fbpx

The future in safe hands: a showcase of some of the standout student work from 2014

At this year’s edition of the Young Gun Awards, Colenso BBDO’s Ben Polkinghorne and  Brett Colliver, FCB’s Matt Williams and Y&R NZ’s Liza Dupre all picked up awards, standing again as testament to the quality of the creative work that comes out of New Zealand every year.

But, most often, the journey to these awards doesn’t start within the agencies; it starts at the nation’s ad schools, where the students’ creative talent is shaped into commercial tools capable of developing campaigns that resonate with the masses. 

Thus, each year as the academic curriculum comes to a close, the industry takes a brief moment to look at the work that the students have produced. 

As part of this tradition, the adschool at Media Design School and AUT Adschool each arrange elaborate end-of-year shows, which are attended by the nation’s leading creative directors.

While principally serving as an opportunity for the students to show off their work, these events also provide a glimpse of what Kiwis can look forward to once these talented youngsters enter the industry.

Last year, grotesque jetboat smiles and accident-prone husbands featured in two of the most memorable campaigns, and this year again served up a fair share of quirkiness.      

Here’s a look at some of the best pieces from AUT Adschool:

And here’s a look at some of the best pieces from MDS:

Kate Humphries, the course leader of MDS says that the creative directors were once again impressed by what they saw and this has led to some promising correspondence between students and agencies.     

“Exit polls from the show were very encouraging, with creative directors commenting that the standard was high across the board and that there was an exciting range of innovative ‘Let’s take this to our clients’ ideas,” says Humphries. “The class is buzzing today from a flurry of post show emails asking individual teams to get in touch.”

This was also the case for AUT graduates, with programme leader Paul White saying that some students have already landed agency jobs.    

“It’s been a good year for AUT Adschool, reflected in some outstanding work across the board,” says White. “On the strength of that, so far six grads are on placement/trial at FCB, Colenso, Spitfire Digital and String Theory, and six already have jobs at DDB, Republik and Clemenger Shop.”

Correction: this article previously misattributed the Merry Elves 16 TUN campaign to Emily Osborne and the SPCA ‘Blue Tick’ campaign to Ed Knight and Sam French and . Indy Lane developed the Merry Elves 16 TUN creative, while Emily Osborne developed the SPCA ‘Blue Tick’ campaign. 

About Author

Avatar photo

One of the talented StopPress Team of Content Producers made this post happen.

Comments are closed.