In “Portlandia,” Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein had an amazing sketch called “Put A Bird On It.”

Birds were everywhere in 2010. They were on notebooks, tote bags, necklaces, sweaters — birds had a MOMENT, and they were shorthand for one thing: creativity. 
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It was such an overdone trend of “quirky creativity,” that it became a cliche.
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The same principle can be applied to cliches in student art direction and copywriting portfolios. The best advertising schools all know, there are some ideas and brands that have been done to death and instantly give off a student-y vibe. Here are our big rules at book180: 

Personification
We know that mascots are the beloved bread and butter of a lot of brands, but it’s first-thought thinking. Don’t create a mascot, and definitely do not add arms and legs to your product. You can find a deeper connection to your audience if you focus your ideas on creative problem solving for the brand.

‍Puns
According to Luke Sullivan, “Get puns out of your system right away. Puns, in addition to being the lowest thing on the joke food chain, have no persuasive value.”Basically: it’s cheap humor. First-thought thinking. Smarter word play will always elevate your junior advertising portfolio.

‍Capes, Superheroes, Museum Exhibits
Don’t add a cape to your product. Just avoid metaphors of superheroes in general, and do not put your product on display in a museum. Again, be a creative problem solver; there are smarter ways to elevate your product.‍

How to Pick Brands for Your Ad School Portfolio
You have the freedom to feature any work you’d like in your student advertising portfolio. Pick big brands that you can think of interesting solutions for. Avoid small, niche brands, like local guitar shops.
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And the most slippery rule of all:

All rules in advertising are made to be broken.
Allstate’s Mayhem is a brilliant use of personification. John Deere’s tagline is the ultimate pun: Nothing Runs Like A Deere. If it’s bespoke, it defies all rules, and the only way to recognize greatness is to practice putting a lot of birds on it.