• by Larissa Faw , February 2, 2021

The One Club for Creativity is expanding its One School free portfolio program for Black creatives to Chicago and Atlanta.

The new programs will be co-run in Chicago by a pair of creatives at Burrell Communications — Lewis Williams, chief creative officer and Terrence Burrell, VP, creative director — and in Atlanta by Sherman Winfield, executive creative director at VMLY&R. 

These three will work closely with Spotify creative director Oriel Davis-Lyons, who runs the overall One School program and heads the New York school, and Ez Blaine, ECD at ChowNow, who handles the program in Los Angeles. One School has also received an Epic MegaGrant from Epic Games, an interactive entertainment company, to help provide support to program operations for all four cities.

The national program is designed to go beyond simply teaching how to put a book together by also focusing on how to navigate the industry while Black. In combination across its entire footprint, the program will introduce a minimum of 120 new Black creatives into the industry this year.

Chicago and Atlanta were selected due to their sizable African-American populations and substantial creative communities. Both are also home to top ad agencies that can provide creatives to serve as tutors and mentors.

“As a native of Richmond, VA, I can attest that the South has forever been a hotbed for creative talent, ranging from music, the arts to now film, especially in Atlanta,” said VMLY&R’s Sherman Winfield, who previously worked with The One Club on its Creative Boot Camps for diverse college students.  “The talent that agencies are looking for is here, and initiatives like One School can tap into it and solve one of the biggest issues facing our industry today: the pipeline.”