“Be loud online, build connections, and look for side doors”

Creative Career Conundrums is a weekly advice column from If You Could Jobs. Each week their selected panel of professionals from the creative industry answers your burning career questions to help you navigate the creative journey.

This week’s question:

I’m a recent graduate trained in graphic design, but my practice spans across disciplines. During school, I received multiple major design awards, held exhibitions and gained some press coverage. Despite this early recognition, I often see peers my age collaborating with global brands like Apple, Nike and Gucci. I admire those opportunities deeply, but without industry connections, approaching such companies feels like searching in the dark. My work is strong, but breaking into that level of visibility feels almost unreachable. I’m wondering whether it truly requires starting from smaller companies step by step, or if there are more strategic ways to get noticed by major brands.

How can an emerging multidisciplinary designer like me build a realistic pathway to collaborate with major brands such as Apple, Nike or Gucci, when I don’t come from a family with industry connections?

Katie Cadwell, co-founder of branding studio Lucky Dip and The NDA Podcast:

Firstly, you shouldn’t be comparing yourself. This is the time to hone your craft – get all the experience you need to become a creative that everyone wants to work with.

Every project you do helps you sharpen your skills, define your voice and establish your style. These smaller projects will give you valuable experience to prove to the big brands that you can deliver on what you’re promising.

But if you’re dead set on chasing those collaborations, connections to these companies don’t come through recruiters. They might come from family connections, but more likely, the internal creative teams have spotted someone online that they want to work with. They’re always on the hunt for emerging talent, trying to work with someone new that hasn’t been nabbed by their competitors.

So how do you get in front of the decision makers?

1. You need to be loud online. These brands have creative scouts. Make sure your work is visible on as many platforms as possible. Behance, creative blogs, Pinterest, Are.na. Think about where you search for inspiration, and make sure your work is in that feed.
2. Passion projects. There are so many creatives who have landed brand collabs because they used their work to get noticed. Alexei Hamblin might be the most successful example of this. He used Tiktok to show how legacy sports brands could become more relevant – and is now a consultant at Slazenger. Videographers shoot product campaigns in their spare room. Illustrators mock up new retail displays. Start creating. Show them you’re passionate about the brand, and make sure the work is worthy of tagging them.
3. Look for the side doors. Spot a production company that works for a brand you love? Studios that just finished a campaign? Reach out to them. Working for their partners or sub-brands can be a good way of coming across their desk.
4. Build connections. Find all the people in the business that could be on the hunt for new talent. Engage with their content. Head to events. DM them. While some connections might be inherited, the majority are built over time with consistency. Put yourself on their radar, so you’re front of mind when a brief comes in.

Yes it’s cool to have big brands in your folio, but don’t forget, there’s often more creative opportunity in the smaller projects. Your career is long, you don’t need to hit everyone on your bucket list before you’re halfway through.

In answering your creative career conundrums we realise that some issues need expert support, so we’ve collated a list of additional resources that can support you across things that might arise at work.

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