D&AD Hosts Showcase of Work Created by New Blood Shift NY Class of 2019

This week saw the end of the D&AD 2019 New Blood Shift New York program. Leading industry figures were invited to the Caelum Gallery, Manhattan to view the work from this year’s Shift graduates, including the responses to the 2019 briefs.  

D&AD New Blood Shift is a free 12-week night school that provides young people without qualifications a foothold into the creative industries. The program prides itself on creating pathways into the creative industries for those outside of traditional academia. In 2018, 78% of the ‘Shifters’ secured placements following graduating the program in January, including in companies such AKQA, Iris, and Design Bridge.

As part of Shift, applicants get the opportunity to work on a diverse range of projects that reflect the latest trends and topics of the industry, including real client briefs set by leading creatives. As this year’s headline sponsor, adidas set three creative briefs, which challenged the teams to use sport to change the lives of young female athletes in New York City, and in the set brand brief, use the global stage of the 2020 summer games to drive traffic to www.adidas.com and create a social campaign that promotes and celebrates diversity in sport.

Each year, the programme works with the city’s industry to mentor and host sessions. This year’s supporters include H+K Strategies, McCann, TBWA\Chiat\Day, The Mill and JKR.  

Jenn Dewey-Rudd, Program lead, D&AD New Blood Shift NY says: “The work showcased today only gives you a glimpse at the level of talent that comes in each year. When applicants join, they’re coming to us as fully formed artists but the programme enables them to harness that talent into something they can develop into a career. With Shift, we're aiming to level the playing field and get new voices into the rooms where work is being made” 

Hilary Chittenden, Senior Foundation Manager, D&AD at D&AD says: “Shift is in its third year now and I continue to be hugely impressed by the calibre of talent demonstrated by applicants. There is a missed opportunity when agencies or brands choose to only hire people from within their usual networks or from within traditional academia. The purpose of Shift is to highlight that there is a pool of untapped talent equally suitable for these roles that is ignored because they don’t have the traditional qualifications. We hope the industry sees this as an opportunity to branch out and discover new and different types of talent” 

Further details of the Shift NY programme, including information on the Class of 2019, is available at: https://www.dandad.org/en/d-ad-new-blood-shift-nyc/ 

The D&AD Shift programme will also be taking place in London in 2019. Further details to be announced shortly. 

adidas 

AKQA

Big Spaceship   

City Tech Brooklyn 

Design Bridge

Elephant

Freuds 

Google 

Guinness World Records

H+K Strategies 

Jack Morton

JKR

McCann

Mother

Pearlfisher 

SUB ROSA

SY Partners

TBWA\Chiat\Day

The Mill

Tru TV

VMLY&R