By Elliot Lee

Battle of the Hash

Hashed, scrambled, jumbled. Probably sums up our first book score. Me and Henry quickly put together pieces of work without any form of indication in organisation. This is really the first time we have teamed up, so in reality we were putting together work from different partnerships. Neatly placed in a £3 hobbycraft A3 folder sat a Frankenstein of work that could have been presented in a much better fashion. Our scores were shown, and we even thought that was generous.

What quickly became apparent was how motivated we are to start working on new stuff together, and really bolster existing and future work. Now we are being scored on work, a reality storm has swooped the studio. It’s time to really step the game up, especially with D&AD looming around the corner.

What’s exciting to see is different individuals merging new teams who they feel are best tailored to a brief, aswell as staying with existing partners. Our biggest problem as an intake, and what has been frequently told to us is that we are not sharing ideas, solutions and opinions. This is all changing, very quickly for the better.

After some in-house issues, a pretty disastrous time at AMV, it’s really refreshing to see the motivation and rejuvenated attitude we’ve all collectively built to better ourselves and each other. More work is being pinned up on walls, the slack messages are becoming more frequent on crits for one another’s work. When you take a step back, the studio is starting to shape less as individuals, and more as a collective intake.

Ofcourse this is my opinion, there is always room for improvement, and some may disagree. Teamed up or not, we do need to all push ourselves to be as a successful intake as we possibly can be.

We all have different values and opinions. What we all mutually share though is the love and passion for ideas. After having a great chat with the wonderful Alex Mecklenburg, it became apparent that at times we might all be speaking in different ‘languages’. However, it’s integral to recognise the positives we have within one another. As Alex stated, you need to know what you’re willing to negotiate, and non-negotiables in regards to your values, and others around you.

In the realm of communications, there’s something much bigger than impressing others and ourselves with the big careers in the fancy offices. When you look past who’s regarded as the ‘favourites’ of the SCA, or any of the silly stuff that comes with ‘who won the SCA’, you start to see what the true meaning of what this studio in Brixton really brings. I’m surrounded by hugely inspiring, aspirational individuals who want to create meaningful work for the love of ideas, certainly students, but also the great mentors that come to help. The most important message in this blog and reflection is not to lose sight of why we came to the school, and in my opinion, that’s to leave a huge footprint in this industry creating great ideas which have longevity in change and effect.