What Does an Advertising Portfolio look like?

O

odd

New Member
Hello all, I'm a Graphic Design graduate who's just finishing a creative artworking job and it's taken me all this time to realise... I should be in advertising design :icon_blushing:

I love coming up with concepts, ideas, writing, making creative imagery... and although my portfolio has some 'finished' advertising pieces in there I know it's not all specifically aimed at ad agencies.

So, can anyone show me some examples, please? It is all finished pieces or markered up ideas, etc?

I'm also very confused about how it works in the advertising world with regards to job titles, etc.
I want to be at the front of the conveyerbelt/the beginning of the brief who's coming up with the ideas/concepts more than anything else. What job role is this?

Thankyou!
 
spottypenguin said:
Ummmm are you not wanting to be in marketing then?
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Well I don't know, this is it! I don't really understand what marketing people do..
..Besides just ordering me about telling me make their work look dreadful.. I am a marketing person's puppet right now..


I've tried looking on Google images but it's hard to find this mysterious line between advertising/marketing, etc, and most of the time google thinks I want to 'advertise' something so I don't get very far. I just want to see what sort of work goes into a portfolio for this role and what it looks like.
 
It sounds to me like you want to be the art director (paired with a copywriter) at an ad agency. A friend of mine recently got a job at Mother London and his portfolio was full of brilliant ideas. lots of black bordered layout pages full of ideas on how to sell heinz sandwich fillings, string and other weird and wonderful stuff.

Have you read many books like... 'The Advertising Concept Book: Think Now, Design Later' <it's a pretty good one to see the kind of early work you should present in a portfolio (IMO)

If you haven't headed up amazing ad campaigns that you can show in a portfolio, then put in some amazing ideas.
 
daytona said:
It sounds to me like you want to be the art director (paired with a copywriter) at an ad agency. A friend of mine recently got a job at Mother London and his portfolio was full of brilliant ideas. lots of black bordered layout pages full of ideas on how to sell heinz sandwich fillings, string and other weird and wonderful stuff.

Have you read many books like... 'The Advertising Concept Book: Think Now, Design Later' <it's a pretty good one to see the kind of early work you should present in a portfolio (IMO)

If you haven't headed up amazing ad campaigns that you can show in a portfolio, then put in some amazing ideas.
Click to expand...


That sounds about right :) Do you have any idea what's bottom rank/entry level of that area of roles?
I'm looking at Ad Agencies but they're all in London and I'm not quite in the position to commute at the moment.

Searching for the book now...!
 
Oh really?? D:
I always thought Art Directors were top rank!

Right, to the search engine, Batman!!

Thank you all for yaour replies :)
 
"When I receive a portfolio I look for a good idea, followed by another, followed by another and so on. Presentation of those ideas is always important but it's the ideas I really want to see... even if its a sketch on a napkin."

Taken from a talk given by Michael Johnson (as in yellow pencil agency Johnson Banks) to my uni course in about 2006.
 
daytona said:
Entry level roles are still art director/copywriter pairs... they just work with smaller clients
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As a designer with little experience you're not going to get an art directors role. An art director is responsible for every aspect of creativity within a project (sometimes even responsible for a department handling a number of projects) and so requires a fairly solid proven track record (often gained by working your way up from production artist or junior design roles within ad agencies).
 
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