The Street Wisdom activity had the biggest impact on me. Embracing the idea and actually slowing down enough to notice the world was something that opened my mind quite a bit. I can safely say that I know what I want now.”
The brief
D&AD is a membership organisation representing the global advertising, creative and design community. Their New Blood Academy is a two-week creative boot camp that catapults young creatives into industry. 50 new creatives and graduates from around the world are mentored by the best of WPP’s agencies and pushed to their creative limits through a non-stop programme of talks, workshops, hacks, and live client challenges. The programme uses industry-led practices to explore the skills, mind-set and knowledge needed to sustain a creative career.
As a result, the New Blood team wanted to provide an opportunity for participants to think about their futures and the type of relationship they wanted with the creative industry.
What we delivered
Street Wisdom developed a bespoke 2-stage program. First we trained the D&AD team and industry volunteers to lead a Street Wisdom event. These new Street Leaders then facilitated a session with the Academy participants (Acadders) in 6 separate groups where they focussed on either their future creative careers OR on a live creative challenge they were going to be working on during their boot camp.
The results
The sessions were the perfect addition to the two-week academy and gave participants the time and space to focus on what they hoped to achieve in the careers or provided inspiration for real-time projects and next steps in creative thinking.
“The Academy focuses on teaching what isn’t taught at college or university, and helps prepare new creatives for jobs in the industry by nurturing their talent, promoting industry-led practice, and investing in their potential. The Street Wisdom team and process enabled us to tap into this concept in an alternative way and question what this really meant (in practice) for each individual’s creative journey. Mark was a pleasure to work with.” Jessica Antwi-Boasiako, D&AD Foundation Manager – Academy Programme Manager.
“Wow – what an end to a fantastic Academy – an amazing programme with an array of contributors including; Street Wisdom, Google, Dougal Wilson, John O’Keeffe, Charlie Dark, Punch Drunk, Nick Eagleton, Made by Many, LA Ronayne, Tom Evans and more.” Paul Drake, D&AD Foundation Director
“Street Wisdom [had the biggest impact on me]. I felt it like a very spiritual activity and it made me think and observe my everyday life through a different lens.” New Blood Academy attendee (Acadder)