Nomination...

THE PUBLIC VOTE //

So... The Chip Shop Awards received so many entries this year that they have put every entry up for a vote. Even the ones that didn't get nominated. As it stands it's not been open for long and it looks like it's a bit of a free-for-all. The one with the most votes over all gets the 'People's choice' of the awards. Probably a mouldy chip or something. I was amazed to find out there was a total of 44 entries in my category! ...and some of them that didn't make it are actually quite good.

You can find my idea top left, and the likely winner below...

If you wouldn't mind, I'd be eternally grateful for your vote. 5 stars preferably, just click on the image above to register your vote.

If you want to find out a little bit more about what I think of the Chip Shop awards as a whole visit here and scroll down to the Chip Shop Awards title.

Thanks.

Now available to buy...

AWOOOOOOOOGA!! //

Not that anyone uses external cams nowadays, but a good idea all the same. 

The longest post I've ever written? Possibly...

I just looked at analytics and I still seem to be getting a flurry of visitors even though I've not posted much, so I figured the least I could do is let those people, well you guys, know what I'm up to. This is probably likely to be the longest post I've ever written*, so you can read it in installments if you like.

YCC UNITE//

We've been plugging this event a little while... an initiative from the Young Creative Council and a few others, a sort of creative social. There's no real rules to this first event just that if you turn up here, you'll find some junior/grad creatives and a few industry ones to boot. It's a bit of a free for all.


There's no real aim, it is what you make of it. People's thoughts on your book, a placement, a job if you're lucky, a good chit chat from people who have been where you've been fairly recently, a meet up for people in the same position as you.


There's a good number of people involved, so check it out here, if you want, and you've got nothing better to do then what's your excuse?

It's tonight. Late Notice. 7pm. At the Clachan, 34 Kingly Street, Soho, London W1B 5QH.

Google it.

More here

LEAGAS DELANEY//

Well, first things first, Leagas Delaney. It's been pretty crazy since day one, 7 weeks in, project after project and brief after brief, eating lunch at our desks, not ideal, but the usual for most creatives I'd expect. There definitely is no shortage of work, except for this very minute... hence why I'm writing this post now. Ohhh the irony.


I guess the main thing here is the variety, and working with someone new always takes a bit of getting used to but it's been good, more on that later. So far we've been working on a big vodka brand which seems to be big everywhere else but here... so the focus has been on global activity both on and offline. Also, working on Glenfiddich, the pitch was won earlier in the year, so there's been a heck of a lot going on with that just recently, some big fun ideas that will hopefully materialise somewhere along the line. A large hotel chain - and actually, the work has recently sent off to client so I'm waiting to hear on that one.


Also, we've been collaborating with a number of external companies which has very interesting, a number of brains sat round a table brainstorming (sorry, 'mind-mapping') always seems to be pretty fruitful.


There seems to be quite a few new hirings around the agency, the roles as diverse and the people, Which can only mean good things. We're in the creative limbo between briefs at the moment waiting for the inevitable client feedback! But it looks like we'll soon have some more work coming our way.

YOUNG TEAM OF THE YEAR//

The wanted ads. We were signed up and raring to go, had the day free from work by putting the extra hours throughout the week, then unfortunately we were completely blind-sided and as a result we had to switch to an incoming pitch - which ironically resulted in working the whole weekend anyway...


But hats off to @emily_churches over at theideabakery for coming first with her partner at HS&P Cate, and Jules (@earthrowl) & Gav, for coming runners up. The brief by all accounts was a good one this year, last year's one was a little bit of a squeeze - A local media brief for Stongbow... I'd expect the work to be up shortly and would be surprised if it wasn't accompanied by a viral like it was last year.


I'll post it up if/when.

CHIP SHOP AWARDS//

As you know from my earlier post, I entered the Chip Shop Awards for the second year running, after winning a Chip for the mobile category last year with Phil. This time I submitted more of a business proposal for Tesco called Clubcard Plus+ and I've been made it through to the final.

The thing I love about the Chip Shop Awards is the logic of it. A lighter side to the awards. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against D&AD and I'm not for one second saying it's better or that it even competes, the point is that it shouldn't. But the fundamental idea for it is brilliant; concepts that haven't run for a variety of reasons can exist in the real world. We all know that 80 even 90% of the stuff we do never gets made so I guess it's a way out.


Now, there is a stereotype associated with the competition which I hate. It's humourous and a I've been known to have a good chuckle at some of the entries but the likes of 'Best Use of Bad Taste', 'Best use of Plagiarism' & 'Best use of Shocking Copy'. These I feel lower the tone and it's credibility.


Some of the other categories are quite clever however, 'Best use of an unusual medium', 'best work for a client you haven't got a hope in winning' & 'best work for a relative or friend'. My rule for it is, if it's a good idea that needs some recognition, enter it. I doubt I'd highlight the fact that I could write bad puns or rip off other people's work, but I understand why it's there. Some of it is actually sounds thinking.


They are doing well though, after being sued on numerous occasions for using brands without authorisation, they need all the funds they can get.


It's a laugh, it's funny, it's light-hearted. There's even a cheeky little entry fee, but the event this year is a rip off at £66 a ticket. If I'm lucky enough to get anything, please they can send it through the post this time. Who knows? They may even charge me for the postage...


SINGLE CREATIVES.com//

As mentioned a good few weeks ago now, I've been in the process of trying to establish a single creatives website, more specifically singlecreatives.com - where single creatives can find people who are also on the lookout for teaming up or collaborations. This was mainly an initiative from my personal experiences in my time without a partner. It's in the early stages, beta shall we say, and I cheated by using blogger - but it works, so why not?


I also intend on putting up some helpful links, literature and thoughts for other Juniors / Grads starting out... if anyone has anything they think could be relevant then please see the email below.


Hopefully I'll work on it and bring it up to scratch sooner rather than later. If anyone is interested in being amongst the first to get their work showcased on the site drop us a little email to hello@singlecreatives.com


Spread the word.


BOOKS//


I'm a big fan of books. How stupid does that sound. ha. Not just picture books before you say it, but all sorts. I can't seem to ever read a single book at one time. This is partly due to my forgetfulness, I'll leave a book at work then have to read something else the next morning, and end up reading as many as 4/5 different books at any one time. I have a bit of a habit of visually tracking down book I like in say, somewhere like Waterstones, cheekily taking a picture and then ordering them off Amazon for the sake of a couple of quid it often seems worth the effort.

Recently, I've been reading Dave Trott's fairly newish book, amongst others... It's basically a series of his blog posts over at www.cstadvertising.com/blog with a few added extra's. If you're like me and you need something to read on the tube, you can pick up a hardcopy from amazon fairly cheapish.

BakedIn, Alex Bogusky's & John Winsor book. The idea process of the modern age. A nice feature in the book that links everything into Twitter (@bakedIn) to keep the conversation open to new information, and a nice little way to make improvements for the second edition utilising hashtags. All logged here. Is this likely to be an ever changing book that gets printed every now and then? Or will it be an entity that intends to exist mainly online? I'm still reading this one... there's some very interesting logic and other than featuring the word 'bakedin' on almost every page it's proving to be a good read.

Malcolm Gladwell - Blink - which I've just finished. Turns out it's more than just a pretty cover... I tried reading this before hit a lull around page 25. It's not only me though, this seems to be a theme with a couple of people I've spoken to. Insightful book if you can make it past page 25 without putting it off. A million case studies and the psychology and scientific analysis behind decision making... and course the odd product reference.


I'm currently looking for a couple of new books to read...


Anyone read any of these books out of interest? What did you think?


Everything Bad is Good for You - Steven Johnson

What the dog saw / The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell

I've sort of done things a little backwards first reading Blink and failing. Then reading Outliers and then finally completing Blink... 

Down and Out in Paris & London - George Orwell

HAMBURG//

So, there was an internal agency competition. The office over in Hamburg is soon to celebrate it's 10th year anniversary. They released this rather strange, slightly random film... It's no secret, you can find it online, so I'll post it anyway. Those crazy Germans! The response created a picture that was equally as random and congratulated them on their 10th or Xth (roman numerals) birthday. 

Anyway I digress... the chance to fly out to Hamburg and join the party, all expenses paid. Nick & I entered two routes. The catch? We had to submit entries by the end of that day whilst juggling a deadline for the same time. I'll post up what we did later when we find out the result.

Things have gone a little quiet recently so we're not entirely sure what the outcome was... *gulp* we'll see.

----

*possibly not.

Mike.

What would you give up for advertising...

Brilliant little film about a guy called George, and a guy called Fred.

Click the picture or here

This really did make me smile.

Visualising the internet...

HOW THE WEB WORKS //

Following my previous post with regards to Jim Rohn's quote, here's some interesting visual statistics for the internet that were passed on to me from an article on the BBC website. They cover topics such as, what dominates the internet, who's the most profitable, online usage trends & in short the often overlooked question for 'How the web actually works'.

THE TOP 100

WEB RICH LIST

NET GROWTH

HOW IT WORKS

Read up some more on it - here or as usual click through the pics.

April Foolish...

Well... after catching a couple of people out with my poor attempt at an April fools joke in my last post, I thought I revert to posting up a few interesting bits and pieces I've stumbled across in the last week.

There's millions of other places you can find 'cool stuff' and the latest innovations, and better ones at that I'm sure you have them all bookmarked on your delicious - so I'll be careful not to do it too often...

Lovely little animation by M&C stateside I believe... in an era of new tech media hype, it's nice to see something done with a few less frills.

Another interesting issue is how do you supply a CV these days? I mean I know CV's don't count for much in the industry well, in the early stages of your career in advertising (especially on the creative side of things)... But with the google CV created a few weeks ago (here) and using what is effectively powerpoint - what other opportunities will pop up? This is by far the most uninspiring use of a CV, visually speaking, but the thought is cool... (If anyone else has any good examples of CV usage please flag them up).

Oh, and welcome to a earful of rain and the occasional boom of thunder - It's nice. Kind of like that summer you spent in a tent and that unexpected thunderstorm took over...

You know that time when you're stuck... and you need a way of getting over that niggling creative block, well it doesn't have to mean wasting away on Facebook of Twitter...

And finally, some interesting shots from Dan Ng who looks at San Fran in a new light... you can find more of this sort of stuff with Dan Eatock and his vandalized trees & Romain Laurent and his People-scapes.

Moving house... To Portland!!!

Ace.