The real world.

You may have been wondering where I've been for the past month or so, other than at the bottom of your blog rolls. For the first three weeks of January, I was at Velocity Branding for my work practicum.

Velocity is a local advertising agency that's made up of three account executives, three designers, and one writer. Jarrett Moffatt, a former CreComm who was in my position last year, took me under his wing since he knew exactly where I was coming from. You could say that I was like his son for a month.

(I thought this would be funny but now I realize it's just creepy.)

At my placement, I got to see the entire process that an agency goes through, from first meeting a client, to sending them proofs of their work. Luckily for me, I was able to dabble in a bit of everything. From those client meetings, I was able to write up creative briefs, conducted some research, and give Dad (Jarrett) something to start off on. As for writing, I had the opportunity to write copy for sell sheets, newspaper ads, in-store flyers, as well as radio spots.

One of the best things about my placement at Velocity was seeing the interaction and relationship between designer and writer. To see how closely they work together made me realize how important it is to start fostering this relationship as soon as humanly possible, and only reinforced my belief that CreComms and Graphic Design students should be working on projects together, right from the get-go.

On that note, I found that a lot of Velocity’s work was design based. Their designers were always click-clack-clackitting away on their computers working on websites, print materials or iPhone apps. Seeing the sheer amount of work that was always coming in and going out made me wish that I was a better designer because I can see how much more of an advantage you would have if you were able to both write and design.

Something else that I noticed, was that there was no suit vs. creative hippie separation. Now I'm not saying that they were all hippies or all suits, but rather everyone there treated each other equally. With ad agencies, there's always the stigma of mean business-type account execs looking down on and stifling the freedom of creative teams, at least that's how it seems like it is in the books I've read. At Velocity, there was always a fun, positive vibe in the office, which may or may not have been caused by the 90's hip hop that was blasting some days.

As for how this placement affected my career plans, I still would like to try my hand at being a writer for an agency. Though I realize now how small the Manitoba market is and how hard it is to try and convince people to take risks here, I foresee some sort of mini revolution in Winnipeg's ad/marketing world. At least I'm hoping for one.

Though I may not have come out of my work placement with a lot to put into a portfolio like some of my other peers, I found this to be a great learning opportunity. During my three weeks, I got to see the ups and downs of an agency. I got to witness the blood, sweat and tears that a team must shed to come up with a successful campaign. I got to see the real thing.

Thank you (in no particular order, and because I'm a gentleman, ladies first) Jarrett, Karla, Colette, Olga, Lee, and Chris x2!

Cheers and thanks for having me on board!