D&AD Shift at Ten: The Free Night School Turning Diverse Careers into Creative Success

Jun. 17, 2026

A decade ago, Sophie McGovern walked into D&AD Shift as a store manager. She is now a Pencil-winning Senior Creative at MullenLowe UK. Edem Wornoo joined the same founding cohort and now directs music videos for Stormzy, Dave and Kojey Radical.

They are two of hundreds of people that D&AD Shift has pulled into the creative industry from the outside and today, to mark ten years of doing exactly that, D&AD launches Shift Edition, the first platform to bring together the full breadth of that community in one place. Alumni stories, in their own words, through their own lens, with commissioned photography from Shift alumni Xavier Duah. 

Since 2016, D&AD Shift, the free night school for emerging talent from non-traditional backgrounds, has operated across the UK, USA, Brazil, Germany and Australia. On average, 75% of graduates secure employment in the creative industries within a year of completing the programme.

The pipeline is still producing, Russie Miessi was a nursery worker and is now a creative strategist at Ogilvy and Lorena Pereira was coordinating home care in New York, she's now an Associate Art Director at BBH USA. 

Paul Drake, Foundation Director at D&AD said:

"For a long time, the creative industry has been hiring the same type of people. Same schools, same networks, same postcodes. D&AD Shift was our answer to that and honestly, what it's uncovered has been remarkable, careers that wouldn't have happened otherwise, work that wouldn't have existed. But we can't do it without the brands, studios and agencies who are willing to take a chance on someone new, that's what will keep it going for another ten years."

 

Among the partners helping to fund Shift over the past ten years are Google, adidas, Spotify, Airbnb and Uber. Diageo has gone a step further, funding the programme continuously for five years and placing no fewer than 29 Shifters into their agency roster, ensuring the creatives working on their accounts continue to reflect their customers, and helping to drive cultural change across the agency landscape.