Young Team of the Year...

That's Wilma (of Luke & Wilf) & Fellow YCC'er.

On Friday, I managed to wangle the day off work to pop down to the Newspaper Society's, Young team of the Year competition over at The London Art House. The building itself is pretty 'cool' and by 'cool' I mean quirky, weird and as pretentious as it could possibly be. The array of antique, well crafted furniture is somewhat harsh when compared against the polystyrene quality ceiling tiles, which scream of those school days as a child, only to have been given a lick of paint to blend into rest of it.

The judging panel was quite impressive, and set the day in good stead with the likes of Shaun McIlrath (ECD of Iris), Phil Kitching (DCD of Iris) Paul Belford (ECD of Thisisrealart), Tiger Savage (ECD of Tiger'sEye), Joe De Souza (CD of Karmarama), Sam Ball (CD of Lean Mean Fighting Machine), Stef Jones (CD of Big Al's Creative Emporium) & Robert Ray (MD of The Newspaper Society).

As I currently work as a solo creative, I teamed up with a friend Ciara to give the brief a good crack. It's always fun working with someone new. The brief as it turned out, was a good one, localised publicity for Mars and to increase the number of people knocking a ball around.

Our solution was all about heralding the Mars 'misfits' the band of arm chair spectators and 'past-it' types who can never find the time, nor organise a rabble of friends to get down and play. And thus, Mar Mismatches were born.

Hopefully, I'll give you a glimpse of some fine scamps at some point. But unfortunately, a flooding at the Newspaper Society's office has meant all of the work has been destroyed - A likely story, I hear you say... I KID YOU NOT, this is the truth! An email from Mary Isokariari confirms this.

(Click to Enlarge)

As always, there were some lovely folk who I could finally put names to faces with and find out what fellow creatives are up to across the industry. A good turn out from the Young Creative Council with the usual bunch out for blood.

This was the after-brief venue... a seedy back room, which I believe doubles up as a lap dance club. Nice. Oo-er. Free bar though, can't complain too much, I guess. Hats off to Julia & Polo who go on to represent UK talent at The Best YET competition in Croatia for the second year running & Of course Dave Wigglesworth & his partner for a close runner up.

Creatives Less than 3 years in...

It's that time of year again kiddo's The Newspaper Society's 'Wanted Ads: Young Team of the Year awards' are here! ...This year it is in association with Campaign! (I'm not sure what difference that makes but it's good publicity for the event all the same).

Now in its 9th year, the event helps get young creatives into the Industry, well at least it gets you a bit of PR if you're any good... If you perform on the day you can go on to represent the UK in Europe's 'Best Yet' competition.

Friends of mine, Emily & Cate won the London edition last year and Julia & Gav came runners up, both teams went on to represent the UK, and later Julia & Gav won the Best Yet competition. Best Yet will be held in Croatia this year... How cool is that? Not only that but you get an expenses paid trip to Cannes... Boom.

So, us Brits have got to defend the title... Have you applied yet?

Click the link up the top... or here It's on the 8th of April, so not too far away, I suggest you get yourselves on the list email here for a place - that's all you've got to do! Effortless.

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.

Young Team of the Year...

Here's a little something that you may want to sink your teeth into...

A chance to take part in the Newspaper Society's 'Young Team of the Year' competition.

It's a developing competition, I attended last year (more here), the work by all means could have been improved, but if you win the London competition, you get to represent the UK in Belgium... expenses paid - which is never a bad thing.

If all goes well I hope to be there, it's a good chance to meet people from Uni/ grads up to 3 years into an agency see how you fit in...

For a summary go here

To apply go here

For some interesting directions go here

I've been informed there are still places, but they are limited - So go get on the e-mail if you fancy a shot.

Oh, and it's FREE, Bonus.