Biography:
After college, Alan spent three years as a commercial writer whilst creating comedy and stage-plays in his spare time. In 1990, he enrolled on a D&AD Workshop and was bitten by the advertising bug. He went on to write campaigns for Boots 17, IKEA, Fox’s Biscuits, COI, Mothercare and BT. Alan is a founding member of St. Luke’s and after his first year as Creative Director, the agency was voted Campaign’s agency of the year.
In 2001 and 2002, Campaign magazine listed Alan as one of the UK’s ten “hottest” Creative Directors. In 2004 he was elected to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising Creative forum and in 2005 voted onto D&AD’s Executive Committee. His approach to advertising attracts considerable media attention, and he is interviewed regularly by the national press and television. Alan is passionate about creative education, runs D&AD workshops, and delivers talks to MA students at Central St Martin’s and the London Film School.
Notes
Alan’s talk focuses on the most important qualities agencies such as St Luke’s look for when hiring creatives. The need for students to make a big impression on their first meeting and evidence of creative energy in their portfolios, are two of the requirements mentioned.
Top of the list is the need for students to take risks with their portfolios. He claims that the task of young creative thinkers is to challenge the ‘old’ creative thinkers who may be stuck in their ways. To this end, he states that: “Provocative beats safe every time, even if it is inappropriate”. This raises the question of whether or not it could be seen as irresponsible to encourage students produce risky portfolios in a job market where the vast majority of employers are looking for ‘safe-players’. Alan maintains that all agencies aspire to produce exciting work and that it is riskier to have a book that is “quiet and safe”, adding: “You only get to explore by taking risks… they secure your future”.
This presentation opens the debate on whether we, as educators, should be doing more to promote creative risk-taking, and whether our learning, teaching and assessment strategies can be designed to facilitate this.
Nik Mahon
Southampton Solent University