D&AD New Blood Shift matters. It allows the creative industries to become richer with talent. It finds and prepares the talent that has been locked out because it lacks qualifications. D&AD New Blood Shift is a free 12-week night school that creates pathways into the creative industries for those outside of traditional academia. In 2018, 78% of the Shifters secured placements after graduating the program in January, in companies such AKQA, Iris and Design Bridge.
D&AD 2019’s New Blood Shift New York program has just finished with a showcase that presented its graduates work to leading industry figures at the Caelum Gallery, Manhattan, including their responses to the 2019 briefs.
As part of Shift, applicants get the opportunity to work on a diverse range of projects that reflect the latest trends and topics of the industry, including real client briefs set by leading creatives. This year’s headline sponsor, adidas, set three creative briefs, which challenged the teams to change the lives of young female athletes in New York City, use the global stage of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to drive online purchases and create a social campaign that promotes diversity in sport.
Each year, the programme works with the city’s industry to mentor and host sessions. This year’s supporters include H+K Strategies, McCann, TBWA\Chiat\Day, The Mill and JKR.
Jenn Dewey-Rudd, program lead, D&AD New Blood Shift NY, commented, “The work showcased today only gives you a glimpse at the level of talent that comes in each year. When applicants join, they’re coming to us as fully formed artists but the programme enables them to harness that talent into something they can develop into a career. With Shift, we’re aiming to level the playing field and get new voices into the rooms where work is being made”
Hilary Chittenden, senior foundation manager, D&AD at D&AD, added “Shift is in its third year now and I continue to be hugely impressed by the calibre of talent demonstrated by applicants. There is a missed opportunity when agencies or brands choose to only hire people from within their usual networks or from within traditional academia. The purpose of Shift is to highlight that there is a pool of untapped talent equally suitable for these roles that is ignored because they don’t have the traditional qualifications. We hope the industry sees this as an opportunity to branch out and discover new and different types of talent.”
Find further details of the Shift NY programme, including information on the Class of 2019, here.
The D&AD Shift programme will also be taking place in London in 2019. Further details will be announced shortly.
D&AD 2019 New Blood Shift New York worked
In partnership with:
adidas
Supported by:
AKQA
Big Spaceship
City Tech Brooklyn
Design Bridge
Elephant
Freuds
Guinness World Records
H+K Strategies
Jack Morton
JKR
McCann
Mother
Pearlfisher
SUB ROSA
SY Partners
TBWA\Chiat\Day
The Mill
Tru TV
VMLY&R
