BEGINNER’S
BLUNDERDan Woodger, an
illustrator and
animation director,
is often asked by
students how to
become successful. “And I’m cautious
not to make it seem like my career has
been perfect,” he says. “Freelancing’s
a tough old slog, and there’s a flip-side
to all the perfect stuff you see on
social media. Everyone has mistakes
and failures, and you have to make
them in order to learn from them.”
In Woodger’s case, one early career
lesson came in a job for Pepsi. “At that
time, I worked mainly in Photoshop,
but the client needed the work done
in Illustrator, which I’d never used,” he
recalls. “I said yes and just thought: ‘I’ll
learn Illustrator while I’m doing the job.’
Woodger’s plan was to craft the
illustration in Photoshop to start off
with. By the time the client was happy
with it, he thought, he’d be sufficiently
up to speed with Illustrator to provide
the final version as a vector file.
“But then mid-way through the
process, the client asked for the vector
files,” he says. “And I couldn’t provide
them, because they didn’t exist. Soon
after, I got a call from Canada saying:
‘Is there a problem?’ And I had to admit
that I had no idea how to use Illustrator.
“The client hung up on me, which
was terrifying. I assumed I’d lost the
job. Then he came back to me about
10 minutes later, sent me a link to
some really fast learning tutorials on
YouTube, and just said: ‘You’re going to
have to learn these, ASAP.’
“In hindsight, it was wrong to accept
the job,” says Woodger. “But the
project worked out and by the end of it
I really did know Illustrator!”EMBRACE YOUR MISTAKES
made that the campaign,” she explains. ‘Bags of
SELFconfidence’, ‘Kiss yourSELF hello’, ‘Fashion
is so SELFcentered’. We ran with just the line
and logo as powerful branded statements. And
actually it worked much better than conventional
fashion photography.
“It changed from just another generic fashion
campaign into a powerful, branded campaign,
which couldn’t be for anyone but Selfridges. Not
only did we win the pitch, it’s still using the same
designs 10 years later!”
The experience taught Trott the value of
asking more questions up-front, so as not to end
up in a similar situation again. “It also hammered
home the importance of tying all my visual
assets together, so they work in both concert and
isolation,” she adds.
Jade Trott pivoted from a pitching mistake
into a hugely successful and long-running
campaign for Selfridges.‘It changed from
just another
generic fashion
campaign into a
powerful, branded
campaign’ JADE TROTT
COMPUTERARTS.CREATIVEBLOQ.COM“It was a baptism of fire,
but it worked out really well”