A Young Creatives Guide

Dear eager and confused college students,

So, you want to dive into the murky waters of advertising, do you? Good luck, kids. Here’s your first lesson. This industry is a savage beast that eats creatives for breakfast and spits out the ones who can’t keep up. But if you’ve got the stomach for it—and a knack for spinning simple, clear ideas into gold—you might just survive. Hell, you might even thrive. Don’t get me wrong, this industry is a ton of fun and can literally take you around the world. But it all starts with a plan. A plan that began the minute you decided you were interested in being a creative in the ad industry.

Many students coast through their college experience, arriving at the end, diploma in hand, wondering ‘What next?” While their parents are asking the same question. All you think you know is that spending hours, days, and weeks on LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, and Indeed is gonna save you. Unfortunately, it’s not. It’s just gonna disappoint you, one ghosting after another.

So what next? Well, before you get to the end of your legendary college career, it's best to start asking yourself this question early, so you can understand what you’re driving towards and how to go about achieving your future in this mad industry. We’ve gathered up a few guiding lights on how to start building an ad career mindset, thinking about your portfolio, and some realities your professors may have left out. While no one wants to start thinking like an adult while doing keg stands, at some point, it helps to start. Definitely, before you're resume #437 on the LinkedIn creative intern job post.

1. Don’t wait, Start Now

Too many young creatives waste time waiting for the “right moment”—the diploma in hand, the perfect portfolio, the miracle job posting. Forget all that. The right moment is now. You don’t need to have it all figured out yet—but you do need to start. Junior year, 1st semester senior year, wherever you are, this early stage isn’t about making big decisions; it’s about gathering clues. You’re a detective, piecing together what the ad world looks like and where you might fit inside it.

Start researching the industry. Dig into portfolio schools, agencies, and the people making the kind of work that makes your pulse jump. Follow their paths, study their porfolios, learn the language. Send a few emails, ask a few questions, and start building your own map of what’s out there. I guarantee you have friends that know they’re going to med school, law school or gonna get an MBA, well, why shouldn’t you start thinking about your next steps. No one’s asking you to choose your future today—they’re just asking you to get curious enough to explore it. The diploma can wait. The learning starts now.

2. Get an Internship and Learn How the Beast Operates

Internships while you're still in school or during the summer months is a great way to see how the industry operates. Don’t wait until you graduate. But don’t get suckered into thinking it’s all about padding your resume either. No, no—this is about understanding the engine of an ad agency. You’ll find out who’s calling the shots, how ideas are pitched, and just how damn political it can all be. Use this time to be a sponge. Shut up, listen, and absorb. But, ask questions. Figure out how things really get done when nobody’s looking. Ask questions. Literally sit behind an art director while they design something and watch their process. Ask questions. Sit in on a VO read and hear how direction is given to talent. Ask the big scary CD if you can sit in the corner while they review campaigns and creative with account people to hear how they do it. 

Again, an internship isn’t about making money or padding your resume; it's about absorbing as much as you can so you know how it works and possibly even sell some work. By the end of it, you’ll have a clearer idea of where you want to fit into this madhouse industry. But don't be late to the party. If you're looking at large agencies like BBDO, GSD&M, Goodby, they start their intern recruitment and hiring sooner than you think, smaller agencies have limited space and budgets, so start digging and gathering info so you can be the intern the agency is talking about on Monday after Fridays happy hour.

3. Portfolio + Personality

In this business, your portfolio speaks louder than your résumé ever could. A résumé tells people what you’ve done; a portfolio shows them who you are. It’s proof of how you think, how you see the world, and how far you’re willing to stretch to make an idea sing. For young creatives, curiosity is the real currency—the willingness to learn, to experiment, to ask dumb questions and chase strange answers. The best work doesn’t come from experience alone; it comes from staying endlessly curious, forever learning, and refusing to believe you’ve already arrived. The résumé might get you in the room—but your attitude, your hunger to learn, and the work you’ve made will keep you there.

4. Keep it Simple

Let’s get one thing straight: nobody cares how complex you can make something. OR how well you can mock-up the same ad 15 different times. Not in advertising. We’re in the business of clear, concise ideas that hit like a freight train, in a matter of seconds. The simpler, the better. A lot of folks can weave tangled webs of nonsense and jargon, but that won’t cut it here. When you hold your portfolio up in a mirror and look at it from an outsider’s POV, do you want to look through it, read it, engage with it? Are the campaign descriptions intriguing or wordy, boring, and contrived? Is there a central idea that you can hold over your head, and your mom can clearly know what it is? If you can take a complicated message and make it feel as easy as a Sunday morning, you’re halfway there. Focus on distilling your thoughts down to the bone. This is easier said than done, but that’s why the industry separates the wheat from the chaff.

5. Do Your Homework: Find the Best Agencies

Here’s a novel idea: don’t just look in your backyard. Identify 25 or more agencies across the US and beyond that are cranking out work that makes your palms sweat. Big agencies, small agencies, medium-sized—doesn’t matter. Get a sense of what’s out there. It’s a much bigger industry than that one agency that came and talked to your class that one time. Because one day, you’ll need a place to send that portfolio, and the last thing you want is to be stuck in a cubicle farm in your college town just because you didn’t do your research. This industry is vast; Go where the good work is.

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6. Surround Yourself with Greatness

If you’re serious about this gig, then you’d better start studying the pros. Be an ad dork. Lürzers Archive Magazine, Communication Arts, The One Show, Cannes Lions, D&AD, even Pinterest and many other websites—these should be your creative bibles. Spend your days marinating in the kind of work that makes your heart race and your envy flare. Let it feed your ambition and push you to create work that stands toe-to-toe with the best. If you’re not studying this stuff, what are you even doing? These books and shows are a candy jar of talent that you should strive to work with and be taught by. Knowing who is doing what and what agencies are non-stop idea machines will put you steps ahead in the interview room because your passion for concepting, creating, and throwing mud at the wall until it sticks will shine through. 

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7. Know Your Lane: Art Director or Copywriter?

So you want to be an Art Director? Fantastic. Time to geek out on design, typography, photography, and all the visual magic that makes an ad visually sing. Your job is twofold: concept and execution. When you and your partner dream up an incredible idea, how do you want it to look, visually stand out, what are the different options to execute the idea? Is it illustrated, a visual solution, a complex shoot, clean and graphic? This is where you geek out and explore the options to find the best. You’ll need to know the basics—laying out a print ad, designing a billboard, putting together a great mood board. Don’t let anyone tell you print is dead. It’s the foundation of art direction and the great ones can do it in their sleep. And remember, it's not about how well you can mockup an ad into multiple media placements, or how well you can generate an AI visual. You are 50% of the idea generating brain power needed to deliver great conceptual thinking and visual solutions.

Copywriters, the other 50% brain power, this means you, too. Smart, witty headlines. Copy that bites, cajoles, and charms. You’ve got to craft sentences that can hook an audience and keep them reeling. Can you win people over with just three words? Wordsmith the shit out of a sentence to find the right balance, pacing, and texture. Concept and copy. If you’re not dreaming up ideas, scripts, and taglines that make people laugh, cry, or just feel something, you’re in the wrong game. And if you can help visualize your ideas with your own mood boards, rough layouts, shitty sketches, something to kick the idea-can down the road, your Art Director will love you that much more. Save the Cialis commercials for other creatives, and chase the ideas that will make others nervous and get you noticed.

8. You can’t do Everything‍

You might think it’s more appealing to be a jack-of-all-trades, able to handle many different creative tasks, but when you're just starting out, for those of us hiring you, it can be more confusing than helpful. When you say I’m an art director, a designer, a strategist, a photographer, an editor, a social media savant, and a wedding planner, you’ve just made it difficult for us to figure out what you really excel at, and what you really want to do. Plus, you’ll never be asked to do all those things.

We’re looking for young creatives who can stake their claim on a skill and show it off like a trophy. Don’t be the person who dabbles in everything and masters nothing. It’s great to have hobbies, and interests in different creative outlets, everyone needs them, but they all can’t be your primary gig. Find the one thing you’re great at and let it shine. Prioritize and commit to what you really see as your career and be the best damn version of that you can. 

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9. Your Portfolio is King, Your Degree is Just Paper

I’ll say it, no one gives a damn about your degree. You could have a master’s from the top ad school in the country, but if your portfolio’s weak, it’s a long hard uphill battle. Show us your work, your best ideas, your drive to refine them, and your attention to craft. The industry is ruthless, but it respects those who care and can deliver. Your portfolio is your ticket, your lifeline. Invest in it, sweat over it, and don’t ever let up as it's always a WIP with the goal for it to make someone pick up the phone and find you.

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10. Consider Portfolio School (and Be Ready to Sell Your Parents on It)

If you’re dead serious, portfolio school might be your next stop. Think of it as boot camp for creatives—a place where you can hone your skills on concepting, idea generation, art direction, copywriting and design. It’s where you focus on your craft, lock arms with your future industry cohorts, your first step into the industry, and prep for the trenches. It’s a graduate trade school,  like law school for lawyers, med school for doctors. But here you get to play ‘what if…” with ideas and throw things at walls to see if they stick. Way more messy and fun.

But don’t expect your parents to understand. You’ll have to sell them on the idea that this is your ticket to success. They’ll think it sounds like clown school. The Creative Circus was always a hard sell, but it was the best.  Convince them otherwise. Now, there are many different types of schools out there, some great, some not so much. Honestly, if you really want to give yourself the best opportunity to build the best portfolio, make lasting connections, and start off right, we recommend one of the longer programs. 16-24 months is a solid time for you to really focus on building your creative toolset. You must fail enough times to learn how to recover with better ideas, develop a more diverse portfolio than your classmates, and understand the industry and which agencies you eventually want to introduce your portfolio to. If this is the route you’re interested in, make sure you apply early, the top schools fill up fast as competition is strong. But remember, it’s up to you to make it happen, your parents may think its crazy, but it can lead you to a bigger and better future.

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11. Learn to Fail, and Then Fail Some More

Failure is a given. In fact, it’s the one thing you can count on in this business. You will fail 90-98% of the time. You’re going to pitch ideas that flop, concepts that crash, and campaigns that never see the light of day. You and your partner will not see eye-to-eye and you’ll either need to figure out how to convince them or kill it and move on. But if you can learn to embrace failure, to use it as fuel, to bounce back with better, you’ll find that each stumble brings you closer to the work that really matters. Resilience plus curiosity is the secret sauce. Embrace it. And in the great words of Dan Weiden, ‘Fail Harder’.

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12. Know Who Luke Sullivan Is and Read Hey Whipple, Squeeze This

If you haven’t heard of Luke Sullivan, then you’re not as prepared as you think. Get your hands on his book, Hey Whipple, Squeeze This, and read it until the spine cracks. He’s not just some old dusty man who decided to write another ad book. This is your crash course in advertising from someone who’s been in the trenches and lived to tell the tale. It’s more than a book—it’s a survival guide for creatives. Sullivan lays it out bare, warts and all, and gives you the tools to think like a great creative. He’ll teach you to push past the obvious and dig deeper. And you’d better start practicing that now because great ideas don’t just show up on command. They’re hard-fought and hard-won.

Sullivan’s book isn’t about fluff or academic theory; it’s about real-world advice from someone who’s done it. It’ll challenge you to think differently, take risks, and embrace the chaos of creative work. If you’re serious about advertising, then you owe it to yourself to dive into this book and let it mold your mind. Because in the end, this industry isn’t just about making ads—it’s about making ideas that stick. Sullivan knows how it’s done. Now it’s your turn to learn.

13. Ask Yourself: Are You Making Excuses or Finding Solutions?

In the end, you’ve got a choice. You can either wallow in excuses or hustle for solutions. Nobody likes a whiner. If you’re not willing to fight for your place in this industry, then step aside. But if you’re ready to dig in, get dirty, and claw your way up, then welcome to the madness. It’s a hell of a ride, but for those who can handle it, there’s nothing quite like it. The sooner you start wrapping your head around what you want to do, the better off you’ll be. Welcome to the ad industry.

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