Sarah Ginn and Mandy Smith, a creative team at Wieden + Kennedy’s London office, feature on our One To Watch page in the current (November) issue of CR. Here is our full interview with them and a selection of work from their book

CR: Where did you both study?
Sarah Ginn: I did Graphic Design at Kingston University
Amanda Smith: I did Graphic Design at Central St Martins but specialised in Advertising for the last 2 years of the course.

CR: So how, when and where did you two meet and decide to work together as an ad creative team and work towards getting a job in an agency?
SG: We first met last September at the beginning of our final year at university. In the September we were introduced to each other by Paul Arden, who paired us up to work with him on a More 4 documentary. At this time we both had advertising partners, having completed summer placements in London ad agencies, but coincidentally were looking to find new partners. We enjoyed working together – despite the intensity of the More4 filming in which we spent a solid 56 hours with no sleep editing the final footage. We soon realised that we both had a similar working attitude, similar ambitions and admired the same approach to advertising and design. In discovering each other almost by accident, we decided that our introduction was too good an opportunity to miss out on, so from there on we decided to work together as a creative team.

CR: How did Paul Arden come to pair you up?
MS: Our college tutor Zelda Malan is a good friend of Paul’s and Paul used to set work for us. It was Paul who commissioned Sarah to produce a set of nude photography that shocked, which later appeared in the Creative Review Photography Annual. He loves the photographs so much that he now has them on permanent display at his Petworth gallery. After this he went on to invite us both to participate in the More 4 documentary, his confidence in us both as well as his kind support has meant that he has become a mentor to us both. He takes our calls at any time, always answers any questions we may have, puts us in touch with any people he knows and thinks may be of use and loves giving us feedback on our work. He is a great man who has little time and yet so much affection for emerging young creatives. The confidence that Paul has in us both is always such a driving force and his experience and knowledge has proved invaluable.

As we were both from different universities and studied different design disciplines we decided that given our individual approaches to advertising we would work on all manner of projects, in order to generate a diverse book that was different and which celebrated not only our individual talents but also our diverse way of thinking. This was to become our overall approach to advertising: producing great ideas with whatever medium lends itself best to the idea.

We tried to work together as much as we could outside of university, spending most evenings and weekends writing ads and working on collaborative projects attributable to our degrees. Our tutors were happy for us to go and work at each other’s universities so it was almost like doing two degrees. We prided ourselves on being two individuals from different design backgrounds that were strong individually but when together also brought something new to the world of advertising. We continued working on self initiated projects in order to promote ourselves individually as well as a team. We purposely set out to produce a book which was different to the traditional TV and press advertising books of most advertising students. Our observation was that advertising was changing and agencies were looking for creative and diverse young creatives who could think differently and add something new to their agencies. With this in mind we couldn’t understand why just producing press and TV ads was going to make us different, it was all about making ourselves a commodity to who ever looked at our book.

In the November we sat down and discussed which agencies we both liked and compiled a list of people we should approach. We chose agencies not because they were perceived as the best but because we thought their attitude was more in keeping with our own, top of our list was Wieden and Kennedy. We emailed teams from our list of agencies and asked them to set us advertising briefs, in an attempt to build up our portfolio and make contacts. We figured that this was the same idea as the D&AD advertising workshops but with more first hand contact with the creatives setting you the brief, and establishing a stronger connection by contacting them yourselves. We went to a different agency every week for several weeks, making lots of useful contacts, as well as learning from their feedback. Our approach was, the more enthusiasm we showed, and the more people knew who we were and knew us as a team who worked hard and produced good work the more chances we would have of getting a job when we graduated. We knew that there would be lots of grads looking for work when we finished so we started all of the networking a year earlier, in an attempt to be one-step ahead. Our tutors used to get so frustrated because we spent a lot of time meeting industry people during our degree. In all honesty the more people you meet when on your degree the better the chances of you getting a job when you leave, as you narrow the gap between you and the industry.

CR: Can you tell me how you guys got your job - did you go on any courses or enter competitions or simply work on stuff together and phone up agencies asking for book crits?
MS: After Christmas having completed our set briefs from our list of agencies we began entering competitions and doing self initiated projects in order to build on our book. We didn’t enter competitions necessarily to win awards, but to get experience of the competitive industry we would be entering. If your only motivation when entering competitions is to win, you become consumed by it and stop producing good work. There is also a tendency to become too worried about what everyone else (your competitors) are doing and not concentrating enough on your own creativity. With this attitude in mind we managed to do well in the RSA design awards Inclusive Worlds category, going on to win the Bright Ideas award, get short listed for the Audi Designs For life bursary and the Ideal Home Show Product Concept Award, with an article published in Design Week and exhibiting at the RCA all with our TEMPlate product. We then went on to get work into this years D&AD annual for the IKEA viral advertising category as well as invitations to join D&AD talent pool. By Easter, having put together our advertising book we began emailing and phoning agencies, particularly those on our list. We got lots of feedback and made alterations to our book, agencies began recommending other agencies and other people and so on. The one name that kept coming up however was Wieden and Kennedy’s; everyone kept saying that we were a ‘Wieden and Kennedy’ team.

By the time we graduated in June we had already scheduled over 20 book crits with different teams in the space of 2 weeks. We had a polished book of work following our book crits and went out with the intention of getting placements. We secured a placement at Lunar BBDO straight away, who allowed us to go to book crits still whilst doing work for them. We visited mother 4 times and Wieden’s a further 4 as well as various other agencies. Our second meeting with Lucy and Darren at Wieden’s went really well and they recommended us to Tony and Kim (Exec Creative Director’s). We drafted up an email detailing our work for RSA, the More 4 documentary etc. and sent it to a list of Creative Director’s, to our delight Tony and Kim got back to us very quickly and invited us in for a book crit. The book crit went really well, Tony and Kim were extremely enthusiastic about our work and us and we got the feeling that Wieden’s would be ideal for us. A couple of weeks later having been offered a job by another agency, Wieden and Kennedy also called and offered us a job. We accepted the offer at Wieden’s and started at the beginning of September. Tony said that he was impressed with our book because each project was based on a solid truth, we had pushed every idea as far as we could and our book showed that we were enthusiastic people who liked creating ideas as well as thinking of them. We had work that wasn’t just drawn up but actually art directed, patented, filmed or made.

CR: How helpful were these book crits to your development and progression - and also perhaps you could tell us a bit more about how you met through Paul Arden
SG: Book crits are great in developing your confidence, as we were generally well received as a team, but also a great opportunity to see the inside of an agency and ask questions to the team you see in order to establish whether it might be the right place for you. One thing we realised was that if you like a place don’t be afraid to go back a few times to see different people, it will only show you’re keen. It was our perseverance at Wieden’s but also our ability to utilise advice given to us in book crits and the useful contacts we gained from book crits that helped get us the job at Wieden’s.

CR: Is there a fine line between pestering and persevering?
MS: In keep going back to Wieden and Kennedy it showed our determination, and led to us eventually getting noticed by Tony and Kim and getting offered a job. We had visited W+K five times to see a variety of teams before we got hired. You may say it was the right place, right time, as they’d just won the Visa and Nokia account, but perseverance pays off eventually. It helped that we were confident in knowing we wanted to work at W+K and would have remained in touch with people we knew there – but luckily we didn’t have to camp outside until we were let in!

CR: What do you admire in each others approach to a brief or project - and do you have a method of approaching briefs now you're working together at W+K?
MS: We generally tend to tackle a brief separately then come together to go over our ideas. Because we went to different universities it means we approach things slightly differently so I’m always interested to see what Sarah has thought of that I wouldn’t have at all. It always makes things easier that we know we’ll have a good spread of ideas when we come to present work. It’s always good that we trust each other’s judgement and if one of us says we don’t like something the other has done we completely trust the other to not present it! The thing I admire the most is that Sarah is always having new ideas for how to improve the efficiency of so many things.
SG: We generally immerse ourselves in the brand that we are working on; this usually means a lot of research and a lot of contact with the consumer. We like to get to the heart of the consumer by speaking to a lot of people not just in design to get varied feedback and ideas. We also like to take inspiration from absolutely anything, which helps to add a new dimension to your work, how can you produce new and original work when all you look at is old design books. We tend to think quite differently to each other, which makes our brainstorming sessions a hive of activity, with lots of ideas to present at meetings. The thing I admire most about Mandy is the fun that she injects into every idea she creates and her depth of analysis when exploring further possibilities within a brand. Our working style hasn’t changed since starting at WK, although one thing that they do brilliantly here is the team atmosphere of the agency. At WK everybody is encouraged to share work and we generally work in bigger teams where collaboration is encouraged, its great to work in an environment that embraces individuality as well as being a part of a working culture that also embraces culture and creativity. So far they have given us lots of responsibility, as well as nurturing us as young creatives, helping us to learn and grow.

CR: What are you working on at W+K at the moment?
SG: At the moment we are working on TV and online for Orange Romania and the Welsh Tourist Board, both ideas of which were bought by the client, and filming for both takes place over the next couple of weeks. Tony and Kim are also very keen for our TEMPlate product to continue and they give us time with which to work on it. We are starting work in the next couple of weeks on Nike and Honda.

Below is a selection of work from Ginn & Smith's book

Baked Bean campaign
The brief was set by a team at Red Brick Road. They have Tesco as a client and wanted to see what we could do for a humble can of value baked beans. We saw this as a re-branding project and found out that quite a percentage of people were partial to eating beans cold and do it fairly regularly. As beans are fairly nutritious we thought it would be funny to remarket the product and give it more of a brand voice that people could relate to in a warm way. All the images are how we'd suggest they would be packaged and positioned. We wanted to make the idea of eating cold beans socially expectable so we changed the packaging to have a ring pull and come with a spork to aid ease of use.

The beans would change store positioning and move next to the lunchtime snack area amongst eg the sandwiches to help people see them the same way they do other snack foods.

There would be multi packs to suggest picnics and recycling bins and bean holders would be placed in area where we felt people are more likely to be eating snack foods. All this would be cheap media that we hoped could create a social buzz for the product along with the in store 3D display.

Powwow (Created by Sarah Ginn with Ana Innes, also from Kingston University)

Powwow was created in response to the desire to improve communication between students and professionals in design. We observed that students weren’t given an equal platform with which to voice their opinions and were often overlooked, In order to readdress this balance we had the idea to create a series of student led events which encourage the collaboration between students and professionals and give everyone an equal opportunity to participate. When we approached D&AD with the idea they loved it, and agreed to give us New Blood as a venue for our first event, as well as publicity online and in various literature, and the use of their logo on all publicity. In order to do this we had to do all of the admin, publicity, branding etc. ourselves. It was challenging but we met a lot of interesting people and learnt a lot in the process. Initially we didn’t think people in the industry would take us seriously but to our surprise they did. We rang Patrick Burgoyne from CR and he was really enthusiastic, and so were all three of our industry guest speakers when we called them. It was great to get involved in such a big project, which involved project management as well as designing, and hopefully it will be the start of something new which has a positive impact on design students everywhere. The Powwow event at D&AD was a real success and over 400 people turned up. The seven sided ping pong table that we used in the publicity we actually had made into a life size wooden version, which we had at the degree show and at New Blood, lots of people commented on how fun it was to play and it proved a real success.

TEMPlate

Entering the RSA design awards is a compulsory part of the Kingston Graphic Design course. We thought that in entering the award we could add something new and interesting to our book. The product, TEMPlate, which we now have patented and trademarked, is a ceramic dinner plate that can be placed in the oven or microwave for up to an hour and still be removed using your hands because the rim and underside remain cool to the touch whilst the central part where the food sits heats up quickly and stays hotter for longer. The project was conceived following extensive research and consumer testing and with the help of a doctor in ceramics at a UK university. We are currently at the stage of producing a working prototype and obtaining funding before going to see manufacturers. We have already been approached by two well known manufacturers. Our mission statement throughout the entire project was ‘If you design with the most vulnerable user in mind the outcome will be more accessible to everyone.’ We learnt that this statement could also be applied to all areas of advertising and design.

More4 documentary

We were both invited to participate in a More4 documentary (that charted the creative process of making an advert – our brief: to advertise terrorism) by Paul Arden. We spent two intense days being filmed doing lots of research trying to get more of an understanding about what motivates people to become suicide bombers. The topic itself is anything but black and white with every case study showing great differences in their motivation. One of the things we watched was a fairly powerful film entitled ‘Dirty kuffar’ which contained an amalgamation of footage from Western news programs that were being used in a negative light – alongside a provoking rap. As the topic is really sensitive we decided to produce a rap video ourselves as it seemed most likely to appeal to our target audience of 18 to 25 year olds. We also just wanted to produce a film that focused on one person’s view on why he wanted to become a suicide bomber, as everyone’s story is different, but still it would help to give the British public more of an understanding why people would want to become one. We produced the film in the hope that it would give people something to talk about and discuss while at the same time improving their understanding of what is a complicated and sensitive topic. The video, called I'm Ready, is due to be shown early next year. We also created a typographic representation of the video which is a shot of a rucksack with the lyrics of the rap we wrote printed on it. This shows how a generic product, the rucksack, has become a symbol of terrorism in the Western World.

Some of our readers might recognise the images below, by Sarah Ginn, which appeared in our 2006 Photography Annual. These are the images that were commissioned by Arden (see interview above)