Question from a former MAS-student
The good thing about the Miami Ad School is that you get to know a lot of interesting students from all over the world. And every now and then you hear from some of them again. José, a former Miami Ad School student and former quarter away student in Hamburg, sent me an e-mail this week with the following question:
I was wondering since you got a Lion and went to New York and all (congrats!), if you could tell us how it happened to you; how difficult, disappointments, excitements, revelations, then and now and so forth.
I told him that I didn't win a lion, but that I'm already happy with a nomination. Furthermore, I don't consider myself yet as somebody who really 'made it'. It's not out of modesty, because if I did something good I let the whole world know. But it's because I think you should not be too satisfied with the work you've made in the past. It's the future work that's important.
Then I told him that the reason that I did well, was a combination of my experience (5 years in Dutch advertising), working really really hard and luck. And you need luck to win at award shows. If you work hard enough, it's not a guarantee that you always have a good idea, but you make the odds that you make award winning work in favor of you. The nominated ad (Kneipp bedside lamp) was actually based on an idea that I had about 2 years before. I showed it to my art director, we talked about it and slowly we got the winning idea. I was lucky that my teacher from JvM believed in it and that he wanted to make it. Then with his help we improved the idea until it was perfect.
He was glad to get the answer and told me I should put it on my blog to inspire others. If I have any notion that someone might find information useful, I put it on my site, so that's why I dedicated a post about it. Not because I have the need to write some success story because I think I still have a long road to go. Maybe a job at my next agency will become a success story. Or maybe I will stay unsatisfied during my entire career. But that's actually a good thing. Because sometimes the road is more interesting than the destination.
I was wondering since you got a Lion and went to New York and all (congrats!), if you could tell us how it happened to you; how difficult, disappointments, excitements, revelations, then and now and so forth.
I told him that I didn't win a lion, but that I'm already happy with a nomination. Furthermore, I don't consider myself yet as somebody who really 'made it'. It's not out of modesty, because if I did something good I let the whole world know. But it's because I think you should not be too satisfied with the work you've made in the past. It's the future work that's important.
Then I told him that the reason that I did well, was a combination of my experience (5 years in Dutch advertising), working really really hard and luck. And you need luck to win at award shows. If you work hard enough, it's not a guarantee that you always have a good idea, but you make the odds that you make award winning work in favor of you. The nominated ad (Kneipp bedside lamp) was actually based on an idea that I had about 2 years before. I showed it to my art director, we talked about it and slowly we got the winning idea. I was lucky that my teacher from JvM believed in it and that he wanted to make it. Then with his help we improved the idea until it was perfect.
He was glad to get the answer and told me I should put it on my blog to inspire others. If I have any notion that someone might find information useful, I put it on my site, so that's why I dedicated a post about it. Not because I have the need to write some success story because I think I still have a long road to go. Maybe a job at my next agency will become a success story. Or maybe I will stay unsatisfied during my entire career. But that's actually a good thing. Because sometimes the road is more interesting than the destination.
posted by Robin Stam at 5:25 pm
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