Art Director, ICHI Worldwide

Amee Wilson

When we last chatted 5 years ago, you had landed an internship that converted into a full-time design role with Clemenger BBDO just four weeks after graduating Shillington. Can you tell us about the last 5 years? How has Shillington changed your life?

It’s been a wild ride to be honest! I’ve worked at a few different agencies now and am currently at Google. It’s always been a dream of mine to work here, way before Shillington. I could never have really predicted I’d get here in such a short space of time! And I completely have Shillington to thank for that. I told my teachers what I wanted to do after the course and they did everything to make sure I’d get there!

Thinking back, why did you choose Shillington? What made our design course stand out from the rest?

The short length of the course—3 months didn’t feel like a big risk if I did it and decided it wasn’t for me! They also offered a payment plan so I could pay it off over time, as I didn’t have the full amount upfront. That really helped! And just the work in people’s portfolios coming out of the program; it was crazy to believe it was just 12 weeks’ work.

You’re now working as an Art Director at Google, as part of the Google Rare Creative Fellowship (alongside fellow Shillumni Suparom Ronyut)! Can you tell us more about that and how that happened?

I was working at Wunderman Thompson, and a friend of mine forwarded the application. The RARE Fellowship is a 9-month contract designed to bring more diverse talent into the creative, advertising and tech industries. There’s still a huge gap when it comes to background, education, and sexuality. So they aim to bring in people with 0-4ish years’ experienc, get them across some awesome projects in design, copywriting, art direction among other things, and then release them back into the wild! I never thought I had a chance as there were 2,000 applicants globally, but I just put in an application and crossed all my digits!

Back to Shillington, did you make any lasting connections with teachers or fellow students during the course?

I still talk to a few of the people in my class! I actually messaged one of them the other day for some advice about how to get some things printed for some illustration work I’ve been doing on the side!

What was the most surprising thing about the course?

How quickly you learn. And how quickly the teachers’ feedback transforms your work. You end up creating things you never thought you could!

If you could give one piece of advice to someone starting the full-time course at Shillington, what would it be?

Throw yourself into it completely. The 3 months will absolutely fly by and you’ll be so sad when it’s done! Take in every minute of feedback from your teachers and classmates and just enjoy the ride. I wish I could go back and do it again!

Check out Amee’s Instagram and read her full interview on the blog.