The former Berghs Bachelor student Susanna Livijn Wexell’s work is going to attract a new generation of creatives to Billy Blue College of Design. Susanna has never been afraid of asking questions when she doesn’t understand and has never been afraid of developing her own creative style. Maybe that’s why Billy Blue asked her to design their most recent Sydney billboard campaign.

Sanna helping Billy Blue College of Design to grow down in Sydney's metro.

Susanna did her first semester of her Bachelor Degree at Berghs School of Communication. ”The semester at Berghs opened up my eyes to a field that I wasn’t that familiar with beforehand.” After Berghs, Susanna continued her studies at Billy Blue College of Design where she found the graphic design focus that she was looking for.

In 2010, Billy Blue College of Design in Sydney launches four new programs. In total, six-fulltime programs run alongside a number of part-time courses. Apart from the already established Communication Design and Digital Media Design, the school launches Brand Fashion, Commercial Interior, Residential Interior and Branded Environment early next year.

Sanna playing around in Sydney's metro.

The Sydney-school asked former Berghs Bachelor student and recently graduated Billy Blue-student Susanna Livijn Wexell, to present and promote the programs in a Sydney-underground billboard campaign.

“I wanted to inform people about Billy Blue and its programs, but in a discrete way so that you have to reflect upon what you see.” Only one month from the day she got the task from Billy Blue’s marketing department, Susanna’s billboards were up in Sydney’s metro train stations. “I worked so hard to create this campaign. I pretty much locked myself into my room to create models with a million things everywhere.”

Sanna worked very dedicatedly with all the components to her billboard campaign.

The concept came from a competition submission that Susanna created for the 2009 Billy Blue College prospectus, which she also worked on (but this time with classmate Daniel Sammut.)

Sanna plays with a red thread.

“We wanted to express Billy Blue as a concept. The red thread is symbolizing Billy Blue connecting us all, yet we’re all different individuals with different creative approaches.” Billy Blue liked the concept and asked Susanna to develop it for their billboard campaign.

Susanna’s idea contains four-letter words expressing the six different programs. “I wanted to make the billboard campaign fun and playful. After all, Billy Blue’s target audience is rather young; most of the students come straight from high school.”

Susanna studies Communication Design, represented in the campaign by the word “show”.

The other courses are described, each with their own word:

Branded Environment : "feel"

Susanna asked multimedia student Leila Khiev for help to render the Digital Media Design billboard. “I wanted the image to be rendered professionally so that a potential student would look at the billboard and think ‘I want to be able to do that too’.”

Why Berghs Bachelor and why Billy Blue?
At Billy Blue the students work close to the industry integrating real life with schoolwork. “If you want to work with students from other programs you can, but it’s not as developed here as it is at Berghs”, Susanna explains. “The most positive aspect about having studied in Australia is that I’ve found my own style. Perhaps studying in Sweden naturally leads to you being molded into that typically Scandinavian minimalistic sense of design and style.”

At Billy Blue there are students from all over the world. The many different backgrounds are an enriching side of studying abroad, according to Susanna. “Here I feel I can explore more than I think I would have if I had studied at some design school in Sweden. You get a lot of multicultural inspiration at Billy Blue thanks to students from all over the world.”

There’s a difference in between schoolwork and the industry, Susanna states. “Last semester I did an internship at Debaser Design Studio, which focuses on the music industry. I worked on cd-covers, posters, logos for bands and such, which was a great way to get real-life experience. Thanks to that internship I feel more prepared to enter the work force.”  Susanna will be going back to Sweden soon and is excited to start working in design.

Susanna says you get the most out of your studies with personal dedication and interest. “Before Billy Blue I had barely opened InDesign, for example.” Looking at what she has now accomplished. “I realize I’ve learnt a whole lot since I got here.”

This morning, WaterAid's board got more than cinnamon buns to their coffee at the board meeting. They got to meet the Berghs team who won first prize in Brand X 2009 for national brief. The winning team's concept involves sponsorship and toilets – better hygiene and sanitation for people in need.

The winning film (in Sweden) national brief: "The sponsorship toilet – save someone in need".

"We started off by talking a little bit about our approach to the brief and then we presented the campain similarly to how we did at Karonlinska on the Brand X-project’s last day. We focused on the sponsorship activities and the sanitation issue”, says Canan Yasar, who studies Strategic Communication and Pr and is one of the proud members of the winning team.

After the presentation, which took place at WaterAid Sweden’s office at Skeppsbron in Gamla Stan, the curious board members had many questions to the group.

“They want us to develop our idea further and come up with a solution to how this can be applied to reality”, tells Canan. “We want to investigate how to keep costs down and who would like to help in different ways, become ambassadors and so on.”

The students are kept busy at Berghs with all their different projects but this is their “baby”. “We will prioritize this particular project in our spare time. It’s such an important issue and we manage to implement it in a light and sensible manner”, says Canan.

The group is extra proud to win Brand X, which is one of the greatest yearly integrated projects at Berghs, when all the full time students are working together in teams. Canan and the rest of the team will put their energy on the sponsorship toilet-campaign. “This spring WaterAid wants to meet again and we will then present how the sponsorship toilet will save people in need – for real.”

Read more about Brand X 2009.
See all the films here.

Cristina Mateo from the organization Fundación Madrid Ciudad Global 2010, wants Madrid to become Europe's third leading city after London and Paris. At Berghs she spoke about place branding, about the usage of brands in the marketing of places and vice versa.

Cristina Mateo from the media and communications department at the Madrid organisation will coordinate Madrid's presence at the World Expo in Shanghai 2010. For the first time ever, not only countries may display at the exposition, but also especially chosen cities, Madrid being amongst the chosen ones.

"Thanks to a promotion tour in Asia in 2005, which was a cooperation between City of Madrid and our famous football team Real Madrid, Madrid established itself as as a stronger brand in China and Japan."

Cristina Mateo means that a place can be associated with a brand from the place or the other way around. As an example she brings up the Swedish brand Ikea.

”In Spain, Ikea markets itself with the phrase ¡Viva la República Independiente de tu Casa!, or 'the independent republic of your home'. This implies something positive to most Spaniards, and as they know Ikea is Swedish, Sweden is associated to the positive message that Ikea conveys".

Mateo talked about the interplay between perception and reality. "A message doesn't necessarily have to be true, but it builds people's perception, which either gets reinforced or wither when reality plays in."

For the forth year in a row Re:Design Award took place at Berghs. Students in Graphic Design and Production Management – Operative Project Management cooperated with a special task given by the advertising agency Jensen Pamp McCann.

This year’s brief came from the Swedish potato chips company Estrella. Established in Sweden in the 1950’s, the company wanted Berghs’ students to redesign and thus reposition their brand. Packaging, store presence and Internet, were the three main channels for the project called “Estrella is all around”.

The students certainly delivered ideas that made Estrella appear more innovative and more fun, as well as more attractive – exactly according to the brief.

The jury watching one of the eleven case films.

The eleven case films demonstrated ideas involving packages with zip locks, handles, piña colada-flavoured dip sauces, not to mention the Iphone applications and imaginary potato lands. See all the case films here (only in Swedish).

2009 Re:Design Award’s jury consisted of:
Sara Larsdotter, Estrella
Nils Jensen, Jensen Pamp McCann
Jens Pamp, Jensen Pamp McCann
Anna Oddbjörn, Winner of Re:Design Award 2008
Sofia Strömberg, Berghs School of Communication
Mikael Storåkers, Storåkers McCann

The jury had a tough time to unite for a decision. Mikeal Storåkers from Storåkers McCann said “It was hard because they held a very good and even quality all the way through. There was a wild debate in the jury!”

Finally the jury came to a decision. 2009 year’s winner of Re:Design Award was announced: Group 6 – “It’s all potato”. The group members Emma Hammer and Fred Malmros from the Production Management – Operative Project Management class, and Nanna Englund and Henric Bergström from the Graphic Design class were happy and excited about the award.

“It’s all potato”-group member Nanna Englund excplaims “We really believed in our idea and we had a vision: to go one step further. I feel we really got our message across. I’m so happy!”

Their idea was totally focusing on the raw material – the potato. The packaging featured a potato, shaped like a potato and the group had carefully investigated the possibilities to even make the bag out of potato starch!

The group brought in help from their friend Mattias Carlsson to deliver their message. Watch the winning case film below (in Swedish).

Sara Larsdotter from Estrella was overly impressed by the students’ work. “You took the essence of the only thing we actually make at Estrella – the potato – and made something great out of something so simple.”

Pål Pettersson, Program Director Graphic Design, says about the project, “This is an excellent opportunity to work in the way which is Berghs’ strength, i.e. integrated and close to reality”.

The winning team receives a travel scholarship from Jensen Pamp McCann, which is likely to go to Berlin this year. “Berlin is a city of our time, a great source of inspiration in design and communication”, says Mats Dafnäs from Jensen Pamp McCann.

“It’s all potato”-member and Graphic Design student Henric Bergström hadn’t gotten enough of Estrella’s brand. On Monday he starts a five-week internship at Jensen Pamp McCann. “Re:Design was just the warm-up. Now I’m ready to start working with it in real life.”

Stockholm was dark and cold on that October evening. But not for the ones who came through the doors at Sveavägen 34. Current and former students were mingling with the curious visitors who had come to Berghs’ International Evening.

Former Bachelor students Sara Boork and Fanny Källström were “present” on web camera from USA during the evening. Sara and Fanny chose to go to San Fransisco after their first semester at Berghs, to study fashion and graphic design at Academy of Art University.

Bachelor teacher Clas von Sydow distributing the word to the ones who wanted to ask questions to Berghs Bachelor students in San Fransisco.

Inspiring talks were part of the evening, which offered a special international touch thanks to the visiting Australian students from Edith Cowan University in Perth. The six Australian students are on a two-week visit to Stockholm to join Berghs Bachelor on this year’s Brand X-project.

Berghs Bachelor
Begin your undergraduate studies at Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm and finish your Bachelor’s degree in Australia or USA. A Bachelor’s degree is the English-speaking world’s equivalent to a Swedish fil. kand., and requires three to four years of academic studies. Berghs School of Communication offers two Bachelor programs: A Bachelor of Communications and a Bachelor of Design. Read more here.

After graduation from Berghs School of Communication’s Advertising Program, life took a pretty spectacular turn for Erik Högfeldt and Rasmus Keger. Before they knew it, both were employed at New York agencies that most of us could only dream of.

Erik had no idea what the future would hold for him when he first walked through the doors to Berghs School of Communication on that August day in 2007. At the school’s Advertising Program, Erik met a group of guys who became his classmates and best friends.

Two years later, after many hours of hard work and several awards, 23-year old Erik Högfeldt works as a copywriter at Droga 5 on team with Berghs-mate Petter Hernmarck. At R/GA New York you find art director Rasmus Keger and Axel Lindgren, whereas Camp David employed Gustav Johansson as movie-director.

What did you both get out of your two years at Berghs?
“Everything to the max!” Rasmus exclaims. “Including all the hours we spent working at different projects nighttime, I think we actually did a three-year program at Berghs!”

At Berghs, Erik and Rasmus met a whole lot of inspiring people; three of them were Axel Lindgren, Petter Hernmarck and Gustav Johansson. Instantly the guys formed a team that was going to be more successful than what they could have ever imagined.


A Success Story
One Show, Clio, D&AD, YCN, Young Guns of the Month and Cannes Future Lions nominated several Berghs teams for their groundbreaking ideas in 2009. The ‘Erik-Rasmus-Axel-Petter-Gustav-quintet’ was particularly successful and Erik explains why. “It’s all about meeting people that think differently from you. Our strength as a team was that we were all good at different things, and we raised each others’ performance levels.”

Erik adds that a combination of a good program and a personal interest, lead to the greatest results. “A school can only train you to a certain degree, then you must seek knowledge yourself in order to develop.”

What makes you successful in your creative work?
“We know to kill the bad ideas and move forward with the good ones. We’ve learned not to waste time on things that won’t show results anyway.”

At Berghs the team tried to be open with their ideas and invite people in. “The end-result is going to be a whole lot greater if you’re in a team, each person with different talents and opinions”, Erik states. And the team certainly got to share the joy of great result.

What do you get to do at work?
“The main reason we were employed here, is that the clients request the kind of digital, interactive stuff that we do well. We’ve been working on the greatest accounts ever since arrival. “

The Droga 5 office in New York has less than 70 people in-house. “Our agencies are rather spoiled with young talents since they’re so high up on the list of young creatives’ desired working places”, Erik says. Both Droga 5 and R/GA have showed great examples of innovative campaigns over the past years. “Their untraditional methods are so exciting in themselves.”

How do you deal with the pressure to deliver now that you’re there?
Rasmus says, “If there’s one thing we’ve learned during our two years at Berghs, it’s that you don’t come up with any great ideas if you just think about how nervous you are NOT to come up with a great idea. Sometimes you do yourself a favor by taking a walk or actually going to sleep, so that you can see things clearer the following morning”.

The delightfully abrupt end to the summer came when the guys flew to New York to show their portfolios. “Two hours after landing we were pitching ideas at Droga 5. We never even got a chance to get nervous”, Erik explains.

They both highlight the importance of being humble. “You’ve got to find a balance in between knowing your spot and respecting the people in the industry. But, at the same time you must ‘disrespectfully’ just go in there and share your ideas. You can’t be scared of doing that, even if you’re the youngest or least experienced in the company.”

Ebba Hult hadn’t even completed her two-year Advertising program at Berghs when the job-offers came rolling in. Wieden+Kennedy were smart enough to pinch this twenty-three year old talent before somebody else did.

The Amsterdam office where Ebba works as copywriter for the global firm employs 130 people from 25 different countries. “I think agencies today must recognize young talents. And as long as you work hard, age doesn’t matter.”

Placing Ebba On The Map
Ebba grew up in a small town two hours south of Stockholm. At an early age, Ebba knew what she wanted to achieve, and her town of 5000 people just wasn’t the place for it. Ebba took a job at the local supermarket, which allowed her to learn languages and explore the world.

After gaining experience through internships at Swedish firms such as Storåkers McCann, Ebba knew she wanted to become a copywriter. Her choice of school fell on Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm.

One Of The Most Driven And Ambitious Talents Around
Berghs really is quite a small school compared to the internationally known names such as Miami Ad School. Ebba says “This might sound cocky, but agencies do themselves a favor by keeping an eye on Berghs. Berghs trains some of the most driven and ambitious talents around.”

“Swedish Nobody” Becomes “International Somebody”
During her second year at Berghs, Ebba won the Swedish Association of Communication Agencies Scholarship. This enabled Ebba to attend the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival and the Roger Hautchel Academy in Cannes.

Wieden+Kennedy+Ebba = True
“It’s great that you can get an award for creativity. For me, competing during school was a way to get a job at one of the international agencies.” All the hard work paid off when Ebba received job offers from several international agencies, even before graduation. The already established relationship with Wieden+Kennedy made them win her back on board.

Swedishness Is Craziness
At the Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam office Ebba gets to work with big clients: Nike, Coca Cola, Honda, Nokia, Heineken and Lego, to name a few. “The greatest difference in working for an international firm, as opposed to a Swedish one, is that you have to find truths and insights that everybody can relate to. I know how Swedes think, so in Sweden it’s easier to be crazy when creating advertising.” However, Ebba reckons that being a Swede is an asset in the industry. “Swedes have a good reputation abroad, we’re good at digital and we work hard.”

Berghs’ Concept: A Win-Win
Cannes Future Lions named Berghs 2009 “School of the year” and Ebba can see why. “Berghs shouldn’t change much in order to keep that position. Its reputation will continue to grow if the school keeps its winning concept.”

Ebba Of Tomorrow
Who knows what the future holds for this young lady? She likes Holland. “Amsterdam is like a soft mix of my tiny home town and a metropolitan city.” The American firm makes Ebba curious to work in the US one day, but she also wants to get to know the Asian markets. “Language wise, Asia might be hard, but familiarizing yourself with different markets and different ways of working is really rewarding.”

Alan Webber, the founder of the world’s leading business magazine Fast Company, visited Berghs to discuss communication. The award-winning editor, author and columnist made a quick stop in Sweden to launch his book ‘Rule of Thumb’.  He prioritized Berghs School of Communication for a lecture and said “this is an enormous treat for me”.

Alan states that there’s a cross-generation mentor process happening in communication. “I learn a lot from 23-25 year olds. I have a mentor who’s 24 years old. She teaches me social media and I teach her entrepreneurship.”

Mr Webber shared his rules of thumb with the participating Berghs students. “Everything communicates. You’ll gain admiration, respect and attention if you know what you communicate”, Alan says. “But knowing it ain’t the same as doing it. Your reality-based learning-style at Berghs is why you’re going to get so good at it.”

After his hour-long speech, Berghs’ Head of School Sofia Strömberg and Alan involved the students’ in an open forum. “That’s why I’m here – to learn stuff from you. I want to take your opinions and ideas home with me.”

Gold at One Show, gold at Client Pitch, gold at Clio Awards, gold at Cannes Lions and yet more gold at D&AD last night. This year Berghs School of Communication brought home a grand slam by winning each and every existing international communications contest.

“We’re ecstatic! We’ve worked so hard at Berghs, spent lots of late nights in the studio. And now all our hard work has paid off,” says Therese Jonsson, Berghs student whose project won two silver medals at D&AD.

The widely respected D&AD contest was established in 1962. It aimed to set standards for the industry and celebrate creative communication. Each year contestants from all over the world submit more than 25,000 entries in a bid to win the prestigious prize – a statue of a larger-than-life pen. Berghs School of Communication won a total of eight prizes at the awards ceremony in London.

Students Harri Leppäla and Petra Muda were selected as “Student of the Year” and won first prize for their project for ebay, the online auction site. Their assignment was to communicate how ebay projects it brand promise: “Shopping worth talking about.” The students based their presentation on the idea that much of what one encounters every day is desirable. Prospective shoppers simply photograph the objects their desire and send the photos to “Find it” on ebay which quickly helps them find what they’re looking for.

“Not only do we effectively communicate ebay’s brand promise, we even succeeded in developing their offering,” says Petra Muda, recently graduated art director from Berghs.

Click to see Petra Muda and Harri Leppälä’s winning idea for ebay.

Student of the year:
Petra Muda, Harri Leppälä

First prize:
Hampus Mattson, David Lundgren, Johan Riddarström (Integrated - Blyk)
Petra Muda, Harri Leppälä (Viral - eBay)

Second prize:
Therese Jonsson, Magnus Ivansson (What else do you do)
Therese Jonsson, Tor Lemhag & Harri Leppälä (What else do you do)
Petter Hernmarck, Gustav Johansson & Erik Högfeldt (Viral - eBay)

Commendation:
José Hernandez, Anna Oddbjörn, Tor Lemhag (What else do you do)
Gustaf Jonsson (Online brand channel - Youtube)

“We have the world’s best advertising students!” boasted Berghs after winning gold at the Clio Awards. Now Future Lions makes the same claim.

Cannes Lions, the World Chamionships of the advertising world, is in full swing. But while most competitive categories received fewer entries than last year, one category is steadily on the rise: Future Lions. With more than 700 submitted entries, this was a record-breaking year.

Future Lions is a competition for young creators who have answered the call to develop an idea for a global brand in a manner which wouldn’t have been possible five years ago. The goal is to redefine the medium and find new ways to reach one’s target group.

Every year Future Lions presents its prestigious “School of the Year” award – coveted by advertising- and communication schools worldwide.

Last year the award went to Miami Ad School. This year Berghs School of Communication is recognized as the world’s best school.

“The award means that out of over 700 entries that we had this year – a record year to date – Berghs had the most number of ‘finalists’ in the competition,” says Rei Inamoto, Chief Creative Officer of AKQA.

“We are extremely proud of this award,” replies Sofia Strömberg, Berghs’ Head of School. “We cannot receive better proof that we offer educational programs that represent the international vanguard. Those who should be proudest are all of our gifted students, but also our teachers who have mentored them. Our task now is to use this attention to attract more international students and launch more international partnerships.”

This year Berghs have broken their own record in terms of international success: Gold medals in One Show and in One Show Client Pitch, a gold medal in the Clio Awards, and today also the golden nod in the Cannes Lions student category Future Lions where Gustav Johansson, Erik Högfeldt coh Rasmus Keger was rewarded for their entry  "Fortum active"

“We may be a small school,” says fresh graduate Erik Högfeldt who was just hired straight from Berghs to Droga 5 in New York City.  “But our passion for creativity and innovation will ensure that we’ll continue to break new ground.”

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Gustav Johansson, Rasmus Keger and Erik Högfeldt, who are full-time Advertising students at Berghs, have today been awarded a gold medal in the global Clio Awards in Las Vegas. This makes them the world’s best advertising students right now.

“We are extremely happy!”, says Rasmus Keger, who plans to become an Art Director. “And we’re particularly thrilled to have won with a concept that integrates all communication channels. We are pushing the envelope by solving traditional communication problems in an entirely new way.”

The Clio Awards have since 1959 been the world’s most prestigious competition for advertising, design and interactivity. Each year Clios are awarded in several different categories, one of which is a student category attracting entries from advertising schools worldwide. This year the Berghs trio won with its integrated concept ahead of 38 other entries.

The Berghs students’ corporate partner has been Fortum, one of Sweden’s and Scandinavia’s largest energy companies. “Our challenge was to make people see Fortum as not just another boring energy giant you’re reminded of only when your monthly bill arrives in the mail”, says aspiring Art Director Gustav Johansson. “Our aim is to involve the customer in their own energy consumption in a creative manner.”

“Our idea is for Fortum to launch a gym where you can reduce your energy bill by exercising,” explains Copywriter Erik Högfeldt. “In this way Fortum will offer something unique vis-à-vis their competitors while the service itself is directly useful to the customer. We’ll offer people a free gym where they’ll bring down their energy costs as they train.”

“We hope that our idea is unusual enough to spread by word-of-mouth, and that it’ll thereby communicate in an integrated manner through all channels,” adds Erik. “By activating the customer we’ll add positive energy to Fortum’s brand.”

“We congratulate Berghs’ gold-winning students”, says Ann Lindell Saeby, Head of Communication at Fortum Sweden. “We think their concept is interesting, exciting and extremely up-to-date. We expect that the role of our customers – and our role as energy provider – will change in the future, and that the the traditional roles as producer and consumer will merge. In the future we’ll search for energy in unexpected places, for example in gyms, from cars, or on roofs, just like this case demonstrates.”

See their entries.

ONE SHOW CLIENT PITCH

WINNER Hoofmade Horseradish (Axel Lindgren, Rasmus Keger, Gustav Johansson, Axel Soderlund)
Här kan du se det vinnande bidraget.

GOLD

INTERGRATED BRANDING

Hoofmade Horseradish (Axel Lindgren, Rasmus Keger, Gustav Johansson, Axel Soderlund)

INNOVATIVE BRANDING

Welcome to Lancaster (Ebba Hult)

INERTACTIVE ONLINE ADVERTISING

Long's great tastes (Erik Hogfeldt, Petter Hernmarck, Johan Björnserud)

SILVER

INTERACTIVE ONLINE ADVERTISING

Hoofmade Horseradish (Axel Lindgren, Rasmus Keger, Gustav Johansson, Axel Soderlund)

INTERACTIVE WEBSITE

Welcome to Lancaster (Ebba Hult)

BRONZE

ONLINE ADVERTISING

Revealing the brand (Joel Ekstrand, Nick Sjostrom, Mattias Nygård)
The Food Profile (Erik Hogfeldt, Petter Hernmarck, Johan Björnserud)

INTERACTIVE / WEBSITE

MarketView (Robin Westergren, Therese Jonsson, Magnus Ivansson, David Prentell & Johan Ekhager)

MERIT

The Extraordinary Long Horseradish Family (Anna Oddbjörn, Saga-Mariah Sandberg, Tor Lemhag, Jose Hernandez, Karim Walldén)
Preserving 1901 (Olof Berglof)