Don't fall asleep whilst cooking dinner...

What a jam packed week/weekend, we've finally had some time off to sit back and take a view on 2008 as a whole, time to rest and time to prepare ourselves for the forth coming year. Full up with christmas dinners, no doubt there's more to come! It'll be January before long - full of new and exciting possibilities, we'll see where the new year takes us!

The staff christmas party was a great laugh, a few drinks, some mussels, lobster, fine dining, followed up by a sprinkle of Gogol Bordello, champagne and a VIP lounge and the odd drunken stupor (I promised Phil I wouldn't mention any names). Nice.

Whilst the advent calendars are nearly empty, and santa tries to squeeze his way down your chimney, on behalf of both of us...

Merry Christmas 2008!

And remember kids... Don't fall asleep drunk whilst cooking dinner, it could end in tears.

Mike.

Christmas Cribs

Christmas Cribs from OnePost

Nice little thought...

I don't even know what day it is...

Busy Busy Busy!!!

Now seemed like a good time to get back to the blog, time just seems to fly on by doesn't it? So much so that the thought of the week has become the thought of the month...

So much has gone on in the last few weeks since the last posted - I genuinely have no idea where to start.

Well after the mix up, Phil and I got back to working with each other. Having both been quite successful with our respective partners, we got back into the swing of things and sunk our teeth into a re-pitch for the whole week with an integrated campaign/ branding idea. Branding is kind of nice every now and again, especially when you have complete freedom to do what you want, it's all advertising though right? The result, it seemed to go down a storm in the agency, most people liked it, in both accounts and creatives depts, which is always a nice :) We'll probably find out how that goes in a little while, perhaps once we're back - and if it doesn't run we'll pop it up on here for some fun.

We've now finished at My Agency for Christmas. After a chat with the ECD, we've been asked to come back after christmas. A total of 4 months in the grand scheme of things, which isn't bad going, our work has been well received and we've made friends with some bloody great people. The days have been long and the nights longer, polishing it off with an hour journey home after work simply finishes me off. It gives us a bit of time to sort things out

Most this week we've been hot stepping it over to NABS this week for a multitude of reasons, lining stuff up for when we get back, getting some free print outs, but mainly hammering out some new strategies to mull over the hols. We even managed to get roped into to hanging the fairy lights in the reception. (compliments are welcome - disprovals too). Didn't take long and it's all for a good cause so we don't mind. We happened to bump into Rory from the Talent Business for a good ole natter, whilst he was overseeing the Lonely Hearts book club - sorry if we took up anyone's time!

Anyhow, we're off to the Work Christmas soirée on Thurs for a spot of Belgium food and then to see Gogol Bordello for a bit of caberet, punk, dub at the Round House. I'll report back on how that one turns out...

M.

Creative Mix up...

The last week and a half has been a bit strange, we've been racking our brains over the last few months on a variety of Vodka campaigns, and churning out work on various sub-brands and on a variety of briefs. Well, as of last Monday we were hit with a new brief. The ECD felt we needed a new angle and that people might need refreshing... no, I know what you might be thinking... a big agency social... not quite, this was the result...

A Creative mix up. All of the creatives, employed, freelance and placement teams were integrated with a new partner for the new brief. From senior to junior everyone was shifted around. I ended up working with another art director, Sergio. Phil as the copywriter ended up working with Andy - another art director.

Both Phil and I are gathering knowledge from working with people who possess a great deal more experience that either of us do, picking up some useful things along the way. The last week has been intense, but highly productive on the whole. 

It's was only for the short term, but imagine that, shifting round the whole department for a new inspiration, it certainly caught us off guard. It's not all been 100% plain sailing, it takes a bit of getting used to, working with someone new, especially when you're set in your ways of working with your usual partner. 

Well the time is up as we move on to a new brief altogether, it's gone well on the whole, both have bits of working through to the client, we'll find out next week what's going forward.

**Image via tanktheory

All Red wants to do is stuff his face...

In a moment of flashbacks as to what I was interested in on TV as a kid, whether it be cartoons like The Real Ghostbusters, Biker Mice from Mars, Turtles, Defenders of the Earth or shows such as Rawhide, Man from U.N.C.L.E. and a strange fascination for everything Hulk Hogan, (bad film after bad film looking back at it).... 

I assure you the list could have gone on forever... I began to think about how many I could remember and it's often the ones with catchy intro songs and thus it led me to the point of this post.

What adverts could I remember from childhood, so here we go....

Number One on my list....

And now in no particular order Number Two...

And Three, four, five and more...

Now, if I'm not right, then correct me, but I think the reason I recall these particular is that, not only was I of an impressionable age, but they all had wonderfully catchy jingles/ songs/ themes etc. The most spectacular in my opinion, is the Milkyway ad. An ad I will never forget.

I can't think of any ads right now that use this effectively, not that stick in my head at least. 

Perhaps times and changed and new trends have emerged, I know we are living in a highly visual age and jingles aren't necessarily the best way to go, but I know the words have stuck in my head for nearly 20 years, and they could have shown me practically anything and I am under the impression I would still know the words. That's an impressive feat, just for thinking they were cool songs. 

The Blue car might have won in the end but the Red car was still pretty cool. 

I hope I've rekindled some memories, feel free to add any ads i've missed that are of that era and sing the sweet tune of advertising jingles!

P.S. the baby in the Hulk Hogan outfit is NOT me.....**Added Club...Not sure how I could have missed that one... I'll do another post later if there's enough suggestions.

Will it make D&AD?

Possibly one of the most successful campaigns of the year... but will it make D&AD or One Show next year?  

Iris Potential...

Thursday was a change to the norm, as we headed over early, to 185 Park Street to for the Iris potential workshop.

For those of you who don't know, Iris run a graduate program much like that of the industries recruitment for the account side. The short of it, Phil and I entered a competition earlier in the year around April, and received confirmation to say we were through to the next round.

With something near on 120 entries and only 12 places we were pretty chuffed to have got to this stage. The outcome: A days workshop at the agency, working on a live brief alongside a few creative group heads and a chance to battle it out against some fellow creatives. 

In all honesty we were spoilt rotten, muffins and pastries for breakfast feast, extravagant sandwiches and a constant flow of Tea & Coffee all day - along with some jolly nice people, and some good conversations. Anyone who came on their own were teamed up and those of us who were already in teams worked together.

There was plenty of space for us to spread out in, after all,  the place is enormous, we chose to work in the 'Orange Room'. Nice and cosy - where everything was orange funnily enough. 

I'll respect the privacy asked of us, and not give away too much on the brief we worked on, but from the critique session at the end of the day, everyone came away with something positive with a huge range of unique ideas. We presented three routes, and after some intriguing questions and a few giggles, the feedback was extremely positive. We'll have to hold our breath for a couple of weeks when we find out the results. After the day flew on by, we finished up at a local bar with some drinks courtesy of Iris. Big hello to everyone who went especially Nick & Kira and Emily for mentioning us in her blog! 

As usual I was pretty rubbish in sparing a few minutes to take pictures - this will be my resolution come the new year. So apologies on that one.

Because reading after burning would be silly...

Well a post for this should have come Thursday or even Friday, but it's here now!

I am currently feeling particularly unwell, and as a result, I have turned towards the blog in order pass on some of the more trivial day-to-day acts of Mike & Phil.

It's been a funny ole week, at least for me anyway, after repeatedly banging my head against a brick wall on the latest brief, I decided, on the recommendation of a few people - including Liam - and after seeing the Saul bass-esque posters lying around

To go see this...

With an awesome line up, and possibly an Oscar winning performance by Brad Pitt, I had high expectations which soon materialized.

The flick was far funnier than I originally thought, although there was some unexpected moments and a completely different story line to what I imagined; The filming was brilliant, although I am still yet to figure out whether it was the old school cinema I went to - or an intentional filming style. Nether the less Liam wasn't wrong. Definitely the best film I have seen in months. 

Don't Hesitate, Don't Even Blink...

Here's a little bit of Genius straight out of Dentsu, Tokyo

More of a short film than an ad and in my opinion, definitely one of the best ads of late.

A little bit of useful help on the side, you can sign up to Adforum 

for a free weekly email newsletter, just updates you with the 

latest ads coming out of ad agencies around the world. 

It's a pretty useful ad site for other bits and bobs aswell.

Keeping Alzhimer's at bay...

Working on your book is something that will never, ever completely finish... unless you retire.

But every piece of advice we've received across all levels is to keep busy, stay creative. The minute you stop working is the minute you cease to have flare and potential. As David Abbot once said, "You're only as good as your last piece of work". So if you're not working on your book take photos, sketch, paint, go to exhibitions, meet your mates for a social, either way you're learning the way of the creative individual and keeping the alzheimer's at bay. 

I'd like to think in this dreamy reality that everyone on the ad scene is constantly working on their book, and for the most part, i'd agree, especially amongst the Junior ranks and those wishing to switch jobs. I'd like to know how much Creative Directors work on their 'folios if they even have them? Time is tight when you're working and the last thing you want to do when you've had a tough, long day at work is to come home and knock up some speculative ads, but you do because you hope that one day it will pay off. 

If it's something you enjoy then clearly it's not something that will fall to the wayside. Once you get into advertising, things change. Not in the small sense either. The way you approach things, the way you see things, and the way you think about things. There is not a day that has gone by where I haven't thought about an ad, made a comment about one, or jotted down some new ones, this is where a pocket sized notebook comes in handy for those bottom draw ideas. 

And no - bottom drawer ideas are not bad, tasteless, sexual innuendoes; but those that aren't fully fledged and ready to leave the nest ideas, just thoughts, observations that might come in to play at a later date - but possibly not. 

Chaps is the word...

chap(s) 

 noun informal

 he's a nice chap. See guy .

 not to be confused with riding chaps or Ralph Lauren's brand.

Something that's popped up in our short time in Advertising has been the word 'Chaps'.

For instance, 'hey chaps, where are the chaps?' 

It's kind of nice, brings back the old age of advertising where there was a distinguished gentlemanly quality in the way people addressed each other. 

You can imagine how complicated this can get but it's definitely a buzz word. Crit to Crit, placement to placement, job to job, you will at some point in your career be called a chap, if you haven't already. 

When you think you are referred to as 'the chaps' you find someone else has also been referred to as 'the chaps'. So who are the chaps?

It makes me wonder what the term would be for the girls?

Aren't Kids Cool!

Slightly similar but not... observational pause for thought!

Exhibit A : The Great Will Ferrell in 'The Landlord' & 'Good Cop - Bad Cop'

Exhibit B : By Quiet Storm for Haribo - 'Interrogators'

Aren't kids cool?

Mikeandphilarama

So what's going on in the World of Mike & Phil...

Well, the last couple of weeks have been full of long days, longer nights and the occasional morning here and there. But that's to be expected right? Most of you guys on placement - or working will appreciate a tough days work followed by an evening of spec work can take it out of anyone - In my opinion, you have got to know when to rest and when to work. Keeping an even mix of both in order to stay fresh - i'm not saying that by any means i've worked it out yet. 

Anyone else find it difficult to switch off? I think it's a nature of the job that you can turn it down but you can never truly turn it off.

On Monday, we received a call from Liz H to nip over to Karmarama in West Kensington to meet up with the infamous Caroline Pay. 

A little background - When we met Caroline Pay a couple of years back with a Uni trip it was actually our first time in front of  a Creative Director - which now seems like a lifetime ago. As far as I'm aware she has worked at Kessels Kramer, Mother, BBH and Wieden's and now Karmarama. So her advice and feedback was of course well received. It took that nervous edge off that you inevitably get when your putting your work in front of a CD. On the whole a real positive response, she has asked us to keep in touch and we've got to go back and see her in a few weeks. So, whilst juggling the placement and working on our book I'm sure we'll be able to show that we're both interested and motivated. A Little disappointed that we didn't get to see any of the Ping-Pong antics that adorn their blog pages though :(

You might have noticed i've put up a new thought for the week, something I nabbed off of Scamps comments section a few weeks back. I'd be interested to see if people agree...

How to make use of YouTube...

Here's a little something for you to take in while we resume our posting enthusiasm...

You have to hit up the link for the true experience - no embedding unfortunately....

Great little idea for Nintendo Wii's Warioland - 6  Months old and i've only just found out about it. What's more is that all links are still 100% useable!

More info about our adventures to come...

The Nature of an Art Director

Tie vs Trainers

I always find the job process between 'creatives' and 'suits' interesting...

The account side tends to follow a path no to dissimilar to most job applications processes,and in most cases are often through the results of a succesful graduate recruitment scheme, where as most of us know, for us creatives, it's not quite that simple. Here's a little video from a couple of people we met who were last years grads at JWT, it's quite simple but fun.

10 times filtered... from JWT Grads on Vimeo.

I have seen a couple of companies making an effort towards the creative graduate recruitment schemes but these are still few and far between, for most of us its a case of picking up your booking touting it around agencies, calling, emailing, contacts, friends of friends, short or long placements - more often long than short. But in my eyes possibly a far more rewarding perspective if and when that job does come through. 

Yet another hectic week here in the smoke, with weekdays being taken up with 10 hours days minimum, only time to get home catch some food, sit down to a bit of relaxation before falling asleep on the sofa. The back end of last week saw us heading back to Lincoln for our Graduation Ceremony - so a nice old catch up, but no break from the early starts.

As much as the days are long and the work is tough, it's still fun. We've had feedback on the Vodka work which will be going into production, a very successful review by all accounts according to the execs. We've got a few more briefs and other bits to be cracking on with. 

TRUST.NO.ONE

- dim3 Ak7ion -

"Step from the shadows and show us your true colours. Signals can only be hidden in plain sight".

Time for a Review...

When I started this blog, I made a promise to myself, that I would make at least one post every week at the bare minimum...well, to say it has been extremely hectic is a major understatement. So... we've been at My Agency for what is coming up to our third week. As you can probably imagine, the posting has somewhat dwindled over that time. 

I won't apologise, it has all been for a very good reason, or rather a number of reasons, for one the intensity with working in a smaller agency is far greater than it was at JWT. At least that's the way it seems.

Don't get me wrong - we're still new to the game - but what a complete contrast! I don't think we could have imagine it going from one extreme to the other. The Agency isn't nearly as big as JWT but it is certainly just as impressive in its own way.

From day one we were round the board/ conference table sitting with the other Creatives, execs and a range of accounts staff - what an introduction. Straight in the door and straight on a brief, no time to settle - the way i'd expect any agency to be. Do the work - that's what you're there for. 

As usual you worry about making first great impression, you've done the crit or possibly more, they've got you in, but you can't relax. Well that was 2 weeks or so ago and after the big push, I felt it was time to write another post. The all nighter the night before last has left me a little wired but the execs have flown off to Russia, so the pressure eases off a little, but we still have plenty to do. We've been working on a big Vodka brand, a broadband service and now having a play about with some whiskey. 

The last two weeks have flown by at the speed of light, having now officially become residents of London, started our second placement & had plenty of other things to keep us busy such as the YCN Live event - we've not really had a chance to sit back and stop to take it all in and it looks like we won't especially since our graduation ceremony/ ball is at the end of the week. Now that I've racked up more miles on a train that i'd ever had imagined, things should be back on track (excuse the pun - unintentional) and I will get everything back up to speed come the weekend.

*Illustration - Hugh Macleod

The Reason why you should avoid Glue ads in your book.

Possibly the longest title in the world, but I thought i'd share a piece of advice we were given amongst our first ever industry visit. 'Avoid glue ads in your book'.

We all know it's not easy coming up with great ads, in fact choosing a product that already has fantastic advertising is usually a bad idea. Even if your ad is brilliant it's somewhat overshadowed by that ad that has already run. 

My point for posting this is that way back when, when we first came down to London with our first examples of work we had some work for Loctite Superglue. Although the work itself was well received, always causing a chuckle and cutting away at some of those nervous silences that often arise in critiques - you can never get away from that amazing ad that already exists - that becomes the topic of conversation not your shiny new ad.

Here's the reason we were told to avoid having it in our book - and this was done in 1970 imagine what you would have to do now! Apologies for the low quality, screenshots are all I could get - if anyone has a link for the film I'd appreciate it.

...and it's follow up. 'Still going strong'.

I Love my brand.

Well, whilst Phil & I have been enjoying a small break back home before we start at My Agency... something that currently has my mind occupied is to do with Brand Loyalty...

There is one thing I seemed to be fascinated by for the past couple of years and that is Nixon (The Surf Brand) I am currently on my third watch (this is where the addiction / attraction / whatever started) ...and if you don't know their watches, you need to take the time to check them out here, 

I'm on my second large buckle enamel belt. I have 2 hats - millions of stickers and the odd t-shirt or two. I think i'd buy the bedspread if I could. 

When I think about it - I have no real reason to choose it over other brands, it's not cheap, I'm sure there are, in fact I know there are other products that are made to be more robust. Am I buying into the image? - I've surfed once - worked in a surf/ clothing shop, was big on Kayaking - my family home is a few minutes drive from the coast? Just what is it? In my opinion, some people just buy something because it's what they know, some for their friends - others for the image... God knows why I buy mine... I have no idea if i'm honest, I certainly haven't seen any advertising for the brand in the traditional sense.

The fact is that big brands - especially clothing brands have the power to adopt an image and change it at will, some - the likes of Adidas & Nike may have more than one, appealing to a vast range of audiences... That's the power of advertising.

I'd be interested to know what is your brand? Why are you loyal to it? 

Friday Fun...

...And now for Friday. The busiest day of them all.

It was quite intense, firstly the morning was quiet, just working away on our book before breaking into the afternoon where we headed off to Meet Sam Kientsch at LIZ H for a quick chat - which turned into quite an insightful conversation. He gave us a review on our work, before discussing what he could do for us, where we had been and what we were up to - and ultimately what we wanted to achieve both in the long term and short term.

LIZ H isn't at all how we expected, it's so comforting - no corporate feel, no big offices, it's practically an apartment - two big comfy sofas, a coffee table, a shelf full of books and even a little desk in the corner. (Apologies for the poor quality photo - London was actually bright that day). There was something quite nice and warming about the visit amongst all of the flash, glamourous buildings we've pop into over the last few weeks. Like nipping to your mums for a cup of tea! 

We were a tad early for Leo's so we stopped off at Coffee Republic - who says you can't be a kid at 21/22? Some of the most fun things happened then! Ever realised how bubbly the coffee are at CR? Exhibit A...

Once we'd finished our coffees we nipped over to Leo's to see Trevor Webb this time, and what a nice bloke. Instead of heading up to the creative floor this time we sat in the canteen/bar, some music playing definitely felt comfy there. Again, feedback was mixed, some keepers, some top quality bin material, although the ones he was most interested in were the ones that almost worked but weren't crystal clear... It was these ones that he offered insight as to what was right about them - what was wrong and what we could do about it. Definitely interested in heading back there for round 2. 

Some of our eagle-eyed readers will have noticed we had a crit with Ed Morris (The other one) the week before, and the opinion were quite varied, both had different methods of critiquing the work, and thoughts on where to go next - but they were both equally as positive about our work. 

A suspicious Mike - admiring the free granny smiths on offer

This post is getting quite long - so i'll attempt to keep it brief, after Leo's it was straight on the train right across town to Play, the digital wing of M&C Saatchi to meet Jesper & John who turned up with a couple of free beers - always a nice way to start a crit! 

To our surprise, the whole crit wasn't about digital this that and the other, it was all about ideas, they were looking to the barest sense of the idea itself, it that didn't make sense then nor did the ads. Pretty obvious when you think about it. Again, the back of the book section went down a storm, with a good couple of ideas that were definite keepers, others needed expanding - and some just weren't communicating what wanted to say. It was good to know that even in the ideas that weren't 'quite there yet' - our initial thoughts were still well received even if the execution wasn't quite right. 

Well I'm all blogged out for a couple of days - so until then... 

Blogging the Job Hunt

Ok, so a teeny weeny white lie, the next post will be Funny Friday... which will come later this afternoon.

I'd just thought i'd highlight this... shameless plug really if I'm honest. 

It's a blog for Creative Choices - a government sponsored site that is about entering the creative industries, written by Rachel Clarke.

A few of the well known blogger world creatives are on it too, take a look.

There's even a mention of the infamous scamp - so if you're currently having withdrawl symptoms about no longer being able to read his blog, perhaps you can soothe the eager mind there.

:/

Thrilling Thursday...

Well thursday was equally as interesting, having not long finished such a big agency, we were on a mission to discover as much as possible, we wanted to seek out digital agencies, BTL & TTL agencies as well as the Above the Line agencies; to get some insight as to how they work differently to what we had experienced - Even if it was just to make our book more diverse and broaden our own ability, after all your advertising isn't down to the nature of the place you work but the people in it. 

First we were off to 42 Hoxton Square to check out the Kessels Kramer Outlet store to see its Creative Director Richard Walker, of W+K Amsterdam fame.  It was a strange place really, ultimately cool in its design - a multifunctional design/creative space that doubles up as a Gallery and Shop. It was literally the size of shop, where plywood met with cutting edge design and bright patterned wallpapers. 

Doors on wheels...

The whole place oozed - (what a horrible word) creativity, Richard had some very interesting things to say, our perception of our portfolio was quite traditional in the sense that it was the nature of our degree course and how we were directed in university, traditional medias at the helm with a dabble in the extended medias. He shared his opinions and advice which we will be taking to great consideration, but fundamentally, the biggest point that sticks in my mind was with regards to our traditional perception.

'Your ideas are quite the opposite in fact, but it is the executions that are traditional'

Much like Jo & Steve at Y&R, Richard Shared with us another secret that there are approximately 12 ways (not 5) of saying something and it's how you say it that makes your idea unique. This is something that will definitely influence our future contributions towards the book. What's more we were invited back in a month which will give us a chance to incorporate what we have learnt. 

The Afternoon was back off to JWT to see Simon & Hannah a Creative Team who we had worked with at the beginning of our placement. Nice to see familiar faces, as Phil mentioned there's a certain comfort about heading back to JWT, yet there is a certain strange feeling as well, although I couldn't explain it. 

Simon & Hannah were extremely busy as they had just had some work bought through by the client consisting of numerous TV ads, Online & Press executions to be done ASAP so we were grateful for the time they put aside for us. 

After a general chit chat, we had a chat about the book, the offered us some insight into the things they expect to see in the book and I always find it intriguing to hear the mixed feedback across the department even within the same agency. Fascinating. On the whole it was positive, the thing that really surprised me was that JWT is known firstly, for its TV & Press, and the both Hannah & Simon were striving for us to go beyond that. Any campaign that was not integrated was encouraged to do so, those that were solely digital based were encouraged to go into traditional.

It's a pretty exciting time for us, having fun, shaping our book - without any restraints - other than that of directing our book towards the agencies we one day aspire to work at.

Next up Funny Friday...

Wonderful Wednesday...

Well it's been a extremely busy week for Phil and I. Now we're both back home respectively for a 2 week refresher we have time to recollect and line up our next adventure for what will be happening for the coming weeks, I figured the easiest way is to break it down by day. First up is Wednesday...

So the morning was filled with a trip over to the Barbican for a visit to 'My Agency' - an integrated agency, not quite the size of JWT but for what they lack in size, they make up for in personality and determination.

We met with Luke White, the Founder and Senior Creative Partner of the Agency - You may remember him from McCann's in London where he spent his last 10 years - 5 of which as the ECD there. What a interesting critique, he quickly flicked through our book before calling over Dave Newbold one of the Senior Creatives there to share in our ideas. As always some of our concepts took precedence over others, some a little confused whilst others sailed through with only minor constructive criticisms. The new 'back of the book' section went down a storm and gave them some insights as to what we were working on. However, the meeting wasn't all about our book but a good chat on what we had been up to, where we planned to go, and Luke shared some experiences he had been through along with some useful advice for along the way. 

To our surprise, Luke has asked us to come in as of the 25th, the day we get back down to London - well that's a Bank Holiday - so the 26th! to begin a placement. It's great knowing that once our short trip back home is over we'll have something to come back to. So we're looking forward to jumping straight in at the deep-end in a very different environment and once again seeing what we can come up with.

The afternoon was full of surprises... namely one i'd rather forget...

Bird Poo. Some say it's good lucky - but how can this be when you are sitting outside Y&R a mere 5 minutes before you're due to check in... A rustle of leaves followed by a light patter around me. Brilliant. All I can say is thank god for the new Dyson hand dryers!

Well once we'd made our way from the park and I had made some minor cleaning adjustments, we headed in to see Steve Moss & Jo Finch at Y&R. This crit turned out to be possibly one of the most informative meetings we have ever had. Having worked at AMV for several years and now at Y&R the guys certainly knew what they were talking about - when it came to defining strategies in your book. For every product there are possibly 5 different ways of selling an idea, but it is the strategy that defines it and makes it unique from those before. 

Pearl of Wisdom - Get those strategies absolutely watertight. They have leveled the playing field for us, telling exactly what we wanted to know, no sugar coating, brutal honest feedback - what works and what doesn't, what we should keep and what needs to go! It's so nice to have a crit where you actually want to go back and make a huge statement the second time around. We now have something big to aim for, counting down as of Wednesday night....

Brainfood, for the time being...

Okay - So I've been a little bit sluggish in getting off the mark with the next post, truthfully, the internet access I was 'borrowing' was a little unstable and therefore every attempt to make a post was shot down when I came round to clicking publish - only to be shown 'Your are not connected to the internet'. Imagine my Frustration...

Anyhow... Until I post everything that you've missed over the last week, in a series of exciting posts tomorrow, here's some brainfood from a friend James aka Ronnie Blogsville. He's set up a little mini blog forum for the Junior Ad wannabes. 

Old Ronnie Blogsville is new to the blog scene, you may have seen his alias floating around Brand Republic, however, even in his first few posts has managed to make a few good points - "If only I had listened" - Or rather I did - but it was too late to do anything about it. 

The HitList

Well, as we're on the hunt for our next placement the biggest question that we keep asking ourselves is where would we like to work? Now, I know many people would tell you that you take what you're given, but to be honest, we have a Hitlist.

This Hitlist consists of our Top Ten agencies that we'd like to work for. We may not know what's it's like there per ce, but these are the ones that in our opinion are producing interesting work or have people that we admire on the roster. Yes, as you can imagine, most of them are big global above the line agencies - but not all them I might add. We will work at these places one day.

Late last week Scamp had a poll up asking whether people would prefer to work in Small, Medium or Big agencies, now from our point of view, we were lucky enough to experience a rather large agency, we'd love to test the water with the other two categories, but the question is do you take a placement at a small agency, whether they are a start-up, recruitment or specialist ad agency, or do you hold out and go for gold? Scamp's blog says Medium, Small, No difference, Large - in that order... 

I know it's clear that for the big agencies you've got to do something really right to get in the door, and then something especially impressive to stay there, getting ads made just doesn't cut it, you've got to knock them for six. 

Everyone i've spoken to recently in the placement scene would drop everything at a hat to take up a spot at a Top agency, I'm sure there are others that would disagree equally but is it better to take up a job in advertising so that you are working in an advertising environment? or avoid the job in a smaller place and work 24/7 on your book? I think between Phil and I, we've decided that we are open to all considerations and it's a case of taking it as it comes, if you're lucky enough to land a placement - so long as it's not detrimental to your 'creative flow' then it's a good thing right? You can always leave if it's not working out I suppose.

For all of the three readers we get, I would be interested in your opinions - let us know what you think...

Red Bull Air Race - London 2008

Between writing strategies and coming up with ideas we thought we needed to refresh our brains and seek inspiration elsewhere, what better way than the Red Bull Air race!? Well it's all over and what an event!

It always amazes me how Red Bull are gradually taking over the sponsorship of most extreme sporting events, from Skating and Snow sports to motor sports and even cliff diving. For weeks we've been touring around London with the Air Race ads popping up all over the place, well after seeing the Abu Dhabi race a few weeks back I was hooked. A sucker for advertising eh?

Smile - Your on Live TV

We managed to wangle some tickets and were stood in the perfect position with a view of the whole course. While the weather wasn't at its best, and couldn't decide whether it wanted to be bright sunshine or tipping down with rain it wasn't going to put any dampeners on this event.

Apologies for the lack quality - I knocked it down a notch so I didn't have to wait all year for it to upload & for the unsteadiness (hand held camera) - you never realise just how fast the race actually is whilst watching it on TV! This might give you an idea! and no it wasn't in fast forward.

                                              

Post JWT.

Parading through the scorching weather that London has to offer and the serious mistake of wearing jeans - not shorts has been the only real down side over the last couple of days. 

Besides working on our book, we have had a couple of crits, one with Nick Darken at Albion, the other with Ed Morris at Leo Burnett. Both crits were extremely positive on the whole, two very different agencies - the latest emphasis on some digital executions has been suprisingly well received! Especially since we didn't really know what to expect. We received lots of valuable feedback which means we have some tweaking and reshaping to do to a few campaigns and have been invited back - which is always nice to hear. 

In the meantime we have some things to be getting on with, along with a handful of other crits over the next couple of weeks. 

A little idea.

Chloe Coulson's work in the previous post got us thinking about how people react in everyday situations (Not that we weren't already of course). We also were working on some spec work for Benadryl and voila! the two just merged together and we came up with this little idea...

A late night trial as modelled by Phil

We'd had a long day - so we thought we would actually make the t-shirt, having nearly broken the printer at NABS trying to feed inkjet t-shirt paper through the laser printer (don't worry it didn't break - we fixed it, we tried a different method. As you can see, it worked, we couldn't even wait for it to dry before trying it on to see how it turned out.

You can also view some of our most recent digital concepts we've been working on via our Flickr portfolio

Let us know what you think!

Mike.

*The Model featured in our first picture was 'borrowed' from www.cult.co.uk//

Bumper Post #3

Well, I am obviously getting a little bit carried away today... It's a Sunday after all. Being as i've shared something random & something positive, I'd thought I would highlight something creative... 

This has got to be one of my favourite ideas of late, practical, clever and witty - if you ignore the names of the t-shirts :D ha ha. Jokes aside, her names Chloe Coulson, she specialises in Graphics & Product Design and she's pretty good by the looks of things!

UTTERLY JEALOUS - Nice work Chloe.

I Found it here... but you can find her website here, and it's quite nice in my opinion.

Lose Yourself...

The Cinema. 

A great place to get away from things, switch off from distractions, kick back with some pop corn & a drink. You can almost lose yourself... 

*Excuse the joke*

Many an ad book has said when you go stale on a brief you're trying to crack, nip off to the cinema, give yourself a validated break - it's a nice place to catch up on big screen ads, admire other peoples work and refresh your brain into thinking differently. I love watching films, they have the same pretense as ads, but where as an ad has to keep you for seconds, a film must keep your for hours. Pretty impressive challenge if you ask me; although an ad has to communicate all the emotion, build up and the message in a mere fraction of the time - even more impressive in my opinion.

Cheesy Pose # 1

If you're looking for some inspirational humour then check out Wall-E. Phil and I checked it out last week - well worth the time, even if there is no spoken words for the first 30 odd minutes of the film - you wouldn't even notice. Wall-E isn't your thing - there's plenty more on to fulfill your needs.

Cheesy Pose # 2

Go to the cinema!!!!