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!!!!

Pen Heaven!

Okay, so it's another pretty random post... My favourite fineliner & marker packed up today. Off to Pen Heaven they go...

Now I know that writing an idea down can be done in any number of ways, but you've got to admit everyone has their favourite type of pen - whether it's a fineliner, bullet tip or a trusty fat wedge marker. For some it's anything you can get your hands on, like a biro. How many do you go through?

For me it was the 'Pilot V5 Hightechpoint for finelining - these literally last FOREVER... until today! & the 'Pilot V Sign Pen' for the edging, possibly the nicest pen to write with but they just don't last much longer than a week.

There's always the old favourites - Sharpie, famous for writing on anything and going blunt extremely quickly & the N50 from Pentel, commonly recognised by the smell. Essential in any creatives stowaway.

Anyway, I've switched - Pilot V Ball BG-05 & aptly named 'Pilot Fineliner' for that particular purpose, I'll stick to the Sharpie & N50 for the edging.

I'm not for one moment saying a pen will help you churn out better ideas - that would be a lie, but it does help, in knowing that when you're on a roll with an idea, your pen isn't going to run out mid-flow. 

Creatives in Suits...

Too many points of view? Something that we've learnt at our stint at JWT is that you have to be clear on what you want say - from the beginning. Although most of your direction as a junior/ placement team is given by your respective CD, you will receive a brief and it's the Creatives job to sift through often pages of literature to pick out the one crucial factor for your idea. Usually, it can be summed up in one line or even a single word. There can be unforeseen circumstances however... 

Incredibly funny, slightly unrealistic, well worth a few minutes of your time. 

Mike

Farewell... but not just yet...

Well it's been a long and hard graft at JWT here in London. Unfortunately our placement here has come to an end after a long 5 weeks. And...just when we thought it was all over we got told we have an extra couple of weeks to see through some HSBC work the client bought on our last day. Talk about cutting it close.

We've been working on a number of brands including, Benadryl, Kellogg's, Crunchy Nut Clusters, Kit Kat, Imodium, Kenco, HSBC and some internal dm projects to promote the company. Some more successful than others, we've now got some credit to our name having three pieces of work put through production, not bad after such a short spell. We've even got some TV ads that are sitting in 'research' - but won't hold our breath on that one. 

What have we learnt? A hell of a lot if we're honest. Nothing beats first hand agency experience, at university, they don't teach you how to make sure your noticed, communicate with the account side, the projects, the traffic or how to deal with the client. 

We have met some real nice people, made some friends and contacts for the future. A big thank you to Russell, Mike, Fernanda, Adam & Hugh, Miles & Kevin, Simon & Hannah, Graham, Natalie with a special thanks to the guys on the HSBC account as well as Alex & James.

Whilst we push through with production on the last few pieces; over the next couple of weeks, we will be trying to sort out our next ad fix, working on our book and touting it around agencies. 

Big Issues...

We're a little bit busy and short on spare time at the moment, hence the lack of fresh posts lately. Sorry! 

Just a little thought that occurred to me, those of you who travel from Bethnal Green Station will noticed the recent arrival on a rather worn out looking guy, long 80s rock star like hair, denim top to toe - he sells the big issue.

Everyday, well almost, after a long day at work; low and behold he's there at the top of the stairs - by the exit...

His pitch goes something like this: "I'm homeless, big issue, I'm homeless!"

Come on, I thought the majority of people who sold the big issue were homeless, it doesn't make me feel sorry for him, it doesn't make me stop and buy a copy... in fact it does nothing. I am yet to see someone buy a copy.

What if the guy told it like it was, if you don't buy the big issue I will be foraging around in that bin outside that restaurant for food tonight... I need to sell a copy so I can buy a sewing kit to fix my sleeping bag so I don't freeze! 

Obviously marketing himself isn't his immediate priority, but just a thought.

Mike.

The Good Morning Mag!

Its horrible waking up in the morningm really looking forward to going to work, but hating getting the underground at the busiest time. 

Luckily we have discovered Shortlist magazine, very kindly shoved in our face by the nice man at the top of Bethnal Green Station. The magazine softens the blow of the journey and has loads of cool bios about famous people or cool little events thats are happening all over the world.

I have just come across some advertising for the magazine, done by TBWA.

There is a series of about 4 ads that are well worth checking out along with the magazine itself.

So the next time the random newspaper man thrusts something your way you may just be lucky enough to find it is Shortlist.

Enjoy.

Phil.

Berocca! + Fish! = !!

Here's some work a couple of our friends have been working on for Berocca... The effect of Berocca on aquatic life!

Hope you like it, I certainly found it extremely amusing. 4 days and nearly 8,000 views, not bad at all!

Mike.

Nip over to NABS

On thursday during our lunch break, we nipped over to the wonderful folks at NABS. Met up with Alistair who gave us a good tour round and some information on how the place works. He was kind enough to give us some feedback on our book, which is always greatly received!

Sounds like the whole place is going to be a very useful resource for the future, access to printing facilities, studios etc - always comes in handy when you've not put your roots down anywhere so to speak.

As we were waiting in the reception for our meeting we came across this:

As you might remember, Phil and I were asked to choose a press ad for NABS June's Ad of the month, well it's still up, so if you want to discover our logic for choosing such an ad then nip down to NABS and take a look.

The 10th Floor!

Here at 1 Knightsbridge Green there's quite a few floors. Being based on the 3rd floor and rarely having to venture much higher than the forth, a spare few minutes in our lunch break let our curiousity get the best of us, so we hopped into the lift to see what the view was like from top floor of the building, and well, here it is...

Enjoy  a gander over London!

Mike.

Ferrari on the Lawn.

It's not every day you turn up to work and Find a Formula-1 Ferrari Racing car sitting out on the veranda is it? Of course, there are the rumours going around for how it got up there, with the veranda being a good three floors up - A crane is the most likely explanation although, some people were insistent that it was carried in 4 pieces up the stairs - Yeah right!

Initially, we were clueless until we actually thought about it - There was a conference for shell (One of the Agencies clients) and I guess it was to add some visual stimulation to the presentation. There were also two Ferrari racing Arcade machines in the 'Comm' (Bar come Diner) for people to hop on - Pretty Cool huh?

Mike.