The Brown School of Advertising

We don't have a school. Yet. But we know the value of mentorship and giving back. It's something we learned at Art Center and something we try to share whenever and however we can.

We've taught classes on Advertising and Design, advised young creatives at several One Show events, including ones focused on diversifying the creative workforce. We’ve also participated in a few Art Director Club Portfolio Nights as portfolio judges.

We consider ourselves fortunate to be able to share our passion with new talent. Many of whom have gone on to do great things and stay in touch as peers.

But our favorite example of our love for what we do was with the agency's summer interns of 2015.

This Is How We Met Them

A bunch of sock puppets. But like all sock puppets, they were malleable, eager to learn, and covered in lint.

They all had diverse backgrounds, but none of those backgrounds came from an ad school or an agency. They needed some direction in how to weaponize their skillsets into something more purposeful. They quickly realized that we were suckers for teaching and sharing what we do. Soon our office was their office. To help them be helpful, we volunteered our time after hours to give them the ad school experience they never had, to go along with their simultaneous agency experience. It would be intense, but we we told them we’d make as much time as they would for the work. They made a lot of time.

Through the portfolio crash course, we taught them essential skills like:

The Importance of Sharpie Comps

Yes, sharpie comps are a necessary step, no matter how poorly drawn. But the real value is in the fact that it keeps you from executing behind a computer and getting caught up in layouts, when the idea is what's most important. Find the idea, then show how it best lives, whatever form that may be.

In The End

The class grew with junior creatives and even interns from other departments requesting to participate. We believe it makes us better while making them better. Teaching is a great way to learn something. We’re happy knowing they have bright futures ahead of them, and hopefully will make the industry better as they learn the value of passing it on. They also thanked us, which is also nice.

Here's a video one of our students put together of the time the interns spent as interns. That is, before they got hired. Which is cool, because money’s a great graduation gift.