Side Hustle: A Category for All You Advertising Hustlers & Entrepreneurs
And we mean it! Well, actually, it’s all thanks to D&AD which is acknowledging the very common and important aspect of full-time employees in advertising who have side projects they are passionate about.
As most of you know, the D&AD Awards have been celebrating excellence in commercials and campaigns for the past 57 years, inviting over 200 creative practitioners annually to judge the work of fresh and entrepreneurial agencies in the field.
Aside from that, many full-time employees in ad agencies work on side hobbies/projects and even side businesses that represent their passion about certain things. People in advertising tend to drown in the world of 9 to 5 (and overtime) and give their best when it comes to present work during awards season, but being able to hustle on the side and sustain a project they believe in is like having a whole other job.
Which is why D&AD realizes how important it is to give such people and their projects the recognition they deserve, in an awards setting. Passion should be celebrated and compensated for.
Hence, Side Hustle was created as a category for anyone who has a full-time job in the creative industry while running independent work on the side. The project/business should be owned by the entrant or a group of independent investors with the entrant.
The category is divided into two entry parts:
- Start-up: for those who just started their project
- Scale-up: for those who have their business/project somewhat established with financial revenue in the process.
What you win:
- stage presence in front of a live audience
- global exposure to media partners
- the opportunity to have investors and collaborators potentially join in the hustle
- the opportunity to pitch live at the D&AD Festival in front of a panel of judges.
Let’s take a look at last year’s winner and some shortlisted projects so you get an idea about the type of side-hustle work that can be presented:
The WayBack
Start-up
Dan Cole
UK
This creative genius, who won the first Side Hustle award, presented a very nice and entertaining solution product for a mental health disease: dementia.
Dan Cole created a virtual reality film series that recreates positive nostalgic images from the past to trigger memories and spark conversations with individuals diagnosed with dementia.
KYT: Keeping You Together
Start-up
JP Twaalfhoven
New Zealand
It’s not easy having type 1 or type 2 diabetes and keeping all your medical equipment together in your bag everywhere you go. It’s hard enough for regular people to keep their usual items in one bag, so imagine what a type 1 or type 2 diabetic struggles with on a daily basis. Which is why New Zealand-based JP Twaalfhoven created the KYT: Keeping You Together bag which is technically a two-sided handbag that keeps your personal items separate from your diabetes medical equipment (finger pricks, blood sugar tests, injections, etc.) in an organized way that’s super-practical for everyday use.
Start-up
Yannis Konstantindis
Superpersonal uses AI to create the most advanced visual personalization experiences in the world. Following a 30-second scanning process using only your phone, you can see yourself wearing the latest fashion outfit, star in your favorite movie, or be the hero in the latest ad of your favorite brand.
Design Calendar
Scale-up
Anton Wade
UK
How do you find the best and most engaging creative events in one of the most art-oriented cities in the world, London? Design Calendar was created by UK-based entrant Anton Wade who brought all the monthly and yearly events into one platform which makes it easy to search and find the best creative events in the city.
Sketch Master
Scale-up
Peter Nowell
Argentina
Another example of an already existing and revenue-making project is Sketch Master, an online design tutorial website that offers you step-by-step instructions on designing with UX and SVG as well as other interactive web-design softwares. Given the complexity of these tools, Sketch Master makes learning how to use these much-needed tools easy and fun for upcoming students in today’s creative industry.
So what about you? Tell us about YOUR side hustle. What have you been working on?
Are you ready to pitch your project to a group of expert judges and panelists?
For more info on the upcoming Side Hustle category entries, submissions and judges, click here.
