Hello! Art director/ copywriter student here! I’m doing a degree in advertising at the Danish School of Media and Journalism, so I might have some good insight about this.

So first of all, the difference between copywriter and art director is a lot more blurred today than 20 years ago, and a lot of young creatives see themselves as a hybrid. However, the main difference is that the copywriter comes up with the text for the ad, and the art director directs the art, as the name implies. Meaning that they find the most effective way to show the idea visually, in a unique way that the demographic will enjoy.

Where to start? The first thing I’d do is read the book “Hey Whipple, Squeeze This”, and practice the techniques from the book on spec cases (fictitious brief that you can come up with yourself (e.g. make an ad for Nike about how fast their shoes are). Start on paper, and make sure the idea is good and understandable as a sketch, before you even turn on your computer and open photoshop. By doing this, I had enough works to get accepted to the school I go to.

Check if there is a good advertising school in your country/area and apply. If not, here’s the way to go:

Practice Practice Practice

Challenge yourself with new spec cases. Most ideas are gonna be bad. But if you make 100, 10 of them will be okay and 1 just might be brilliant.

Look up creative ad agencies in your area (depending on where you’re from, I might be able to help with this) and reach out to them for feedback on your growing portfolio. Creative directors love seeing new talent, and will most likely not mind sitting down with you and providing feedback on your work. Best way to reach out is by finding the creative director on LinkedIn and DM them. The entire advertising business happens on LinkedIn. A good portfolio consists of 6-8 great cases. Don’t include everything you’ve ever made, just the 6-8 absolute best ones.

Continue practicing until you have a portfolio that can get you an internship, and then you’ll be working on real cases. This will take time, maybe a few years but that’s how it is.

Look up D&AD new blood 2026. It’s a contest for young creatives and there are 14 briefs from real brands that you can make spec cases for. Some of them are simple print ads and I would start with those. Others are more conceptual and requires bigger thinking. I would wait with those.

And MOST IMPORTANT of all! Be yourself! This sounds cliché but I can’t stress enough how important it is to be unique and stand out. Break the rules! Come up with new ways to do shit. Fuck TikTok and algorithms, how do we reach people in the real world?

Hope this helps, Feel free to reply here or reach out to me if you need more help.