ADC*E – Creative Express Rome

Creative Express makes a pit stop in Rome

  • Italian creatives Giulia Mandalà and Eugenio De Riso selected to join European creative elite.
  • Young creatives asked to foster entrepreneurship among designers.
  • Emphasis on disruptive technology for ADCE’s next creative stars of Europe.

The Creative Express programme will this year be hosted at Pi Campus in Rome. The event, organised by the Art Directors Club for Europe (ADCE) in collaboration with Pi Campus, takes place May 18-19 2017.

A true tour of Europe, previous Creative Express stops have included Helsinki, Munich and Vienna. Every edition brings together the continent’s best young art directors, copywriters and designers to tackle a real-world business challenge in a classroom like no other. The Creative Express Rome will be the first to focus on startups: Pi Campus is a startup district and a venture fund that invests in global talent. The young creatives will be hosted at its HQ in Eur green area of Rome.

Describing the innovative location for the event, Pi Campus founder Marco Trombetti said, “We love state-of-the-art technology applied to disrupt big slow moving industries. Artificial Intelligence is in our DNA but we love founders that add design and art to bring emotions into technology products. We invest in startups designed to be global. Italy is where our heart is”.

Together with Creative Express director HP Albrecht, Trombetti will challenge 28 young creatives to develop a communication campaign aimed at inspiring designers around the world to found a startup over just two days. The final projects will be presented to a daunting audience of 100 people from the industry.

The group, split into five teams, will be mentored by an array of high profile Creative Directors. These include Ricardo Wolff, Creative Director at DDB Berlin (DE), Samuel López, Creative Director at Sr. y Sra. Wilson (ES) and Hannes Böker, Creative Director at Team Robert Rottensteiner (AT).

The up-and-coming stars have been selected from 14 European countries, nominated by their respective ADCE member clubs. To be included, they must be under 28 years of age, English speaking, and have a minimum of 2 years of professional experience. The 2017 cohort is:
Austria – Thomas Strobl
Austria – Manuel Haring
Czech Republic – Ivan Nevrela
Czech Republic – Adam Trojak
Germany – Karin Reineke
Germany – Jan Bröker
Finland – Marina Veziko
Finland – Matti Vesanen
Iceland – Rakel Tomasdottir
Iceland – Viktor Weisshappel
Italy – Giulia Mandalà
Italy – Eugenio De Riso
Portugal – Sebastião de la Guardia Ribeiro Ferreira
Portugal – Maria Sá Carvalho
Romania – Raul Gheba
Romania – Karla Georgescu
Slovakia – Maroš Hamorský
Slovenia – Gregor Vuk
Spain – Ángela Serna
Spain – Guillermo Blanco
Spain – Natalia Gruñeiro
Spain – Oriol Castellar
Switzerland – Anne Langer
Switzerland – Diego Martínez
Ukraine – Illia Anufriienko
Ukraine – Kateryna Melnyk
United Kingdom – Polina Hohonova
United Kingdom – Tom Manning

The diverse and international group will take their learnings back to agencies in their respective countries. Co-funded by Creative Europe Programme – created by the European Commission to fund development of the creative and cultural sectors – the event forms a key milestone in the ADCE’s remit to provide professional training and to promote young European creatives.