SPRINGER & JACOBY
I was busy at Art School but disillusioned. I believed that "art" wanted to hide the message and make the decoding as challenging as possible. I saw that "advertising" strived to drive the message as direct and straightforward as possible. So yup, I decided I wanted to do advertising. I threw together some flyers into a portfolio and had an interview at an ad agency. It didn't go too well. Then I met a guy at a party, and interview Nr. 2 was lined up. This time at Springer & Jacoby. This was the best agency in Germany at the time. I liked that.
The now sadly quasi defunct Springer & Jacoby was a mysterium. Militant even. And it was insanely organised. German efficiency on steroids. A powerhouse drenched in creativity. I loved it. I refused to start as an intern, so I jumped at the studio's bottom as a graphic designer. Strangely enough on the day of getting the green light, I also got a call from Tresor records in berlin to start also as a graphic designer. It was a tough decision indeed. After a long phone call that night to a friend, I ditched the dancefloor and turned mad man.
When I like something, I can go a little crazy. And I did. Our clients were levis, die Zeit newspaper. German concrete, Schott, a bit of Mercedes and other things. I had a great art director above me and 2 excellent CDs and a lot of amazing people. Possibly not my something long term, sure, but I loved it. It set how I work. The best schooling I ever had.
I was upped to junior art director, and one day, slightly bored, I asked my text cd if I could work even more. He had a project on his desk which he offered to me—a civil courage campaign for the Hamburg police. My text partner, 80 other people and I worked for 9 months on the project, and it paid off. The campaign was a success. Thanks to the skills of my CD, it earned us a whole load of prizes. And me my first, last and only Cannes golden lion caus you really don't need any more than one, of which I'm proud.
Eventually, my CDs left the agency for Berlin, and I so did I. And then separately, we have been doing our own thing ever since, Springer & Jacoby style.