Portfolio Speedway: Skip Portfolio School and Fast Track Your Creative Education.

Posted August 20th, 2010

Recent college grads frequently contact me looking for creative positions in our agency that they are completely unqualified for. Most have gone through a four year school majoring in advertising, marketing or public communications. They gravitate towards copywriting or graphic design classes but do not gain the intensive instruction they need to truly learn the craft and put a sample portfolio together. Thirty years ago, I experienced the same dilemma. I realized I wanted to be a copywriter but couldn’t get into the one or two copywriting classes being offered at my school. I put a portfolio together and learned what I needed to know by going on interviews in New York City. Each creative director I interviewed with taught me, enlightened me and, occasionally, humiliated me. I didn’t know how much I didn’t know, and they made sure I knew it! But after each interview, I returned to college and re-worked my portfolio. And upon graduation, I had a book good enough to get a job at BBDO. Portfolio schools existed back then but I wasn’t aware of them. In any event, I couldn’t afford them. Today, some of the brightest copywriters and art directors are graduates of portfolio schools like the Miami Ad School, The Portfolio Center, Creative Circus, the Chicago Portfolio School and others. Some enter portfolio schools out of high school, some pony up the cash after having already graduated from college. Portfolio schools offer an extraordinary advertising education and prepare students for successful careers in copywriting and art direction. All of them, however, cost a fortune. You’ll spend $15,000 a year and most are two year programs. Creative-oriented students graduating from four year schools without the portfolio they need are in for a shock when faced with the daunting task of putting one together. Spend another $30,000 at a portfolio school? For most, it’s out of the question. But what about the way I learned? Without realizing it at the time, I created my own shortcut to portfolio preparation by seeking out mentors at agencies and traveling into Manhattan frequently to show them my work and listen to their sometimes brutal critiques! Through perseverance and determination to break into the industry, I listened, I learned, I found an art student to work with and I kept revising my portfolio.  And every time I thought it was good enough, the next mentor/interviewer showed me how I could improve it. After a few years at New York agencies, a few years at DDB-Needham in Honolulu, nine at Disney and ten running my own boutique ad agency, by any standard I’ve had a good run in the business. In between jobs, I briefly taught at a portfolio school in San Diego and I’ve guest lectured at UCF and the University of Florida. I’ve won over 45 industry awards and over the course of my career have loved nothing more than the creative process of working with an art director to generate creative solutions that are compelling and on strategy. Now I’d like to offer a way for students to speed their way towards their own creative career in advertising. If you are committed to becoming an advertising copywriter or art director but cannot afford portfolio school, consider Portfolio Speedway, a fast track to a creative portfolio. Portfolio Speedway offers you two months of intensive personal mentoring and instruction via video phone chats and email. You will learn how to write copy, generate big ideas, work together as a writer/art director team and prepare integrated campaigns for your PDF or online portfolio. If you are interested in being an art director, Portfolio Speedway assumes that you are already comfortable with design software. We are not here to offer technical instruction. We are here to teach concept development, critique your work, and help you shape a portfolio you can be proud of with an array of executions in digital and traditional advertising. Portfolio school: Two years, over $30,000.00. Portfolio Speedway: Two months, $950.00. If you are truly motivated and ready to start firing on all creative cylinders, contact Mitchell Erick at Portfolio Speedway for more information, a program outline and other details. Email your interest in Portfolio Speedway to mitchell@alianda.com or through our agency website at www.alianda.com.

Tags: art direction, copywriting, Creative Circus, Miami Ad School, Portfolio Center, portfolio school, Portfolio Speedway