Alumni Spotlight — Collin Holmes

Collin Holmes, BADAS 2005, is an Associate Creative Director of Entertainment at VaynerMedia with over 14 years of experience in advertising, creative design, and UI design. Previously, he has worked on projects that utilize responsive mobile campaigns, code-based animations, 360 VR immersive video, multi-screen OOH activations, and more.

In what ways did your Digital Arts and Sciences experience prepare you for your career?

DAS prepared me by developing the proper frameworks to critically think and create within an ever-evolving industry. By building a toolbox of conceptual and macro creative skills, it set me up to successfully tackle new platforms and career pivots as they came about.

What do you like about your current career?

Having been in advertising for 15 years now, it is a career which allows for a wide breadth of creativity while avoiding burnout from pigeonholing–different clients, target demographics, initiatives, messages, etc all require different ways in–where the underlying skillsets of creative critical thinking and ultimately creative problem solving is always in need. This combines with the satisfaction of seeing firsthand your skillset manifesting into the content created, and your work speaking for itself.

What are some of your favorite memories from when you were in the program?

I very much enjoyed the fluidity provided and support for whichever creative rabbit hole you were looking to explore. Having a Fine Arts background prior to DAS, I also greatly appreciated the mix of enough technical Computer Science learning paired with the free flow of art studio classes to really develop that left brain right brain partnership in how I problem solve and ideate when creating.

What advice would you give to current students?

Create what resonates most with you, and try to pursue a career doing something at least tangentially close to those aspects or values. Even if you end up working on a brand or project which doesn’t 100% mesh with your outlook, you can bring those differing opinions to the table and even help direct the conversation towards something more genuine or that resonates more to you. It’s okay to be precious about some things and not precious about others, as the content will always continue. Also stay open to change, learning new platforms and disciplines; your current learnings can extend into those new arenas easier than it sometimes seems.