Creative Boom

If We Want a Fairer Creative Industry, We Need to Redesign the Doorway

Junior creative Lola Delafuente highlights the stark gap between university training and the realities of agency work, noting that academic portfolios lack commercial context. She argues that unpaid placements and low entry‑level pay filter out diverse talent, especially women, and that real‑world feedback is essential for growth. Programs like the 20(S) Exchange demonstrate how short, paid agency stints can bridge the divide by exposing juniors to client conversations and strategic constraints. Redesigning the entry doorway, rather than relying on glossy panels, is presented as the key to a fairer creative industry.