To many fledgling creatives, Ben Middleton and Stuart Outhwaite are the very picture of envy. The beneficiaries of a plum internship at London hotshop Mother fresh from college in 2003, they've been there ever since. But according to the pair, it took a three-alarm fire under their creative keister to secure the gig on a permanent basis.

"Our first three months were rubbish," says Outhwaite. Luckily for them creative directors Mark Waites and Robert Saville gave the Buckinghamshire Chilterns graduates another three months to prove they were worth their salt. They also took a certain piece of advice to heart: take full advantage of all opportunities.

That meant soaking in the creative atmosphere, working closely with the agency's considerable creative talent, and pushing ideas as far as they could.

Soon, Middleton and Outhwaite's creative output soared with work for Observer Music Monthly (OMM) and Observer Sport Monthly (OSM) leading the pack. This work also epitomizes what working at Mother is all about. "Doping on Ice" for OSM was meant to be a print ad with a diminutive budget. Instead, they turned around and presented two TV ads for the same money using stock footage.

"Abba to Zappa" for OMM follows a similar tune. It was presented as an ambient brief, but inspired by their previous efforts they said, "let's make it a bigger campaign". The snag was that their original idea for a split-frame face of Abba's Benny Andersson and Frank Zappa was pooh-poohed by their seniors. Instead, a throwaway idea of using an alphabet chart formed the basis for the entire campaign, which recently won a gold award at BTAA. As Outhwaite says, "[Mark and Robert] really put a rocket up our ass, and it's still going."

Generally speaking, 23-year-old Surrey native Middleton acts as the art director while 24-year-old Geordie Outhwaite does the copywriting. But nothing is easily defined among a pair that considers themselves charming and opinionated. "I think I can write better than Stu and he thinks he can art direct better than me," Middleton says. But they both agree that with all that Mother has to offer, "it would be criminal not to do something great here."

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