D&AD Shift with Google is a fully-funded, industry led night school programme for new creatives. If you are over 18 and don’t have a degree-level qualification, Shift is for you.
In partnership with Google and adidas, D&AD Shift is run in three cities: London, New York and Sydney. Shift creates an accessible space for self-made talent to learn from and connect with the industry, establish a network and find job opportunities.
Keep an eye on this page for updates on our next application intakes for London, New York and Sydney.
What is Shift?
D&AD Shift is a free night school, for self-made creatives without a university degree. This new talent programme is for those wanting to enter the commercial creative industry. Shift will aim to teach you about what types of roles are available to you within Advertising and Design. You will leave the night school with a creative portfolio, and a network of industry contacts as well as the tools to navigate the road ahead.
For the industry, Shift is a direct challenge to existing recruitment assumptions about where talent can be found. A programme that allows you to share knowledge, gain insight and recruit talent that you need.
Why does Shift exist?
Talent isn’t about where you’ve been, or who you know. And it’s not about money or having a university or college degree. We believe success should be about raw ability.
Through Shift, D&AD aims to nurture and connect aspiring self-made talent with the advertising and design industry, challenge the industry itself to change where it recruits its talent, and work towards a better, fairer and more representative creative industry.
How to apply for Shift
If you’re over 18, looking to get into the creative industry and do not have a university degree, you can apply for D&AD Shift. During the night school, we cover key skills useful to a creative career in the world of advertising and design such as design, copywriting, art direction, strategy and production to name a few.
You don’t need a pre-existing portfolio to apply for Shift, we want to find out about you, how you think and about your ideas, so be creative. You can share a design, a campaign concept, a piece of artwork, a video, some photographs, lyrics, a story - it’s up to you.
In the application you will be asked to upload a few examples of your work, so make sure you have these to hand.
How Shift works
Shift is a 4-month long industry led night school. Our partners and industry volunteers generously donate their time to teach on the programme. Shift guides a new generation of creators to understand how to apply their existing creative ideas in a commercial world. The curriculum has been developed in collaboration with some of the world’s most awarded creative agencies.
We focus on innovation, craft and ideas for advertising, design and production. We teach a balance of skills (ideation, storytelling, prototyping, enterprise) and attributes (curiosity, collaboration, bravery, resilience) across a period of four months. Over 120 hours of live client briefs, training from the best, peer-to-peer learning, pastoral support and industry mentoring is facilitated through a night school programme, allowing Shifters to train around their current commitments.
Shift Select & Shift Studio
We recognise that not all opportunities arise straight off the back of the initial 4 month night school so we have recently created Shift Select, an additional month of on-the-job learning where Shifters can specialise in a pathway (advertising, design, production) and learn with our agency partners.
2021 will also see the introduction of Shift Studio, an industry led learning experience that will enable the Shift alumni to continue to develop their portfolio through guided brief responses.
Shift Studio is about bringing new creative perspectives, lived experiences and authentic approaches to tackling business and societal challenges working directly with in-house teams at brands including; Google, Disney, giffgaff & Here Design.
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