The digital scene up and down the country is awash with awards, but how many of them actually mean anything to anyone? Is chasing awards the way to a prosperous career and getting yourself in front of employers or clients? Leanne Buchan asks someone in the know.
Founded in 2002 the Sh! Awards were always going to be a slightly different breed of awards. For a start they have their roots in celebrating passion and great design, not flogging extortionately priced tickets to supplement the income of a publishing industry. The awards were founded in honour of a talented young designer named Stuart Hocknell who not all had the pleasure of meeting. Stuart sadly lost his life to meningitis at a young age but his legacy lived on via his colleagues at Brass, or Brahm as was. The aim was to celebrate new talent and throw a spotlight on those just starting out giving them a step on the career ladder.
This brings us on to the second reason why these awards are unique. They’re not about who you know. A criticism often levelled at the digital sector is that it’s too cliquey. You have to have cut your teeth on the agency circuit for a few years before you’re taken seriously regardless of talent – something that myself and colleagues on the client frequently bristle at.
No, this is not a popularity contest nor a rich list of those who can afford to enter the most categories. The Sh! Awards are open exclusively to students and are free to enter. The awards ceremony is free to attend as the event relies on sponsorship. A localised awards ceremony, spotlighting young creative blood, that even raises money for the Meningitis Research Foundation.
All sounding great so far but does it actually mean anything to anyone? I caught up with previous winner Matt Young who now works for Penguin Publishing to find out.
What were you doing when you heard about the Sh! awards?
I was studying Graphic & Communication Design at the University of Leeds at the time, and the head of our course would often send emails to all of us students saying “Hey, why not have a look at these competitions that are coming up” or “Hey, here’s a good opportunity for some work experience” and so on.
To be entirely honest, I ignored that email – I had no intention of entering the Sh! Awards at all. At the time I was struggling to meet my deadlines for my final big design project at uni. I was pulling all nighters every night of the week, so the Sh! Awards weren’t even on my radar really.
Then, on the day of the Sh! deadline, with just a few hours to go until applications had to be in, my personal tutor from university (Claire Tindale) emailed me saying “I hope you’re going to enter these Sh! Awards, it’d be a shame if you didn’t”. Claire was somebody that I looked up to, and there was a little nagging part in the back of mind that didn’t want to disappoint her. The Sh! Awards were free to enter, and I didn’t have to create any new work – I could enter existing work, stuff that I’d done during uni – so I thought alright, I might as well enter, it’s only going to take five minutes.
That sounds easy enough. What did you enter?
If I remember correctly, the Sh! application said you could enter up to five pieces of work, so I just selected the four or five pieces that I was the most proud of at the time. It was all uni work but things that I thought showed off the best range of my skills.
These are the pieces I entered, I had fun reminiscing digging these out for you:
– Inprint books http://inprint-books.com/
– Colin the Umbrella https://vimeo.com/6986263
– The City https://vimeo.com/10354304
– Remember My Name https://vimeo.com/8082784
The industry is saturated with awards at the minute and it seems a new one is launched every week. I know what I like about Sh! Awards, what’s so special about these awards to you?
Well the Sh! Awards were specifically aimed at students, and not only that but just students from the Yorkshire and North-east area, it’s not even a nationwide competition, so it’s a bit niche. To be honest, this put me off a little bit. I was more tempted by the BIG competitions like D&AD or YCN, or the Penguin Design Awards. However, the problem with all these competitions, is that they require you to create new work. They set a brief, and you have to put an awful lot of time and effort in to answering that brief.
It’s a lovely idea, and indeed one that results in a lot of students generating a lot of great work, but for me the obstacle was always time. I was already putting all the time I possibly had into my university work. I wanted to enter so many of these competitions, but could never quite manage to squeeze in yet another project in-between the dissertation I was writing and the books I was designing and the animations I was making and the sketchbooks I was filling, and everything else I was doing in order to try and get my degree.
The beauty of the Sh! Awards was that I didn’t have to create any new work. I could just enter the best of the work that I’d already created. This was what made it so easy to enter with just a few hours to go before the deadline.
So it only took five minutes, was it worth taking that time out to enter?
Well, I landed myself a job! That was a plus.
I was just out of university, and I didn’t really have a plan. I knew I’d have to get a job of some sort, but I didn’t really know what I wanted or where I wanted to work. Thankfully I didn’t have to answer any of these difficult questions, as a job was just handed to me on a plate.
I was at Glastonbury when I found out I’d won. The Sh! Awards people were holding a big party in Leeds for the awards night, but unfortunately I couldn’t be there to gorge on the free food and drinks, or to pick up my award in person. I didn’t find out I’d won until the next morning. I was trying to ration my phone battery whilst I was at Glasto, and so when I turned my phone on the next morning I had a tweet telling me that I was the winner, and that I’d been offered a six-month work placement with Brass.
That’s the great thing about Sh! Awards. It’s not just a trophy that gathers dust in a room or a certificate that gets hidden away in a folder. There is a tangible prize that helps set you up for your future career.
That’s quite a prize but most of us have a work experience horror story involving a deep sympathy with the teas maid. Was the work experience genuinely related to the industry ?
Yes this was definitely hands-on work experience! They liked some of my animation work so the first big project they had me working on was an animation for Brass themselves, rather than for an external client. It was basically a short video about how they’re great at utilising social media for their clients. It was a bit surreal really – the video revolved around cheese, and a central character who had a giant papier maché Frank-Sidebottom-esque head. One of the Creative Directors at Brass really had a thing for Frank Sidebottom, and so he was all like “Yeah, you’ve got to get a papier maché head in there, it’ll be hilarious!”… so that’s what we did.
Big mistake. About a week before the video was finished, Selfridges launched a big window display which featured mannequins wearing Frank-Sidebottom-esque heads, and the community of Frank Sidebottom fans went a bit mental because Selfridges had “ripped him off”. It caused a minor uproar in the media and obviously Brass didn’t want to face a similar “scandal”, so our animation was dropped and instead we ended up creating a rap video which featured one of the account handlers rapping about social media. Certainly an interesting first assignment!
The biggest project I worked on at Brass was a big re-design of part of the Welcome to Yorkshire website. It involved working out of my comfort zone as I’d not done much web-design work before, and I was having to learn new skills and software as I went along. Thankfully I had a really supportive Creative Director behind me on that project, and I felt like I was given quite a lot of responsibility. I also got to work on designing part of the Yorkshire Water website, and design an app for Ribena.
And now you work for Penguin Publishing – how did that happen?
I was sat at my desk at Brass one afternoon when I saw a tweet from Coralie Bickford-Smith (senior cover designer at Penguin, responsible for these lovely books), asking if anyone could recommend any freelance animators who are also good with typography. I cheekily tweeted back recommending myself for the job, and a few weeks later I was invited down to London for a chat with Penguin’s marketing department about this freelance animation job they had in mind.
Whilst I was visiting Penguin, Coralie had heard that I was there and came over to say hello. She said she had a “design crush” on my work, which left me a bit gob-smacked. We got in to conversation for a few minutes, and she casually mentioned that they were looking for a new junior cover designer – my dream job! But then she dropped the bombshell that the deadline for applications had passed about two weeks ago.
I was gutted but the Sh! Awards taught me that I have nothing to lose so I decided to apply anyway. I spent the next six days hand-making a small 36-page illustrated book explaining my story and why I wanted the job. I created a cover from layers of cut card, in the style of a vintage Penguin paperback, and gave it the title ‘The Missed Opportunity‘. By the time it reached Penguin it was three weeks past the application deadline.
Two rounds of interviews later, and the job was mine!
If you have one piece of advice for someone thinking about entering the Sh! awards what would it be?
Do it! Why would you NOT enter? It could just lead to something great.
Even if you don’t win, it can open up some doors for you. As part of the judging your work gets seen by a whole bunch of ‘industry experts’, and I actually ended up getting freelance commissions just off the back of my Sh! entry.
This is my final, most important and compulsory question – What’s your favourite Power Ballad and why?
I’m not really into my Power Ballads, but if I had to pick one it would be that one that goes “Turn around, bright eyes … Every now and then I fall apart … And I need you more than ever” and so on. I can’t remember who sings it, but it brings back some fantastic memories involving mountains, fountains, and umbrella theft.
This year’s Sh! Awards are sponsored by a bevvy of Leeds digital agencies including Brass, Elmwood, Made by Pi, Numiko, with support from Round Foundry Media Centre & Leeds Media. The awards event takes place 24th May and is free to attend: http://sh-awards.eventbrite.com/