Profile

Selina Smyllie

Alumni

BA (Hons) Marketing Communications

Black and white headshot of Selina Smyllie in a black blazer.

Selina Smyllie graduated from Creative Advertising (now BA (Hons) Marketing Communications) in 2021 and now works as an Art Director for the advertising agency IMA-HOME in Leeds.

Selina has worked for multiple advertising agencies such as McCann in Leeds, and Hero in Melbourne, Australia, working with brands such as Adidas, L’Oréal, La Roche Posay, Dettol and Bumble. In 2021, Selina won the coveted D&AD New Blood Black Pencil Award for their project ‘Lit on beat’.

Outside of work, Selina regularly returns to Leeds Arts University to collaborate with the BA (Hons) Marketing Communications course students, and also runs a platform called Not Another Creative, which is aimed at generating awareness of creative careers to young people and to re-educate them on what ‘creativity’ means.

"The best thing about the advertising course (now BA (Hons) Marketing Communications) is it's 100% career and industry centric. Everything is getting you ready for a job, which I don’t think most degrees do. There’s no sitting in lectures or reading from textbooks, it’s all practical, like 3 years of training for a job. Each week or bi-weekly, we’d have to stand up and present our work in front of our course, for 3 years. At the beginning of the course the thought of public speaking terrified me and I would avoid it at all cost, but by the end of it, it became my comfort zone. I actively seek out public speaking opportunities because it’s a space I thrive in and know I’m good at. And that's 100% from the course."

Selina Smyllie, BA (Hons) Creative Advertising (now BA (Hons) Marketing Communications) graduate

Selina continued; “I think the way the course is set up helps you figure out what you’re good at, what you love or hate. For example, when you get a brief from an agency you’re taking on around 3/4 roles that an agency would use to answer the same brief i.e. a strategist, a copy writer, an art director, and a designer/visualiser. On the course, you have to wear all those hats to answer the brief, so it really helps people figure out what they’re best at and what they enjoy. Most people leave this course as one of those roles, meaning they can start job hunting for that specific role. This is great as most other graduates leave their course not knowing how to job hunt because they don't even know what role they’d be or should apply for. By wearing all the hats along the creative advertising process, you get to trial out what you’re good at and it prepares you for what a job in the industry will be like.”

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