There’s been a lot of talk recently about Spain’s sophisticated brand of ‘tip tappy’ football.  But, let’s be honest, it’s not proper football is it!  Last night’s game was all about just that; ‘proper football’.

Prior to the match Account Handling held their first ever tactical team chat where Adrian outlined his three point plan to defeat the ‘evil’ creative department.  Leigh and I actually thought this would consist of taking Lee, Stuart and Keithy P out of the game, but in actual fact they were rather sensible strategic suggestions.  I won’t give too much away but point 3 was asking Leigh not to “shoot at the goal”, but instead to pass the ball to the more “skilled” members of the team.   Classic!

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The great Johan Cruyff

Johan Cruyff was the most famous exponent of the football philosophy known as ‘Total Football’, which is the theory that any outfield player can take over the role of any other player in the team, save the goalkeeper. It’s safe to say then that this evening, Red C’s Copywriter, Stuart Clark, gave Account Handling a right damn good lecture in the art of ‘Total Football’… meaning that Creative emerged yet again victorious against the ‘Suits’.

Yet it certainly was by no means a one man show as Red C’s two new Creative hirings proved themselves very handy on the football pitch. Andrew Campbell produced a display worthy of the great Lionel Messi as he dodged, chipped, turned and danced his way through the Account Handling midfield. And Junior Designer, Dean Spicer, let loose a few deadly shots and produced a string of fine saves.

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It was billed as creative flair versus strategic nous. Those blokes in jeans and trainers versus those guys in suits. It was a hard fought match… for fifty minutes the game was too close to call, but a late flurry by Creative sealed victory for the boys with Macs and sent the PC guys running home with their tails between their legs.

With the help of some Precision Burner energy drinks saved up from a pitch for EAS… Creative were primed to take this game by the horns from the kick off. But credit to Account Handling… they were more than our equal for a long time and even took the lead a few times which only spurred on my brave warriors… dressed in black and playing like footballing Ninjas… we raised our game and produced some wonderful flowing football.

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These days you need more than just a great Portfolio of work to get yourself a job in a Creative Department. You need a certain drive and attitude that will get your Book noticed, and help you stand out from the other great Candidates out there who are competing for the same role.

It can’t have escaped you that jobs are thin on the ground at the moment in this industry. So I’ve written this posting to not only give you some essential advice when you get in front of someone like me… but also some advice on how to market yourself so someone like me is impressed enough to make time in their day to see you.

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‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’.

This was almost certainly the case for me when trying to find a placement for my year out from university. It had proved much more difficult than I anticipated, possibly due to companies being under pressure during the recession.

After numerous phone calls and e-mails I was still struggling to secure even a two-week placement, until a friend (Lee Fairhurst) mentioned that a marketing company he works for were looking for placement students. A phone call, and an interview later, I had got myself a month’s work placement at Red C.

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“How do you come up with those ideas?”

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been asked that question by friends or clients. It’s probably the most common question a creative person gets asked. Trying to define the creative process can be very difficult for most creatives, probably because the word ‘process’ implies that there is a series of steps that you follow to reach a solution… and we creatives like the mysticism that comes with the answer “it’s just something I can do… the ideas just appear in my head”.

Like it or not, though, there are processes that the mind goes through in order to generate ideas. I’m not saying that all minds follow the same process, but there is a basic process that the mind follows and because of the uniqueness of human beings and their life experiences; a 1000 minds can be set the same creative challenge and come up with a 1000 completely different answers.

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