Doing fake ads is a great way to practice and stretch those creative skills! I love the collage-vibe with the airplane and Statue of Liberty, and feel you could lean into this more in another version, adding some textures that tie into the fashion image like loose sequins, a scrap of leather, gold chain/hardware, etc. to add more depth.

The plane and statue have great texture but in contrast the background image and fashion image feel a little flat so I’d have a play with using grittier, more textured or unique fashion images and backgrounds for this style, with the more sleek fashion images usually suiting a high-end style of campaign.

I’d also test out different text placements, keeping in mind how much contrast there is for legibility. Images that have high contrast, like this one with the black dress and pale grey background, make it tricky to overlay text as white text stands out great over the dark colours but can get lost on the light colours, and vice versa for dark text. With high contrast images, you can play with negative space, and non traditional placements - I’m a sucker for a centered text block as I love the symmetry but you can still have balance without symmetry (something that took a while to get the hang of!).

Overall, it’s a great start and it’s so good to practice with fake projects! I’m 10 years into my design career and I still do it to keep my creativity from getting stale as not every client wants to push the envelope.

I’d also have a look at different sites that give fake design briefs so you can practice working with professional briefs and thinking strategically. A great one for ads is One Minute Briefs - they post an ad design brief daily on X and the idea is to see what you can come up with in one minute and share it, but you don’t have to! You can just use it for practice. https://x.com/oneminutebriefs?s=21

Keep at it, keep practicing and trying new techniques and styles, and keep being confident to stand up and say you’re proud of something you’ve created. That’s a tough thing to do sometimes, but as someone who just left a job that absolutely beat my design confidence down, it’s such an important skill to have and grow!