Here we go: I spend my days as a conceptual intern at Tribal DDB nl. So far I’ve been involved in a few projects, one went live today and the site that is only in Dutch can be viewed at www.cheech.nl, other clients have been Philips (two projects,) and Unilever’s sub brand HeartBrand (It’s the ice cream, GB in Sweden, Walls in England and so on).
And how does this work? What do I do in my projects?
I draw stuff on A3 paper.
Me and Keith, who is a design intern work as a intern creative team and try to think of BIG IDEAS. Once every few days we show stuff to the creative director. In the beginning he shot everything we made down, but he always took the time to explain why. This has given us the possibility to grow and create, maybe not better ideas. But more presentable ideas. Eventually there is a client presentation.
Now two things can happen Either the project is run from Amsterdam in witch case our CD picks stuff from the creative teams (usually two teams and us as an intern team) and takes it with him to the client OR the project is run from London and have about ten creative teams assigned to it. In that case a more big shot CD with a cushier title like European Creative Master of Everything or something like that takes a look of what our CD has chosen to present and then takes his pick.
This gives us quite a few sticking points to struggle with but so far we have had one idea living to be presented to the client and then had the privilege to be shot down by the client.

Now this might seem depressing but remember, we have gone from being shot down by our CD for obvious reasons (like not being on brief) to being beaten by another team’s idea at the client presentation.

I might not leave with any of my ideas being produced, and to have production as a goal might be unrealistic and focusing on the wrong thing. My goal is to have less and less ideas turned down within the Tribal structure. The client is a bit out of my control.
At other times there is no brief to work on for us, then Keith turns in to a designer who draw stuff and I assist the strategy guys.

So there have been a few weeks of hard work, and more of them are to come. I’ve grown the nasty habit of not being able to focus on work while I’m at my desk, blasted internet! But I’ve tried to make up for this by working elsewhere. Like today. A perfectly normal Saturday and I brought my sketchpad, a few markers, last two issues of Wired and Hey, Whipple, Squeeze this! to the pipe (or as it known in Dutch, de pijp) and spent a bunch of hrs slurping on a gigantic Latte or two (since I went to Coffee Company I got real late instead of the coffee verked or however it’s spelled that the locals call their latte/ou-lait bastard child) and trying my best to be the creative I still strive to be. Results on Monday when my CD will go trough last week’s work and kill ideas like alcohol kill brain cells.In other news: I still live in the cold apartment on Ben Viljonerlaan that i share with Regis. I’m now effectively forbidden for frying meat, got a warmer bedcover and plan to move out asap. I got kind of a good life in the weekends but need to find something to do to make me go outside the house on weeknights.
My regular night looks like this:
Stay longer at work, to compensate for arriving late/ being lazy during the day / not wanting to go home to the cold apartment.
Bike to AH, buy dinner, fruit and green tea and lemon ice tea,
go home,
cook food,
eat while watching TV,
clean up after dinner.
Now its 21:00 and I
A) log on to Warhammer Online to do some RvR
B)watch some more TV. Bed by 00:00 (but it often get postponed to 01:30).
Five Nights A Week!

I’m going to London in a bit for a weekend, more about that later.