D&AD: Getting New Blood Flowing

Alice Schofield descibes how being picked as D&AD New Blood and entering its inspiring Graduate Academy helped her move from education to industry

My journey with D&AD started with a text message from a classmate one evening in June 2011. Not just any evening, but the D&AD New Blood Private View. ‘You’ve won an award for your work! Well done!’

I was ecstatic. The following day I found out that my graphic communications classmate at Loughborough, Hannah Dossary, and I had won a Best New Blood award for the infographic we had designed. As part of our prize we were given D&AD membership for one year and a place on the Graduate Academy Creative Bootcamp. We were also featured on the D&AD website and on Creative Review’s blog, which gave us great exposure.

The Graduate Academy was one of the best experiences I have had. I would describe the week as a crash course in preparing you for the industry by finding your brilliance and making it shine. We worked with The Spring Project development programme, which increased our confidence and encouraged us to consider our decisions and what we want to achieve. We worked in groups on a brief from onedotzero, which culminated in presenting our ideas to an industry panel at iris worldwide, another valuable experience. I worked with some incredible people and learned skills for life.

Part of the Graduate Academy was that the top 50 would win a placement to ‘get a foot in the door’ of the industry. A couple of interviews later and I’m a creative intern at digital agency Work Club. It’s brilliant. Every day I learn so much. There’s a big sense of community, which has helped me feel part of the team, and I’ve been working on exciting projects like the D&AD Awards call for entries.

D&AD has been supportive throughout my journey, not only by finding me a placement, which makes me excited to get out of bed in the morning, but also by offering advice and opportunities that I would not have otherwise had access to. Membership has provided a huge dose of inspiration plus countless opportunities for networking with industry people at events, such as the President’s Lectures. D&AD has helped me to make the jump from education to industry and I hope that I will continue to be involved with D&AD throughout my career.

For more about my Graduate Academy experience visit my blog: http://aliceschofield.blogspot.com