Something to bear in mind...


Well...

...what do you think?

Love the doodles over at gapingvoid.com



Wieden + Kennedy book club




I found this bookmark on the floor earlier today, and in true scavenger style I thought it may be interesting to someone... The top ten recommended reads according to the Wieden + Kennedy book club as as follows...

In no particular order - I'd imagine...

James Fray - A Million Little Pieces
Patrick Suskind - Perfume
Meg Rosoff - How We Live Now
Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go
L.P. Hartley - The Go-between
Peter Goldsworthy - Maestro
Lionel Shriver - We Need To Talk About Kevin
Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited
Audrey Niffnegger - The Time Traveller's Wife
Ian McEwan - Atonement

Get reading kids!

And if you're interested... a couple of my reads of late - they're worth a look.

Stephen Chbosky - The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
Joshua Ferris - Then We Came To The End
Malcom Gladwell - Outliers
Maxx Barry - Syrup
Teresa Monachino - Words Fail Me
Dan Brown - The Digital Fortress




Wieden + Kennedy...


A View you won't see too often - from 91 of 16 Hanbury Street

Today is the first day of our second week... and what a nice place. I'd keep this brief, but why change the habit of a lifetime... Things were a little bit slow off to begin with - in terms of briefs etc, but we found things to do and pushed for the work and it seems to have paid off, lots of things floating around with Lurpak and even a small glimpse into Nike - with a few more bits coming our way this week (we think).

We are currently residing in the new building across the street from the original 16 Hanbury St. Which is a pretty amazing building itself. It's not long been done, so it still has that 'new' smell... it's a huge building at that... which gives the people who are staying in the building across the road a little bit more room to breathe. When we visited earlier in the year people were piled on top of each other so it seems to be a big relief.


Terrace view from 91

It made things a little tough trying to meet people in the first day, hopping between both buildings. With everyone being so scattered about, accounts amongst creatives, and everyone in between it seems to make people more social - having to move around throughout the day means with such a large staff count, you don't get lost in the midst of all the faces.

We put names to faces on the first day though, well... mostly anyway. There's so many people! We still somehow seem to meet new people everyday! We managed to introduce ourselves to both Tony & Kim (on separate occasions) in day one for a brief chat, which always a plus. Tony had some interesting thoughts on where he thought things were going, and since we had just finished a stint at Leagas it was nice to have something to talk about - other than the usual topics you aim for... even Rob Burleigh is working here! The Ad world is a small place.


The new 91 stairwell - fascinating right? ha.

We're sitting a few desks away from Lucy Collier who is heading up the WK Platform as its Creative Director. It's very interesting to see the selection process go through - looks like it's going to be an interesting project. We're due for a review today on something we've been working on, ironically, for a brief that was set to the Platform candidates on Friday... should be fun to see how we compare...

There's a nice feeling about this place, everyone seems to be pretty friendly and there's a nice buzz about the place... hopefully we'll be able to extend the placement, but I guess it's all about the work... so we'll just have see how it goes...

I'll see if can add some more photos this week, it seems the only time I remember to take them is once we've finished!



Just a moment...

We're settling into Wieden's, it's a busy place. I've got a few things to put up when we get a sec, bit of a surreal week.

We seem to crash out when we get home, so have a look at this, a lovely but simple way of interacting with youtube...

r



Happy Birthday Jimi!

Our house mate turned 30 today, you wouldn't know it, his humour is still that of a 12 year old!


We didn't have any candles... so I made some, anyway... the perfect present - a post tribute!

As we're finding alternative earning to add to our placement wages - If you would like a birthday shout-out, we are now accepting a £1 payment via paypal (msg for details) ha-ha!



Things move so fast...


Well, it certainly doesn't seem like a whole month since we turned up for our first day at Leagas Delaney. People say things move much quicker when you move from University to the 'big wide world,' but you won't truly appreciate this until that year has been and gone - and trust me it has gone phenomenally quickly.

Our time at Leagas has come to and end but it's gone really well, shifting from brief to brief, working on a whole manner of things. There were quite a few late nights... and early starts - there never seemed enough hours in the day, but it was very productive nonetheless.


This week we've been working on some charity campaigns, as well as Goodyear, Timberland & Nationwide, with a few other bits thrown in for good measure. Also, we've had the chance to work directly to Tim Delaney - one the legendary Copywriters of the British Ad world. Made famous for his passion for the job (temper - which we never saw) as well as his Timberland and Harrod's ads from back in the day. Our writing seems to have gone down well... Our usual approach is to churn out as many different ideas in the given time as possible. It turns out that all the thoughts/ ideas were sound, but his advice to us was that when you get a thought 'stick with it'. Stay with that thought for at least an hour. This will give you time to craft it, write as many variations as you can, then, and only then, if it's not working move on - but hopefully you will have formulated a good line. You need to give the idea time to develop and make sure you spend enough time to do it justice.

We can't thank the guys there enough for having us in. Some good news though, it's not over... Leagas have invited us back after Wieden's - so it's nice to know that we've done something right and knowing we've got something to come back to is always a bonus!

For now though, it's off to Wieden + Kennedy tomorrow - trust me, we're very excited.

Wish us luck!






Lunch time Doodles...


C-3PO meets WD-40




What next? D&AD?


... Love Cannes, but never had the chance to go? Now you can feel like you've been amongst the best. Nip on down to Uni-qlo and buy one of these bad-boys. I hear One Show, D&AD will soon be following suit...




Week 3.0 @ Leagas Delaney

Phil doesn't smile for the Camera - he's 'thinking'.

From the end of the first week to the beginning of the third... but what happened to week two, I hear you ask?

It absolutely flew by, that's where it went. Into the a big gaping hole called time - it wasn't wasted though, briefs are falling on our desk one after another, we're knee deep in mountains of paper... on the desk, in the drawers, on the walls... pouring out of our earholes. [The photo doesn't really support this - it was from the 1st week] Perhaps we should tidy up a little? No really, it's not that bad. We seem to be making some progress, signing off on some Emirates stuff today, meetings, reviews, work in progress, late nights, strong tea [or coffee - Phil], burning hot days, fans buzzing and Tesco's for lunch.

The nice thing about Delaney's is that the people are so friendly (this is a re-occurring theme), the briefs are good, lots of opportunity to go outside of the requirements and put our own spin on things and Matt & Chris have been pushing us to nail those solid, simple thoughts to use as a spring board.

There was a nice chat from Magarida, here at Leagas, an overview of Cannes, not print & TV - as you'd expect, but a real push into the possibilities of utilising media for an explosive idea. Some truly integrated examples included AKQA's Eco:Drive for Fiat, 42 Entertainment's 'Why so serious' alternate reality game, pre-launch promotions for The Dark Knight & Tribal DDB's 'Carousel' for Philips - three very unique ways to stir up awareness.

We were due to start Wieden's on the 13th of July, it's now starting on the 20th, we were really cheeky - as we've been asked to stay here for a full month, which helps us follow some work through and tackle some new briefs before we start.

Coolz.


D&AD New Blood 2009

*Thanks for the photo Em.

Last week we hopped over to New Blood 2009, a year!? seriously... a whole year since we were exhibiting, I can't believe it.

There was plenty of familiar faces, our attempts to check out the work was thwarted by smiling faces of old friends, fun and welcome conversations, Gyles - our old lecturer & the Uni of Lincoln lot, who received a variety of nominations, pencils and a best in show - always a pleasure. Danny & Paul - who after being hired at the Inferno group were beaming, their enthusiasm is second to none, Little Emily :) over at theideabakery who was exhibiting & ended up coming away with 2 student pencils - that's no easy task. Rob Kitchen & Chris Waite, really nice guys, who run the show over at Falmouth, we've run into them on a couple of occasions... nevertheless we still got a good look around.

The thing with New Blood is that the ad work always seems overshadowed by the rest of the categories, don't get me wrong, we saw some really nice work in a few books - not to mention some of the work on display, but with only 5 truly specific Creative Ad courses - that I noticed (being: Bucks, Falmouth, Gloucester, Lincoln & Solent) amongst the 50+ other stands - it does give you an idea of scale.

As always, due to neglect of my camera - my battery was flat and little to no photographs were taken. This is a mid-year resolution of mine. Sort it out!