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Denver Ad School Opens, Creating the First One-Year Advertising Portfolio Program In the Western U.S.
Faster, More Efficient, And Cheaper Model Benefits Students Eager To Launch A Career While Bolstering The Talent Pool For The Colorado Ad Market
DENVER, Colo., April 24, 2019 — Denver Ad School (DAD) officially opens at 2301 Blake Street in Denver’s RiNo neighborhood, becoming the first advertising portfolio school in the western United States, and joining only a handful of similar programs nationwide. Founded by Jesse Alkire, ex-nearly every agency big and small in Chicago including DDB, FCB, O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul, Razorfish, and more over his ten-year career, is returning to Colorado after growing up in Lakewood. Heather Vanisko, the former Director of Chicago Portfolio School since 2012, joins to run operations and student engagement/enrollment. DAD provides an alternative for advertising students at half of the cost and for half the time of the other top programs, while striving to train and keep more creative talent in the Colorado market.
DAD offers programs in Art Direction, Copywriting, and a Strategic Planning program is forthcoming. Structured similar to an ad agency, classes are led by a working Creative Director and designed to produce spec campaigns for real brands. Students will finish with industry-ready portfolios showcasing the conceptual and creative abilities needed to land a job. The full-time, 14-month program – 12 months of learning by doing, two months dedicated to job placement – is taught by active industry professionals from top Colorado agencies.
Classes will be held nightly at the school’s Blake Street location as well as at Boulder offices of Boulder-based design shop Cast Iron Design as well Boulder-based Crispin Porter Bogusky, offering a rare opportunity to work first hand with new approaches and cutting-edge ad tech from one of the world’s most innovative and celebrated advertising agencies.
Enrollment is now open with the first quarter beginning on July 8th. The application deadline is June 1st.
The DAD brand identity was designed in-house, with collage art pieces commissioned from UK-based artists Charlie Elms and Thom Easton. These visuals are evocative of the creative process that students will learn at DAD, first starting with a common human truth or emotion and then telling a story inspired by that feeling in a new and unique way. The overall look embraces the 1970s, from the heritage-inspired typography and color palate to the punk rock movement’s rejection of the mainstream to the oddity and mystery of Stanley Kubrick-esque visuals.
The ultimate aim of DAD is to help the next generation of creatives enter the business more prepared, have a better working experience than advertising is sometimes known for, and hopefully turn advertising into a more relevant and enjoyable form of communication that’s a part of the greater good.
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DAD Founder Jesse Alkire and Director Heather Vanisko –– April 2019
(Photography by Daniel Alfonzo)