Edinburgh College Trip

The Leith Barge was down there, somewhere.

A few months back, we went on a trip to Edinburgh with College to visit some Advertising and Design Agencies in the area. Looking at the picture above, its hard to imagine the weather that day, or more importantly, what warmth feels like.

But anyway, the first studio we visited was Newhaven, a very cool renovated building that sits just through a alley on one of Edinburghs residential streets just off Princess Street. Outside you'll find a rickshaw from India, inside, a ping pong table, a huge Bollywood mural advertising Tennents Lager, and a whole pile of awards...in a bin. It's not your average agency.

At the time, the agency was overseen by Gareth Howells, Newhaven's founder. The agency was a branch off company from the Leith Agency (who we visited later). Basically it had something to do with Tennents Lager, and Gareth was fine with that. The agency does alot of great advertisements for the Scottish Government and Tennents, so whilst alot of their work wasn't recognisable to us, the quality of their work definitely was.

We then trekked down to the Leith Agency, in Leith. We were taken onto a barge, which is utterly bizarre in itself, and were told that this was their boardroom. Equally mental, but cool. We were shown examples of their work, again, alot of it was Scottish so it wasn't too recognisable, but their enthusiasm and humour made it again look like another very cool place to work.

Finally, we went to an agency just 5 minutes from Leith called Story. It was late in the day, and although we were by this time a little hot and bothered, we were handed a brief and told to do some work. The brief was to brand a spray to scare off the midgies for the summer, a big problem up north. I think we called our spray smite, and whilst I'm pretty certain our whole pitch was fantastic, I can't remember what our adverts looked like. Something about a midgie with binoculars I think. But i'm sure it was a winner. It was particularly cool to get to work alongside some advertising students for a change as well.

Whilst there wasn't much out and out 'Graphic Design' on display, this was a very valuable trip. Last year I really didn't appreciate Advertising. I didn't appreciate the processes, and howAdvertising agencies employ a whole range of different skill sets, or the fascinating methods they use to generate really interesting ideas. Its an incredibly interesting job to have, and whilst it often gets bad press from cynics, I can honestly say that all the professionals we met on the trip were incredibly friendly, enthusiastic and very good at what they do.