D&AD launches New Blood Shift 2018

Applications have opened for D&AD’s free night school, New Blood Shift, which aims to stimulate creative excellence by nurturing young creatives and working towards a fairer, more diverse industry.

Now in its third year, the 12-week programme provides young people without qualifications with a leg up into the creative industries.

Last year's applicants have gone on to placements and employment with companies including Nike, BBC Creative, Iris and AKQA.

“We have a duty as creative practitioners to educate not just young people, but their parents about the viable career opportunities there are in the creative industries," says Steve Vranakis, D&AD president and ECD of Google Creative Lab. "Our sector continues to outperform the wider UK economy and last official figures showed it contributed £92 billion to the UK economy, yet in many households, and working class ones in particular, creativity is seen as a hobby. The Shift programme aims to remedy that. It opens doors and opportunities to amazing creative talent who might not necessarily have known that they can make a living doing what they love. And it leads to a fairer and more diverse industry.”

Applications for New Blood Shift 2018 are open until 1 August 2018.