Sharing Is Caring in Ingenious New Initiative to Help Struggling Creatives

These days, every creative professional has an online portfolio. Unfortunately, not every creative currently has work, due to the difficulties imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic on our industry. With that in mind, two copywriters and an art director created a project that helps give visibility to those who are in need of a job.

'My Link Is Your Link' is an initiative that encourages creatives who have work to redirect part of their portfolio to those who don’t. It’s a simple principle: people who have work don’t need as much visibility right now. On the other hand, those who don’t have never needed it so much. So it’s only fair and empathetic to give them that space.

“I received a message from Maicon Silveira saying that he had been cut. The following day, it was Rodrigo Rocha. It was a coincidence, because I think I have a lot in common with these two copywriters, so I put myself in their shoes and thought: what could I do for them with the tools I have? And that’s how the idea got started,” says Bernardo Tavares, senior copywriter at David SP.

Rodrigo Rocha, senior copywriter whose professional history includes J. Walter Thompson, CP+B and Grey, explains that this is a global project. “When we started discussing the idea, it became clear that the project doesn't apply only to Brazil; many markets are being affected by the current scenario, and the more people this idea helps, the better.”

André Mezzomo, senior art director at FCB and a long time professional partner of Rodrigo Rocha, completes the creative trio. The three worked together for a short period at Thompson, where they won the J&J account. Mezzomo led the programming effort, which relied on new collaborators. ”It’s a simple two-line code that, it turns out, is not simple at all. Fortunately, many people embraced the cause and helped us find the best solution, especially programming gurus Marco Correa (my cousin), and Marcelo Arteiro. A big shout out to both of them.” says Mezzomo.

The website will soon have versions in other languages, and the code developed will be made available to the tech community on GitHub, where programmers will be able to develop it further, under the leadership of Marco Correa.

The project begins as an altruistic initiative conceived by creatives, but it can easily extend to other platforms. “Even the advertising agencies can join in, publicising those creative professionals they would have liked to keep but had to let go. And professionals from other industries can also use this. This way, the code becomes a new format for publicising talent, by using the visibility other professionals, or even agencies, may have,” explains Bernardo.

If you’re a copywriter, designer, or art director who are employed and would like to donate your portfolio views to people who currently have no work, just click on this link and follow the instructions.