You’ve probably seen the promo videos for your own city, but have you caught a glimpse of what the rest of the world was up to? We compiled all of the videos and posters onto a single page for everyone to see and enjoy.

After you’ve watched them all, we gotta ask… which ones were the best? Were you “gay” for PN8 Toronto’s tale of woe? Did PN8 Dubai’s “Advertising is Calling” call out to you? Were you drawn in by the low-budget simplicity of PN8 Atlanta, or the epic scale of PN8 Tel Aviv? The hard hitting PN8 Quebec City video, or the humor of PN8 Mumbai or Taipei? PN8 Stockholm’s bizarre swerve or PN8 Helsinki’s quirky hunt? PN8 Madrid’s stunt, or PN8 Hong Kong’s stunt gone wrong?

It’s hard to pick one, and luckily you don’t have to. You can now vote for the best PN8 promo videos, and since there’s so many to choose from, you are allowed to pick up to three selections. Get voting!

First up, we’ve received our first group of Portfolio Night 8 photos and have posted them for the world to see. Just scroll over the Pics + Vids tab at the top of the page, then click on PN8 Event Photos. There you will see all the snapshots from PN8 Austin, Chicago, Montreal, New York and Toronto. Don’t worry, there are lots more photos to come, as well as videos from the various cities.

We also asked all of the PN8 young creatives to share their thoughts and feedback with us, now that they’ve made out of Portfolio Night 8 alive. Here’s a quick taste of the first batch of comments:

“I would like to thank you for Portfolio Night. It is really awesome! … I received some very direct and good comments form the CDs, regarding what to include in my portfolio and how to organize it for it be more more impressive.”
Gizem, PN8 Dubai

“Thanks for the opportunity to participate in Portfolio Night … what I found extremely interesting was how the same work was treated so differently by everyone.”
Lefteris, PN8 Athens

“I had an amazing time at the portfolio night, I definitely got the best feedback I have had in a long time!”
Hannah, PN8 San Francisco

“I came in nervous and excited, but that turned into exhilaration, which turned into exhaustion after I was done. The night was a success.”
Yahkeema, PN8 Chicago

“A heartfelt thanks for giving us such a kickass platform. The event spanned out rather nicely with me getting a lot of constructive feedback.”
Ashu, PN8 Mumbai

“i really appreciated it, and the event really gave me focus and motivation to work on my book.”
Joshua, PN8 Los Angeles

“Great pizza. Nice beer. Sweet swag bags.”
Beth, PN8 Seattle

“Portfolio Night was great fun! We met many nice people and it was great to hang out with other creatives!”
Kristin, PN8 London

Of course we’re still looking to hear what Portfolio Night 8 was like for you Did you have a great time? Were you nervous, excited, both? Who did you meet? What advice did you get? What are your next steps? How much closer are you to your first advertising job? Was there anything you didn’t like about the event? What could’ve been better? Send all of your compliments and critiques to Brett McKenzie at brett@ihaveanidea.org with PORTFOLIO NIGHT FEEDBACK as your subject line

We did it.

The Portfolio Night team would like to thank EVERYONE involved in last night’s festivities. A lot of hard work went into making it happen, and from what we’ve seen and heard so far, hard work pays off.

There’s still plenty more to come on the PN8 website, as each city prepares its videos and photos of the event for all the world to see. In the meantime, we’d like to reach out to the young creatives, the juniors who attended. How was Portfolio Night 8 in your city? How were you feeling before you got there? What was the vibe like? Who was the best CD you met? What sort of advice did you receive? Did you make any new friends among your peers? What are your next steps? A job? A portfolio overhaul? We want to know! We’ll be posting some of the most interesting tales right here next week.

And don’t think we’re only looking for glowing praise here, ladies and gentlemen. We would love to hear your constructive criticism. Did the evening not live up to your expectations? Could some aspects have been better? Music too loud? Lights too soft? CDs too callous? How would you have changed things? We need to hear the bad alongside the good, because that’s the only way we can make things better for Portfolio Night 9.

Please send your stories, your highlights, your compliments and criticisms to Brett McKenzie at brett@ihaveanidea.org, with PORTFOLIO NIGHT 8 FEEDBACK as your subject line. Don’t forget to include your name and the name of the city you attended. And if you have any questions, we’ll try to answer them right away.

Thanks once again!

ART DIRECTOR
http://caitlinfinndaoust.blogspot.com
PORTFOLIO NIGHT 8 SEATTLE PARTICIPANT

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When did you realize you wanted to get into advertising?

“It wasn’t an option; it was more an addiction I didn’t want to fight. I have a background in film, and landed a job as a Casting Director for a big NYC agency. Once there, I knew I was a creative who had been doing the wrong thing. Like a circle being jammed into a square space. Once I realized that I hung up my casting gloves and went to Ad School. “

Why is there so much bad advertising out there?

” I think there is a lot of bad advertising out there because people stop once they get something that works, and don’t push for the amazing hallelujah ideas that blow you away. And sometimes people get too comfortable in their surroundings and need a good shake once in awhile.”

How would you explain your future job to family or friends who don’t know anything about the advertising industry?

“I say that I am an idea generator. I think of things, new things, odd things, and silly things, any-things that can grow into big ideas.”

What are your favorite non-advertising related creative outlets?

“My outlet is art. Screen printing, painting, photography, and watching a great film. That, and nude mud wresting.”

What would make you indispensable to an ad agency?

“I never stop. I never quit. I want to solve every problem, every mystery. I am a creature of pop culture.”

How do you know when you’ve seen the best idea ever?

“When it can be applied to anything. When it takes over. When it creates it’s own entity.”

COPYWRITER
joshuacastleman.com
PORTFOLIO NIGHT 8 LOS ANGELES PARTICIPANT

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If you could skip advertising and take a totally different career path, what would you see yourself doing?

“Professional soccer player. Or play in a band.”

What are your favorite non-advertising related creative outlets?

“Reading, photography, painting, designing posters and shirts, playing with legos, playing music.”

What would make you indispensable to an ad agency?

“I like to learn and listen, with the theory that I can learn something from everyone if I listen carefully enough. And I realize that even the conductor helps setup; no matter how high up the ladder, I’m never above the menial tasks that need to be done.”

Which appeals to you more and why: working in a very small agency (10 people or less) where you’re involved in everything, or in big multinational (500+ people) with big clients and budgets?

“While they both definitely have their own appeal, I think a smaller agency is slightly more alluring. In a smaller agency, I’m guessing I would be less compartmentalized and specialized, and learn more about all the other cogs of the advertising agency machine. I also like the idea of really knowing everyone at the agency instead of seeing people all the time that I really have no idea who they are or what they do. I think a small agency would work more like a little community or family with everyone pitching in and working together to make things happen, and that just sounds awesomely appealing!”

Describe the perfect advertising agency.

“Seeing how I am desperately trying to break into the industry, having no experience, what in the world qualifies me to answer this question?! I don’t know. But if I had to hazard a guess, I can definitely see a weekly Tuesday afternoon nerf gun fight as a good start to keeping things fresh and exciting.”

What advice would you give to a student who is just starting ad school?

“This is your chance to experiment and go nuts, explore the space! It’s only a trivial grade on the line right now, not your job and livelihood. Be like a bouncy ball shot from a cannon in a room, not a cautious caterpillar inching hesitantly along in small circles. Do not be a lemming, be something new and untried! Be yourself and make work that you love. Don’t be afraid to have to star over, it helps you grow and gives you more opportunities to try new stuff!”

GRAPHIC DESIGNER
PORTFOLIO NIGHT 8 MEXICO CITY PARTICIPANT

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What are you hoping to experience at Portfolio Night 8?

“I hope to experience meeting important people in the advertising world who I can share and discuss my work with. I’d like them to evaluate my work and tell me if I’m worthy to be hired at an advertising agency. This is so important to me because that way maybe they can give me some advice to improve my work and even my portfolio so I can get better opportunities to get my dream job.”

Why is there so much bad advertising out there?

” I think the biggest problem we have in Mexico is the bad advertising on the streets, that’s because people take everything that is given to them and they don’t care if it is good or not. People have no visual culture to compare what other cities around the world are doing to sell goods or services. I know things are different in Mexico City than the way they are in other places, but if we don’t give people the opportunity to make them think by themselves a little at least for a while, we will not know if we can do better advertisements that will work for them and for the companies. We always talk about trying to sell goods or services, but the way that the message is sent to the receiver is as important as the message itself, and there is what our job is, to make those messages look great. Its not everything, but making them look good and making them direct and understandable as well and always remembering that the receivers are not just consumers but human beings. I think that when we understand what being a human being is, we can make better advertisements, comprehensible to all.”

What’s your cure for writer’s block?

“I take a “Creativity Pill” (not kidding!) When I was in school, I used to draw and write things on the last pages of my notebooks, some day I had no idea what to do with an assignment and suddenly I opened my notebook on one of those sketchy pages and I read all the nonsense things I had written in the past and like magic, ideas came to my mind. Then I realised that even nonsense makes you have ideas so I called those nonsense words and drawings “Creativity Pills” Ideas are there, I just have to open my eyes and brain wide to take it out of the paper.”

Which challenge would interest you more and why: doing groundbreaking work on a brand not known for good campaigns, or trying to top award-winning work for a brand renowned for phenomenal campaigns?

“I am more interested in doing groundbreaking work on a brand not known for good campaigns because everybody deserves an opportunity, and doing this kind of work helps both parties. We give the opportunity to a brand to see the light doing things to improve its image, and the brand gives us the opportunity to see how far we can go doing what we love to do.”

SUZANNE POPE

ASSOC. CREATIVE DIRECTOR
JOHN ST.
PORTFOLIO NIGHT 8 TORONTO PARTICIPANT

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Finish this sentence: “Kids these days…”

“Oh, I’m so glad and so sorry you asked this question. So glad, because it really does need answering, and so sorry because I know thousands of eyeballs will soon be rolling backwards in their young owners’ skulls. Yes, I absolutely agree that the quality of your ideas is by far the most important factor in getting and keeping a job in advertising. But because I figure everyone else here will be dealing with that point in one way or another, I’m going to devote my space to something that seems trivial by comparison. Here goes: Kids these days don’t worry nearly enough about spelling and typos.

“Twenty years ago, we lived in mortal terror of letting an ad leave the agency with any sort of mistake. That’s because film separations were done by hand, and an ad that needed to be redone could cost the agency thousands of dollars – which in turn could cost us our jobs. Today, work can be corrected instantly, and people spend as much time reading lolcat captions as they do Standard English. The consequence of all this is that being fussy about spelling is regarded as symptomatic of pedantry or anal-retentiveness or something else that’s equally unattractive. Now, you might not care about spelling for its own sake, but since you’re an ad person, I’m sure you care about the brands you’re hoping to build. You learned in your advertising courses that your brand must present itself consistently wherever and however it appears. (You did learn that, didn’t you?) So, unless your brand stands for not giving a fuck, you really should pay attention to spelling and typos.

“Imagine an ad that speaks at length about the obsessive care that goes into a brand of automobile known for its precise engineering. Now imagine that the ad contains a spelling mistake. Your reader, who might have been swept up in your message just moments before, suddenly disengages because he knows he’s being lied to. And your client, who trusted you to be a sincere ambassador for his brand, is now calling the the account director to say that he never wants to see your smirking hipster face again. There’s a good chance your creative director will share that view.

“If you’re attending Portfolio Night, you’ve probably had little or no contact with real clients or projects or copy decks. Or maybe you’re not even a copywriter. It doesn’t matter. Paying attention to copy still gives you the opportunity to show that you instinctively know and care about the things that are important to your prospective employers. By being fully and visibly responsible for all aspects of your work, you’re giving your creative director one less thing to worry about. And that counts for more than you might think.”

GRAPHIC DESIGNER
PORTFOLIO NIGHT 8 CARACAS PARTICIPANT

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What are you hoping to experience at Portfolio Night 8?

“I’m hoping to meet interesting people that can guide me towards becoming a better designer.”

Name a city you’ve never been to but would do anything to visit.

“New Delhi, because it is so different from my country in every aspect, I would love to learn more about their culture, and take a lot of pictures.”

You’ve just been given $1000 to spend on improving and enriching your creativity. What do you spend it on?

“I would travel to a place I’ve never been to, doing new things improves your creativity.”

What is your favorite movie out of ones released before you were born?

“The Wizard of Oz.”

COPYWRITER
PORTFOLIO NIGHT 8 QUEBEC CITY PARTICIPANT

__________________________

Cliquez ici pour la version française.

Finish this sentence: “Advertising isn’t…”

“… only what you see on tribu.com. “

If you could skip advertising and take a totally different career path, what would you see yourself doing?

“I’d hope to be living out my passion for improv… but I wouldn’t count on it.”

What would make you indispensable to an ad agency?

“I think my ability to “play” my writing makes me a very effective copywriter in a pitch. I like playing the characters I created in my writing. I think the best way to seduce a client is to make him live the situation presented in the advertising. This technique makes the “big idea” more tangible for him. Moreover, such an ability to create the characters, I can easily relate to the actors during the production of ads.”

Name three adjectives that best describe you.

“Good… good lookibg… not too expensive. I am a junior, after all!”

What is your favorite movie out of ones released before you were born?

“A Clockwork Orange, simply because of the world that Kubrick created in it.”

DESIGNER/ ART DIRECTOR
www.larissabrandao.com
PORTFOLIO NIGHT 8 NEW YORK PARTICIPANT

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What would make you indispensable to an ad agency?

“My Brazilian accent.”

What’s the biggest misconception you had about the advertising industry before deciding to break in?

“That I would have weekends.”

What’s your cure for writer’s block?

“Chocolate.”

Finish this sentence: “Advertising isn’t…”

“… period.”

What single ad or campaign in your portfolio are you most proud of?

“Hard Rock Rebrand.“

What advice would you give to a student who is just starting ad school?

“Question everything.”

How do you know when you’ve seen the best idea ever?

“I go to bed, wake up, and the idea is still great.”