Life at the bottom

I just stumbled across an amazing website called Life at the Bottom and it has a lot of great articles/resources for students and juniors. They also host interviews that are incredibly fun to read. And it's not just because they swear a lot and sometimes appear to be drunk, but it's also because they're not dry or formal. They're down to earth and make you feel like you're listening in on a really insightful conversation.
 
The latest interview is with Evan Fry. He's a former CP+B Creative Director and the founder of Victors & Spoils - an agency set up to utilize crowd-sourcing.  If that wasn't enough, he's also the man behind Be Fucking Awesome - a social network of sorts where you post your Fucking Awesome deeds, let the world vote on each one, and those votes contribute to your Awesome Quotient.

Evan has a great story about how he got into Crispin. It involves him submitting a picture of himself having a tea party with stuffed animals and another drinking tallboys with the homeless.

Below you'll find his tips for getting a job at a great agency:

• Get really good at the craft of being creative. 
• Write down everything. Take notes as you learn. Take notes as you concept.
• Doodle as you think. Keep the pen moving.
• Do lots of options for everything. Only through looking at it can you know if something is better or worse than what you already have. Look at it.
• Take it seriously; don’t expect it to come easy. Focus on the brief. Do “concepting intervals” where you focus and write every idea down. Then have a break. Then get back to it.
• Sketch everything. Go analog. Don’t fucking concept on your fucking laptop. Pad of paper. Pen or pencil. You alone, or you and your partner. Find somewhere to get in sync and focus and riff. When writing headlines, that’s when I think writing on your computer is good. But try using all caps, or two spaces between each headline. Treat it like art, and have some pride for how the words look. Do a bunch. Edit them a little. Do a bunch more. Edit a little. Repeat. If you’re building your book, keep the presentation simple. But don’t ignore the presentation.

Read the full interview here.