dandad.org/en/d-ad-new-blood-shift-london
The notice was sent direct from London to M+AD, and specifically invites entries from New Zealand.
Applications close on Wednesday 1 August. How many places there are on the programme is not, at this stage, known.
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