AWARD School Melbourne 2011 gets underway

The prospective students of the class of 2011 have taken their seats on the AWARD School benches.

Their year commenced yesterday with an opening lecture at the VCA Southbank. Honouring prospective creatives with a visit was Guy Roberts (centre), creative director of Droga5, Auckland. 

Roberts shared his quest for a Yellow Pencil and a Gold Lion and talkedthem through his career; from his humble beginnings working as anillustrator, where his early work included illustrating STDs anddrawing things from a morgue, to working as a storyboard artist, tosome harshly British rejections from ECDs in London, to getting hisfirst break working in DM agencies and his present work as CD at Droga5.

Roberts took students through a series of his multi award winning AdidasCase Studies to remind them that the harder you work, the luckier youget, and that if you have the passion, tenacity and desire, theinspiration and ideas will come. He encouraged students to learn tointerrogate briefs and to push the idea rather than the channel first.

Roberts has worked in London, Australia and New Zealand in a creativecareer spanning some 20 years. He’s not without a Melbourne connection,having worked at George Patterson Bates in the early 2000’s.

He’s worked with well known brands such as Adidas, ASB and Mercury andhas been at both the judging and receiving end of the awards spectrum,winning the Grand Prix at Cannes for the gutsy Adidas ‘Bonded By Blood’campaign, as well as scoring numerous other Cannes winnings. Scooping aGrande Clio and numerous other creative accolades, resulted in Robertsbeing named Campaign Brief’s number one creative in 2008.

There are 50 Melbourne students graduating in July this year. Schoolheads are Jay Hynes from DraftFCB (above left) and David Ponce de Leon (above right) from BDNetwork, and a further ten creatives are tutoring, making for a broadbase of Melbourne support for the students.