CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

The programme has been specifically designed to ensure that each participant builds a unique portfolio. The assignments and other exercises will enable the participant to include a complete campaign as the centerpiece of his or her portfolio in addition to various smaller projects. Participants of this programme can look forward to careers in creative departments of advertising agencies, design companies, corporate, media and production houses.

MICA will provide information, advice and counseling on career opportunities. Students of previous programmes have acquired positions with leading advertising agencies, portals and organisations such as O&M, JWT, Bates, Lowe, Leo Burnett, Draft-FCB-Ulka, Mudra Advertising, Ambience Publicis, and Wizcraft.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Students of the CCC programme are high achievers and have won a number of international awards. They won the Ibda'a Awards instituted by Dubai Media City in the advertising category for three years in a row in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Their prizes included glittering trophies and internships at renowned agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi and Lowe Worldwide.

In 2003 a student of the programme also won the Special Recognition Award for creative excellence from His Highness, the Crown Prince of Dubai.

In 2004 CCC student work won 16 prizes at the ADDY Awards, USA, including Best of Show.

In 2004 students of the eighth batch of CCC bagged three nominations at the Ibda'a Awards. Students from this batch have also set new milestones. They were MICA's first international placements, and are currently pursuing exciting and challenging careers at major design studios and advertisement agencies in places like Dubai, Singapore and Bangkok.

Participants in forthcoming batches will have ample opportunities to involve themselves in similar competitions that attract entries from around the world

A balanced overview of advertising strategy and execution. To understand the foundations of successful advertising strategies and executions, the sessions will draw upon both classic and contemporary advertising. Different principles and laws of advertising will be explained.

Advertising Research

Understanding the consumer, finding consumer insights. You will learn some basic methods to study human behaviour and how it can be utilised to craft effective communications.

Account Planning

Almost every advertising agency (and its clients) benefits from a disciplined system to create communications strategies and enhances its ability to produce outstanding creative solutions that will be effective in the marketplace. It is, therefore, essential for a creative person to understand the consumer and come to terms with market realities from a Planner's perspective.

Semiotics

Introduction to Semiotics, Sharpening the Semiotic Focus: these sessions will begin by taking examples from advertising, film and the media to demonstrate semiotic constructs like 'denotation', 'connotation', 'advertising mythology', 'syntagmatic and paradigmatic structures'.

Evaluating an Ad Campaign

This exercise will not only explain how to evaluate an ad campaign but will also help you sell your ad to the client. It will help you understand two basic sets of parameters. One that evaluates the ad in terms of it efficacy, that is, to what extent the campaign has achieved its set objectives. The other set of parameters will help you appreciate the aesthetic aspects of the ad, which is, how the ad looks, its layout, its colour scheme, its typography, the balance etc.

Creative Brief

These sessions will explain what a creative brief is, why it is necessary and how to write it. This will include exercises in writing a creative brief. It will also help you understand how advertising communications really works.

Anatomy of a Print Ad

This explains various elements (headline, visual, body copy, logo, base line) of a print ad and the relationship that exists between them.

Advertising Appeals

These sessions will explain the most frequently used advertising appeals. Some of these are the rational appeals like comfort, convenience, economy, health, quality, dependability, durability, performance and efficiency. However, the most used appeals are emotional ones such as joy, love or sex, fear, pleasure, pride, safety, security, self-esteem and sorrow or grief.

Hunger Strikes

These sessions will explain how to create mouthwatering food advertising by using 10 easy steps to create the appetite appeal.

Film Appreciation

• Basic concepts relating to arts and humanities
• Basic Framework for Understanding Cinema: How it has worked and how it probably will work.

THE SKILLS

Visual Communication

From 'So-So' to Picasso:

A presentation on why we need to be creative and what stops us from being creative. This session will explain how to get rid of the mental blocks that prevent us from being creative.

Face Reading

These sessions will explain the importance of typefaces or fonts. Every typeface projects a different kind of personality. A number of exercises will help you learn different typefaces and use them effectively.

Visual Literacy

This session will help you learn the most important aspect of visual communication, the language of visuals. It will enable you to communicate using visuals with the same ease as you use words.

Checklist for an Art Director

These sessions will explain the various aspects of art direction in a print-ad, such as the movement, relative proportion, contrast, balance, unity and continuity, colour, white space, and the layout.

Designing Corporate Identity

These sessions will enable you to understand various elements that determine the identity of a brand and learn the ways and means of generating a visual identity for a brand.

COPYWRITING

The Writer's Attitude: The art of writing is actually the art of re-writing. Discussion on why writers need to develop a passion for words.

Overcoming the Writer's Block: The craft of writing involves two stages - creating and editing. Workshop on 'How to Suppress the Editor in You and Let the Creator in You Do its Job.'

The Art of Description: 90% of all writing is about some kind of description. Workshop on techniques to improve descriptive writing and characterisation.

Getting to the Core Message: Understanding the creative brief and extracting the essence of the selling proposition. Exercises to help discover what the sales message should really be.

Using the Eight Senses for Persuasive Writing: Evocative writing involves using all the senses. An adventure through 'The Land of Show, Don't Tell!'

Tone of Voice: Understanding how tone of voice is crucial to advertisement effectiveness and brand image. Exercises to discover that there is more to the tone of voice than 'warm and friendly'!

Process Writing: Copywriting often involves explaining processes, such as in user manuals, manufacturing processes, or directions for use of complex machinery or equipment. Exercises to understand prioritisation, sequencing and how to avoid ambiguities.

The Campaign Process: Creating a campaign from Client Brief to Creative Brief to deriving the Single-Minded Proposition to Crafting Headlines, Sub-heads and Body Copy -- a step-by-step approach that teaches the fundamentals of creating effective print advertising.

Direct Mail: Discussion and exercises to understand the various elements of a DM package, including the economics and logistics of DM, the envelope, the offer, the cover letter, the main leaflet, the response device, tracking and follow-up.

Basics of Scripting for Television and Radio

Workshop on Creating Television Commercials

• The language of visuals
• Generating ideas for TVC
• Idea to scriptwriting
• Script to storyboard
• Storyboard to shot break down
• Product window

Pre-Production: Evaluating the script. Location hunting. Casting - screen tests. Set designing. Costume designing. Branding. Costing.

Production: Cinematographer / Director Coordination. Camera movements / Angles. Lighting. Make-up. Acting / Voice modulation. Jingle recording. Voice recording.

Post Production: Editing. Music / recording / editing. Sound effects. Computer graphics - Up-gradation. Presentation of the film.

The Principles and Elements of Design

Form. Function. Space.

These are the building blocks to not only create a work of art or design a piece of communication, but to also help you to become a better manager � because you are going to be tomorrow's creative managers and creative directors. These sessions will help you learn a very important tool that creates a brand difference. They will also explain how design is an integral part of visual communication.

DIGITAL DESIGN

This course will let you master these three principal areas of Digital Design

I: Digital Design for Print Media

II: Digital Design for Audio-Visual Media

III: Digital Design for Interactive Media

THE ATTITUDES

Trans Creativity Workshop

A 5-day workshop that underlines the relevance and importance of the performing arts. It also works as an eye-opener that triggers creative processes. It sensitises people to appreciate various art forms and discover how they can be effectively used in communications.

Generating Ideas 1 - Random Associations: How do you generate ideas? Do you wait for those elusive happy accidents to occur or can you generate ideas on demand? These sessions will help you learn how to generate ideas at will, through random associations. It will explain how two unrelated words, or a picture and words can be combined to generate innovative and original images or ideas.

Generating Ideas 2 - Lateral Thinking: These sessions will explain how you can approach a problem in different ways to generate refreshing new ideas.

Generating Ideas 3 - Brainstorming: These sessions will explain how brainstorming works.

Generating Ideas 4 - 'SCAMPER': 'SCAMPER' is an acronym for 'Substitute. Combine. Adapt. Modify. Put to other use. Eliminate. Rearrange.' This exercise is based on the notion that everything new is the addition or modification of something that already exists. For example, a tree becomes a log becomes a plank becomes a chair. Think about any subject and ask a checklist of questions to see what new ideas and thoughts emerge.

Generating Ideas 5 - Turn the World Around: This exercise will explain how redefining the problem can be a great way to generate interesting solutions. Boring problems generate boring solutions, and interesting problems generate interesting solutions.

SEARCH ENGINES FOR CREATIVITY

Memory: Tapping our own knowledge and experience (90% of which lies in the mind, available but not accessed).

Observation: Looking at nature, scenarios and human activities.

Referencing: Using existing external sources present in different media through reading, viewing, listening, surfing.

Interaction: Brainstorming, interviews, debates, discussions, Q&A etc.

Imagination: Sending a 'mind probe' into a journey of imaginative exploration.

Dreams: Dreams are rich with visual imagery and symbolism, both extremely important for creative fields. We will look not only at our own dreams but also explore the dreams of others. The techniques that the mind uses to create dreamwork will be analysed and applied to expand creativity.

CREATIVE AEROBICS

Description: Creative Aerobics is an interactive writing session that approaches creativity from an innovative point of view. Instead of concentrating on the result, it concentrates on the process. Participants will learn four verbal exercises designed to increase flexibility between the left and right brain. Using them consecutively increases exponentially, the number of fresh, persuasive, out-of-the-box solutions arrived at for any assignment. Additionally, participants will exercise their micro-creativity with a series of Creative Ticklers.

Objectives:

• To increase verbal skills.
• To strengthen ideation and conceptualisation abilities.
• To craft professional advertising copy.
• To write persuasive print advertising.
• To explore broadcast advertising.

FOUR THINKING CAPS

A 2-day workshop featuring 4 thinking strategies, the innovator, the craftsman, the judge and the soldier. Using rare archival material, practical tools to apply theoretical learning, interactive knowledge delivery techniques.

PORTFOLIO CREATION

This is a month-long activity where faculty interacts with students on a one-to-one basis. During this phase, the emphasis is on mentoring rather than teaching. Because a great career starts with a great portfolio.