The School of Visual Arts is adding a branding master’s program to finally tap into the marketing aspect of branding and design. Now, being a recent SVA grad, I have a ton of opinions about this school. While I know that I’ve learned a lot there, even more so than people I’ve met from other ad schools around the world, I still think SVA has a long way to go when it comes to advertising. And I think that the ads for the school prove his true- year after year.
That being said, it seems to me as though the design department is flourishing. And why shouldn’t it be? Between the surplus of amazing talent, and the abundance of highly skilled teachers, great things are bound to happen. In our graduating class, the advertising and graphic design department was by far the largest. But there were only about 30-40 ad kids perhaps? I started out in a double major, advertising and graphic design, before slowly (and unregrettably) drifting over to the world of copywriting. I used to have a teacher who told me that advertising was the dark side. Personally I thought she was part of the dark side, and I spent hours explaining to her and other students about my love for the world of ideas.
Anyway, I think SVA needs to improve their advertising program a bit. There were only a handful of portfolio teachers to choose from my last year of college, and while a few of them may have been legendary greats at the school, they could use some help in keeping up with the quickly-evolving times. Overall the ad department teaches concept great, it’s just a matter of finding the right teacher for you. I was fortunate enough to take two years with Sal DeVito. While his agency and his style may be a bit old fashioned, he definitely makes you understand what you’re talking about. Before long you’re able to critique your own work in exactly the same words the public will think when looking at your ad. And maybe a few fresh, young faces wouldn’t hurt on the staff end. So many agencies are primarily digital nowadays, but SVA doesn’t teach much of that at all! There’s a new addition, some sort of 360 class which is supposed to teach how to campaign an idea across all types of medium. But from my understanding the class was a huge bust and nothing was ever accomplished. Then of course there’s the award winning unconventional (outdoor/guerilla) class which is fantastic in it’s own right, but I think that being ahead of the times would be a huge advantage for students at SVA. We are approaching a new era of advertising, but nobody knows how to tackle it appropriately. Students are just throwing digital/interactive pieces together just for the sake of going digital. Clients are saying “we need to put this on Facebook and Twitter” just because that’s what’s hot right now. Personally, I think that we are just hitting the tip of the iceberg with digital and interactive work. We need to dive beyond the basic functionality of the already figured out digital world, and see what else we can do. Too many people are getting lazy with this, but mostly people just aren’t experimenting with it enough. We’ve hit a time in which our worlds are completely bombarded. How do we do things differently in a way that nobody has seen before? It seems nearly impossible, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s not like we’re back in the days of Bill Bernbach when simplifying really did make an unspeakable difference in the message. We’re past that. Long copy, short copy, no copy. Headlines only, taglines only, images only. How do we embark upon this digital world to interact with humans in a way that was never before even THOUGHT to be possible? Keep pushing.
I didn’t learn the business aspects of the advertising world from school. School taught me how to be conceptual, and think of ideas that stand out and just work. And I suppose my sketching abilities have improved 100%. I came into class week after week, year after year with sketches. I’m thankful that I was able to nab an internship at a small agency for the last two years of my college career, because without that I would have been clueless as to how the creative process happens. The business side of things; the “how does an idea start and where does it go once it happens” side of things. It took me a year and a half at SVA before I could finally put together an accurate sentence about the difference between a copywriter and art director. Now, looking back that just sounds like moronic common sense. But transitioning from the “graphic design” world to the advertising world in a school where they say “both majors are basically the same,” it got a bit confusing at times. Especially for a copywriter. It wasn’t until the end of my junior year that I finally realized that I had wanted to be a copywriter. And that’s not because I was clueless in my endeavors, I just simply didn’t know the duties of a copywriter.
However, I loved the advertising department because I felt so detached from the rest of the school. I guess that’s not necessarily a good thing, but it is a huge reason why I loved it. I never wanted the average college experience of dorms, frats, sororities etc. I wanted to work, and go to class as necessary. At SVA I didn’t feel like I went to an art school. My first year at SVA I wanted to shoot myself in the face in some of my humanities classes after listening to some depressed hipster ramble on and on about their latest drug binge conveyed onto an 8′x10′ sheet of black canvas. I liked the solidity of meeting at ad agencies to present work.
Okay I got WAY off topic here. I swear I didn’t mean for this to be an SVA review. Hopefully the addition of this program will thrust SVA into a world of advancement. Too many students leave the school without a CLUE as to how the real world happens. But if you’re interested in this program, Debbie Millman will chair the branding department. She’s partner-president at Sterling Brands, and also a fabulous teacher. I had the pleasure of taking her Creative Leadership in the Business World course during my last semester at SVA.
Maybe I should go back for my Master’s Degree? The job market isn’t so hot right now, so what’s another few classes? Ha, yeah right. Even if I wanted to jump back into anther year or two of school I couldn’t afford it. I think I’ll just stick to the game plan of finally starting my career, and maybe some personal side projects to advance my writing. One day I’ll be writing for something interesting, not just my random blog that only 3 people visit.
