Aim, Fire, SHOOT

My first month came to a fantastic end when i got to direct my first photoshoot. Once the work has all been completed and available I will post it up. The shoot, yet pretty simple in its direction ie,no awkward angles,specific lighting techniques or models/animals to consider. But it was great to work with a really experienced photographer,Alun Crockford.


Meanwhile I found this "Ten things I have learned" by Milton Glaser. His words insightful and i particularly like number 10- tell the truth. Glaser talks about how its the designer's responsibility to the public to tell the truth. I think this really applies to nowadays when people want to know more about the product than ever before- where its made, organic,fair trade, eco, efficiency and so on. Consumers can see a porky even if its not staring them at the face. However with increased consumer and product relationship I think more than ever before its the product's truths that advertising can exploit to build strong brand appeal, history and product differentiation. The truth has become a powerful tool.

Overall it just shows that with the nature of this industry, everything is constantly changing and indeed everyone is always learning something be it big or small.

10 things I've learned- Milton Glaser:
1
YOU CAN ONLY WORK FOR PEOPLE THAT YOU LIKE.
This is a curious rule and it took me a long time to learn because in fact at the beginning of my practice I felt the opposite. Professionalism required that you didn’t particularly like the people that you worked for or at least maintained an arms length relationship to them, which meant that I never had lunch with a client or saw them socially. Then some years ago I realised that the opposite was true. I discovered that all the work I had done that was meaningful and significant came out of an affectionate relationship with a client. And I am not talking about professionalism; I am talking about affection. I am talking about a client and you sharing some common ground. That in fact your view of life is someway congruent with the client, otherwise it is a bitter and hopeless struggle.


2
IF YOU HAVE A CHOICE NEVER HAVE A JOB.
One night I was sitting in my car outside Columbia University where my wife Shirley was studying Anthropology. While I was waiting I was listening to the radio and heard an interviewer ask ‘Now that you have reached 75 have you any advice for our audience about how to prepare for your old age?’ An irritated voice said ‘Why is everyone asking me about old age these days?’ I recognised the voice as John Cage. I am sure that many of you know who he was – the composer and philosopher who influenced people like Jasper Johns and Merce Cunningham as well as the music world in general. I knew him slightly and admired his contribution to our times. ‘You know, I do know how to prepare for old age’ he said. ‘Never have a job, because if you have a job someday someone will take it away from you and then you will be unprepared for your old age. For me, it has always been the same every since the age of 12. I wake up in the morning and I try to figure out how am I going to put bread on the table today? It is the same at 75, I wake up every morning and I think how am I going to put bread on the table today? I am exceedingly well prepared for my old age’ he said.

3
SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.
This is a subtext of number one. There was in the sixties a man named Fritz Perls who was a gestalt therapist. Gestalt therapy derives from art history, it proposes you must understand the ‘whole’ before you can understand the details. What you have to look at is the entire culture, the entire family and community and so on. Perls proposed that in all relationships people could be either toxic or nourishing towards one another. It is not necessarily true that the same person will be toxic or nourishing in every relationship, but the combination of any two people in a relationship produces toxic or nourishing consequences. And the important thing that I can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life.

4
PROFESSIONALISM IS NOT ENOUGH or THE GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF THE GREAT.
Early in my career I wanted to be professional, that was my complete aspiration in my early life because professionals seemed to know everything - not to mention they got paid for it. Later I discovered after working for a while that professionalism itself was a limitation. After all, what professionalism means in most cases is diminishing risks. So if you want to get your car fixed you go to a mechanic who knows how to deal with transmission problems in the same way each time. I suppose if you needed brain surgery you wouldn’t want the doctor to fool around and invent a new way of connecting your nerve endings. Please do it in the way that has worked in the past.
Unfortunately in our field, in the so-called creative – I hate that word because it is misused so often. I also hate the fact that it is used as a noun. Can you imagine calling someone a creative? Anyhow, when you are doing something in a recurring way to diminish risk or doing it in the same way as you have done it before, it is clear why professionalism is not enough. After all, what is required in our field, more than anything else, is the continuous transgression. Professionalism does not allow for that because transgression has to encompass the possibility of failure and if you are professional your instinct is not to fail, it is to repeat success. So professionalism as a lifetime aspiration is a limited goal.

5
LESS IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE.
Being a child of modernism I have heard this mantra all my life. Less is more. One morning upon awakening I realised that it was total nonsense, it is an absurd proposition and also fairly meaningless. But it sounds great because it contains within it a paradox that is resistant to understanding. But it simply does not obtain when you think about the visual of the history of the world. If you look at a Persian rug, you cannot say that less is more because you realise that every part of that rug, every change of colour, every shift in form is absolutely essential for its aesthetic success. You cannot prove to me that a solid blue rug is in any way superior. That also goes for the work of Gaudi, Persian miniatures, art nouveau and everything else. However, I have an alternative to the proposition that I believe is more appropriate. ‘Just enough is more.’


6
STYLE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED.
I think this idea first occurred to me when I was looking at a marvellous etching of a bull by Picasso. It was an illustration for a story by Balzac called The Hidden Masterpiece. I am sure that you all know it. It is a bull that is expressed in 12 different styles going from very naturalistic version of a bull to an absolutely reductive single line abstraction and everything else along the way. What is clear just from looking at this single print is that style is irrelevant. In every one of these cases, from extreme abstraction to acute naturalism they are extraordinary regardless of the style. It’s absurd to be loyal to a style. It does not deserve your loyalty. I must say that for old design professionals it is a problem because the field is driven by economic consideration more than anything else. Style change is usually linked to economic factors, as all of you know who have read Marx. Also fatigue occurs when people see too much of the same thing too often. So every ten years or so there is a stylistic shift and things are made to look different. Typefaces go in and out of style and the visual system shifts a little bit. If you are around for a long time as a designer, you have an essential problem of what to do. I mean, after all, you have developed a vocabulary, a form that is your own. It is one of the ways that you distinguish yourself from your peers, and establish your identity in the field. How you maintain your own belief system and preferences becomes a real balancing act. The question of whether you pursue change or whether you maintain your own distinct form becomes difficult. We have all seen the work of illustrious practitioners that suddenly look old-fashioned or, more precisely, belonging to another moment in time. And there are sad stories such as the one about Cassandre, arguably the greatest graphic designer of the twentieth century, who couldn’t make a living at the end of his life and committed suicide.
But the point is that anybody who is in this for the long haul has to decide how to respond to change in the zeitgeist. What is it that people now expect that they formerly didn’t want? And how to respond to that desire in a way that doesn’t change your sense of integrity and purpose.

7
HOW YOU LIVE CHANGES YOUR BRAIN.
The brain is the most responsive organ of the body. Actually it is the organ that is most susceptible to change and regeneration of all the organs in the body. I have a friend named Gerald Edelman who was a great scholar of brain studies and he says that the analogy of the brain to a computer is pathetic. The brain is actually more like an overgrown garden that is constantly growing and throwing off seeds, regenerating and so on. And he believes that the brain is susceptible, in a way that we are not fully conscious of, to almost every experience of our life and every encounter we have. I was fascinated by a story in a newspaper a few years ago about the search for perfect pitch. A group of scientists decided that they were going to find out why certain people have perfect pitch. You know certain people hear a note precisely and are able to replicate it at exactly the right pitch. Some people have relevant pitch; perfect pitch is rare even among musicians. The scientists discovered – I don’t know how - that among people with perfect pitch the brain was different. Certain lobes of the brain had undergone some change or deformation that was always present with those who had perfect pitch. This was interesting enough in itself. But then they discovered something even more fascinating. If you took a bunch of kids and taught them to play the violin at the age of 4 or 5 after a couple of years some of them developed perfect pitch, and in all of those cases their brain structure had changed. Well what could that mean for the rest of us? We tend to believe that the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind, although we do not generally believe that everything we do affects the brain. I am convinced that if someone was to yell at me from across the street my brain could be affected and my life might changed. That is why your mother always said, ‘Don’t hang out with those bad kids.’ Mama was right. Thought changes our life and our behaviour. I also believe that drawing works in the same way. I am a great advocate of drawing, not in order to become an illustrator, but because I believe drawing changes the brain in the same way as the search to create the right note changes the brain of a violinist. Drawing also makes you attentive. It makes you pay attention to what you are looking at, which is not so easy.

8
DOUBT IS BETTER THAN CERTAINTY.
Everyone always talks about confidence in believing what you do. I remember once going to a class in yoga where the teacher said that, spirituality speaking, if you believed that you had achieved enlightenment you have merely arrived at your limitation. I think that is also true in a practical sense. Deeply held beliefs of any kind prevent you from being open to experience, which is why I find all firmly held ideological positions questionable. It makes me nervous when someone believes too deeply or too much. I think that being sceptical and questioning all deeply held beliefs is essential. Of course we must know the difference between scepticism and cynicism because cynicism is as much a restriction of one’s openness to the world as passionate belief is. They are sort of twins. And then in a very real way, solving any problem is more important than being right. There is a significant sense of self-righteousness in both the art and design world. Perhaps it begins at school. Art school often begins with the Ayn Rand model of the single personality resisting the ideas of the surrounding culture. The theory of the avant garde is that as an individual you can transform the world, which is true up to a point. One of the signs of a damaged ego is absolute certainty.
Schools encourage the idea of not compromising and defending your work at all costs. Well, the issue at work is usually all about the nature of compromise. You just have to know what to compromise. Blind pursuit of your own ends which excludes the possibility that others may be right does not allow for the fact that in design we are always dealing with a triad – the client, the audience and you.
Ideally, making everyone win through acts of accommodation is desirable. But self-righteousness is often the enemy. Self-righteousness and narcissism generally come out of some sort of childhood trauma, which we do not have to go into. It is a consistently difficult thing in human affairs. Some years ago I read a most remarkable thing about love, that also applies to the nature of co-existing with others. It was a quotation from Iris Murdoch in her obituary. It read ‘ Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.’ Isn’t that fantastic! The best insight on the subject of love that one can imagine.

9
ON AGING.
Last year someone gave me a charming book by Roger Rosenblatt called ‘Ageing Gracefully’ I got it on my birthday. I did not appreciate the title at the time but it contains a series of rules for ageing gracefully. The first rule is the best. Rule number one is that ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ‘It doesn’t matter that what you think. Follow this rule and it will add decades to your life. It does not matter if you are late or early, if you are here or there, if you said it or didn’t say it, if you are clever or if you were stupid. If you were having a bad hair day or a no hair day or if your boss looks at you cockeyed or your boyfriend or girlfriend looks at you cockeyed, if you are cockeyed. If you don’t get that promotion or prize or house or if you do – it doesn’t matter.’ Wisdom at last. Then I heard a marvellous joke that seemed related to rule number 10. A butcher was opening his market one morning and as he did a rabbit popped his head through the door. The butcher was surprised when the rabbit inquired ‘Got any cabbage?’ The butcher said ‘This is a meat market – we sell meat, not vegetables.’ The rabbit hopped off. The next day the butcher is opening the shop and sure enough the rabbit pops his head round and says ‘You got any cabbage?’ The butcher now irritated says ‘Listen you little rodent I told you yesterday we sell meat, we do not sell vegetables and the next time you come here I am going to grab you by the throat and nail those floppy ears to the floor.’ The rabbit disappeared hastily and nothing happened for a week. Then one morning the rabbit popped his head around the corner and said ‘Got any nails?’ The butcher said ‘No.’ The rabbit said ‘Ok. Got any cabbage?’

10
TELL THE TRUTH.
The rabbit joke is relevant because it occurred to me that looking for a cabbage in a butcher’s shop might be like looking for ethics in the design field. It may not be the most obvious place to find either. It’s interesting to observe that in the new AIGA’s code of ethics there is a significant amount of useful information about appropriate behaviour towards clients and other designers, but not a word about a designer’s relationship to the public. We expect a butcher to sell us eatable meat and that he doesn’t misrepresent his wares. I remember reading that during the Stalin years in Russia that everything labelled veal was actually chicken. I can’t imagine what everything labelled chicken was. We can accept certain kinds of misrepresentation, such as fudging about the amount of fat in his hamburger but once a butcher knowingly sells us spoiled meat we go elsewhere. As a designer, do we have less responsibility to our public than a butcher? Everyone interested in licensing our field might note that the reason licensing has been invented is to protect the public not designers or clients. ‘Do no harm’ is an admonition to doctors concerning their relationship to their patients, not to their fellow practitioners or the drug companies. If we were licensed, telling the truth might become more central to what we do.

I spy with my little triangle eye

Maybe a current mini trend sweeping the design industries. Those 3 sided polygon wonders are making a big appearance.

Here's some i've noticed:
Melbournes new identity by Landor:

Kate Moross' logo:



Fashion Label Lacoste:


Barbican Art Gallery:


And for Advertising, Stella Artois:

When I grow up I want to be...

... self taught, title sequence extraordinaire... DAH DAH DAH... Danny Yount.

My gosh he has some skills. Beautifully directed titles to such films as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Reaping and tv shows such as Six Feet Under. I find the whole idea of being a title designer exciting, a mini film to set the mood about a film. Danny got media attention with his interactive portfolio all the way back in 1992, way ahead of his time.

Turn the volume up!

Week 2

Blumin ell, what a rollercoaster of a week.
So the first week nerves are dissapearing and actual REAL jobs and the deadlines they bring with them are emerging. Some deadlines like to come alone whilst other like to clump together.Proceed stress.

So the next thing i've learnt that education doesn't teach... being able to juggle multiple jobs. At uni it's just one brief at a time, progression from scamp stage non exsistent and progression from yourself non exsistent. So its been a tough step this week, learning just how the process from an idea being scribbled down on the side of a napkin to the same idea being produced and all the quality control it has to go through before it can be given the seal of approval and released to the masses.

Secondanly, your part of a team. You and your copywriter. Yet your roles are very seperate and being the art director you have alot of responsibility seeing a job go through. I didn't quiet realise how much I would be solely responsible for and how much longer a job will be lingering around whilst a copywriter once words are done and approved can get on with the next job. Its kind of like if an idea was a kid, the copywriter will leave the kid at nursery whilst the art director takes the kid to nursery and then works at the nursery. But at the end of the day you both go and collect the kid and take it home.


However my week was topped off on a high note when I got to visit the opening night of Ryan Mcginley's new exhbition Moonmilk in Alison Jacques gallery. McGinley has done work for vaious adverting photography for Levis, Wrangler, NY times.

Moonmilk is about "crystalline deposits found on the walls of caves, once believed to be formed from the light of celestial bodies passing through the rock to the darkened worlds below." Here's some of Moonmilk... imagine each image about 6ft high and they take your breath away.

Week 1

It's been a short week, mainly due to the bank holiday but also because time has flown. I was dreading the working hours, simply as before this job I was acting a lot like a cat, moving only for food/washing and sleeping in sunny areas of my lounge. But, this maybe just a first week novelty, but drawing scamps and generally daydreaming/chatting mixed with the odd meeting and the 3.30 complimentary snack break the hours just disappear. This is despite me still seeing both sunrise and sunset on my 2 and half hour return journey to the capital. Yes, a house in the city is my priority at the moment.

So Monday I turned up all eager and still confused that I was quite literally walking into my first job. I was shown my computer and desk and was quickly hurried into a meeting to get briefed. I sat there, not quite knowing how these things run, but it went as follows,(in Chuckle Borthers style sketch to-me-to-you) account man-cd-us-cd-accountman-us-senior-us...US...oooh US, and at the end of 30 minutes we had our first complete job, starting from scratch with job number and a job bag! OH yeah!

I also got to art direct my first piece of work to a designer to mac up. Again a little odd as im used to just directing myself but was great watching an expert do their own thing and make ideas come to life as you visioned.

So here i am, first week down, absolutly shattered and still holding onto my Saturday job to make ends meet, with one day to rest, I will start all over again on Monday.

Job Title

Well, it's been a while since my last post but a lot has changed.

Firstly, I have a job! A proper salaried, sick pay, holiday pay, rent pay job.

Yes. Im as stunned as you. It all happened very suddenly but from today I'm getting paid to be a junior art director. It's a very odd feeling and I think I'm very fortunate to be offered a job so quickly, especially in the current crumbling economy we live in.

So, where do I go from here? Well I sure have a hell of a lot to learn and it's time to move to London.

Variations on the Normal

I got shown a great blog awhile back (Thanks Angus) I don't really ever comment about other blogs, but this one I thought deserved a little mention. The blog is by Dominic Wilcox. He is "an ideas man who works within the area of the ‘everyday’. Everyday objects, environments, buildings, human interaction, no area of normality is out of reach. His work, which is usually layered with an ultra dry wit, places a spotlight on the banal, always adding a new, alternative perspective on things we take for granted"

Here are some examples of his thoughts and ideas from his blog:







It's precisely this kind of lateral problem solving style of thinking that I really like. Just the simplest of thoughts mixed with genius moments makes me sick with jealousy and envy.

This is what happens if I don't leave Somerset!

Now my big sister always advised me to leave Somerset asap. It's a tad small and not alot to do! I thought I would share this little activity that fellow somersetarians like to do... dress up the sheep. Yes, that's right dress up some sheep sculptures that are on a roundabout. christ. Heres just some of the outfits they have done...











...GET ME TO LONDON!

Above the line, through the line, below the line, what line?

I was having a chat with Cate about our possible options of what type of agency to choose. We have a few things lined up but we aren't sure what direction to take. I compared it to the military, yes that obvious connection. Its like you want to join, but which part, (no particular preference applied here) army (through), navy (below) or airforce (above) and the SAS (digital, the section of the military that everyone talks about but no one quite knows what they do!) Without experiencing each part how will you know which area to join? After all you don't want to stay in the airforce but have a fear of flying! So in other words, we need a few other placements to decide where we want to settle.

But back to the present. We have a book crit at Leo Burnett next week with Ed morris. So, I'm currently residing at Cates to get our book up to scratch and in tip top condition.

Supermarket Sarah

Wouldn't it be lovely to set up your own agency in your front room? Well it could be possible (that's if i actually owned a property). Sarah, from Supermarket Sarah, shows just how lovely it can be done. Yes, it's not a agency but I just love the way she's took initiative to set up a shop on one wall of her house. The wall changes according to stock in and colours. Each item can be clicked on and bought. Ahh tis lovely and double bonus she invites people around for tea and cake (by appoitment only)

Show and Tell

Ahoy there,

I'm back from my travels. I've seen pirate ships, towers, shores,the high seas and parrots, lots of parrots.

Along the way, my attention was quickly grabbed by the maritime flags used on ships to communicate messages. Each flag denotes a letter and/or message. A prize will be awarded to who works out what the above maritime flags spell out, answers on a postcard please (or comment)! I find this type of visual communication intriguing. I think it's the interactive, code breaking instinct bit that interests me. Brings me back to the old theory days of semiotics and reading the signs. In this case more consciously reading the signs than subconsciously. But never the less its a successful style of communication that has stuck out the years.






so my actual holidays are over and in between Cates holidays and HS&P placement, I'm now having a go at sorting "emilyandcate.co.uk" website out.

Websites, Blasted things. I think maybe my over ambitious website plan maybe indeed scrapped. ooops. So for now I'm going to put together a simple website just to get the ball rolling. However, one would suggest using a website template guide such as Carbonmade, saves time and looks sleek. But im developing a nasty taste for ".carbonmade" sites. The reasons you may ask? Well i've decided, its simply lazy and lacks any personality. I know that pretty much everyone in my class had one. I'm starting to think its the black, polypocket filled portfolio of the online world ;boring and lacking any sort of creative finesse. I would like to know other peoples opinions on this subject... am I just jumping onto creative snobbery land? Or, as creative and Juniors at that are like pack hyenas,slobbering all over the same placments and jobs, that we should be making more effort with our self promotion from the pack and avoid pre-made sites?

hmmmm rant over... I did have a relaxing holiday, honest!

Take a Break

I'm on holiday this week. Bournemouth in fact. Been sunny thus far!

Back to School

Apart from the traveling (or how I like to rephrase, to make it seem a tad more optimistic, the "4 county challenge"), this week has been, so far, great for many reasons. The biggest obviously has to be working with Cate. We have settled very quickly into our new team.

I've decided that I wouldn't bore you with placement details but I will bore you with what i've learnt instead. After all it's now about the next step and pretty much forgetting everything you've been taught at Uni. A big old slap from the real world.


Day 1- Don't be kind to kids.
When returning home on the train,when asked by an innocent small kid, "is that paper?" (glaring at my scamp pad) why yes, (brain kicks in... oh samaritan moment ).. "would you like some?" Kid takes paper. Next moment, one scamp has become 100 mini scamp pieces all over a Great Western Train. So now i've learnt just don't be nice to kids, they waste your paper.

Day 2- Room to grow.
When the office is full up, the cafes a great spot. Especially on Oxford street. Star gazing central. Stars so far seen...
Tim Westwood, Willow (From Willow) oh and Lawrence Fox. Cate had to explain who Fox was but i was still impressed without knowing who he was.

Day 3- Uri Geller
This week has been a crash course with Cate. Luckily things are going well and one skill we now both share, telepathy. awesome. So, if you ever see us looking at each other with blank faces, they aren't just moments of complete blankness but we are simply just telepathically communicating.

Day4- Exhaustion strikes
Shit days happen

Day 5- It's a small world
Today we met Paul and Dani at Inferno. Over a drink (We owe you one) and got chatting. I have to say you both talk a barrel load of sense and we both came out feeling very inspired and nudged into a good direction. Thanks guys, and I hope we can buy you a drink back very soon!


So week summary:
Uni doesn't really teach you jack all

A True Trooper

I thought I would make this post a homage to the grasshoper that survived a 90 mile journey on my wingmirror. Against all odds, 80mph winds, stopping and starting he made it.

Apart from all my UK galavanting, I will finally be starting a placement joining Cate at HS&P on Monday.Hurrah

Today's Nude

Whilst I have been sat around waiting for placements to start I came across a Channel 4 series called Life Class: Today's Nude.. It's a series where for 30 minutes a well known artist talks through and draws from a nude model. Artists have included John Burger, Judy Perbeck, Maggie Hambling, Humprey Ocean and Gary Hume. It's filmed mainly looking at a still frame of the nude model so viewers at home can join in and draw with the artist.

Louise France from the Guardian described the series as "Full frontal nudity! On Channel 4! Before lunch! You can imagine the knee-jerk reaction already but a wonderful new series on daytime television makes for some of the most unusual, thoughtful programme-making you're likely to experience. Meditative, slow-moving, repetitive - Today's Nude is everything that most television output isn't, and all the more magical for that."

I think what I like about it, is that it brought back the 5 years I spent at life drawing classes. I decided that I would perhaps persue a more conceptual art career in favour of fine art. But I do miss that silent, break in the day when it was just you and a massive board with crisp white paper stretched on and usually a piece of charcoal and 2 hours drawing would fly by. But apart from nostalgic reasons, I liked the TV format, which seems like a unique concept (and having nude people on at 12:30 pm!) It's kind of like a cook-along show but for life drawing. It certainly breaks up the normal morning TV shows we are used too.

Catch up with the series here

Gordon

I have just finished listening To Gordon Ramsay's Humble Pie Audio Book. Its a really fantastic listen. I admire his gutsy work ethic and of course his voice so I have been drawn to this new advert for Gordons Gin! I don't think the concept for this advert is at all ground breaking but because it is Gordon Ramsay and the art direction and sound works lovely together it makes for a "tingly tum" ad. It was directed by Jay Gelardi, written by Jim Stump, Jay Gelardi and Phil Wilce (Agency Republic) and feature music from The Switches. I think this advert pushes my buttons because I can practically feel exactly what Gordon is feeling when the Gin gets poured over him ( See my cannes lion film in previous post.)

Being observant

My new found love comes in a small, orange, course textured pocket sized bird book. I'm not one for twitching, but this book is gorgeous! Sat lonely on my mums table, next to the window, facing the many bird feeders in our small garden (usually being traumatised by cats) lays The Observer's Book Of Birds, a second edition published 1954.



I have to admit, I usually just walk on past, ignoring the book as one of my mum's bird paraphernalia. But on this one occasion, the book caught my eye and within minutes I was hooked. Firstly the illustration of the birds are hand drawn with beautiful details in both colour and black and white. Then there's the copy, the layout of the text hasn't really been considered with 'widows' and 'orphans' flying everywhere and the type size varies from start to finish. But this unfinished type style adds to its appeal. It gives it a somewhat more personal, naieve feel which stands out in an arguably "over designed" modern world.





Even if you don't like birds you can't help but love the "notes" section. In this section each individual bird song is described. Now, please read the following out loud.....

* Raven - A deep "Honk"
* Brambling- A long drawn "weeeeee"
* Yellow Bunting- The song is " tit, tit, tit, tit, tit, tit, tee"
* Great Tit - "Si, si, si" and a sharp "chink"

Perhaps the best...
* Song Thrush- Sometimes resembles " did he do it, did he do it, judy did" and "come out, come out" (Poor Judy, what did she do and where was she hiding!?)

After looking at all 236 species, for immature reasons the "Shag" bird has to be one of my favorites. Everyone's familiar with the common Tit, but the Shag brings out another humorous side to British Birds. For instance did you know the song of a Shag is described as " an occasional deep croak" and it "wears an erect crest on it's head"? I supose if you had to write 236 descriptions on birds, you'd quiet like a small joke to lighten things up a little. So next time, when you see a bird casually gracing your garden, have a look, have a listen and ask yourself how would you spell out it's song in words?


Above - The common Shag Bird

But apart from the birds, after a little research I discovered there are actually 100 different Observer Book titles. These include topics such as Fungi, Cats, Ferns, Geology, Grasses Sedges and rushes, Mosses and Liverworths, Architecture, The larger Moths (not the little flappy small ones) and even the 99th book is named The Observer's Book of Observers books. So I've decided, I'm going to collect the beauties. If anyone has an Observer Book, i'll be interested in grabbing it off you, or keep a eye out in charity shops etc, and I will love it if anyone manages to get there mits on them. I will need some help, there are 100 of the buggers, and I have, well one (if I steal mums). This shall keep me busy until I get a job!

pen to paper

I appreciate that to some, this post may contribute to a "mundaine Monday", but if you share my love for stationary, then you will forgive me!

On a recent early morning trip to london, I thought I would treat myself and get some new marker pens. Having spent the last few months at uni perfecting ideas to mac standard, I was in need of going back to basics and scribbling. For some peculiluar reason, when it comes to stationary, im like a fat kid in a sweet shop; overwhelmed and usually stunned in sheer excitement. Oh dear.

I arrived at a well known graphic stationary shop, bang on ten, first one in and started my quest. After testing the pens on most of the free paper and my hands, I found the perfect scamping pens... double end brush tips...mmmmm.

Meet Cate

It's been a week of ups and downs. Firstly, i've had to move back home; something that i'm slowly adjusting too. I don't think parents will ever really understand what job I'm trying to get into. And as any good parent would do, my mum has started the search of alternative jobs for me, the best one she's shown me is this local job shown below.

The ad reads:
Calling all Male, Female and Trans-Gender Witches:
£50k* Job opportunity now on offer.

Witch of Wookey Hole Auditions
A great opportunity to become the famous face of wookey hole where you can add your personality into this world renowned, historical character.





Thanks mum, although the pay aint half bad!


Then there's Gyro. We got a second interview for the placement but I had to let them down as I'm no longer with Aaron. which was a disappointment but I was told I may be able to re-interview at a later date.


But the good news... I've found myself a copywriter, Cate.

I'm over the moon that i've managed to be able to quickly find a brilliant and ambitious writer. I've known Cate for a while and met at Uni. Like me, she was widowed from her creative partner. Cate graduated a year before me and has since been on lots of placements. We met up this week and hit it off. We have a lot in common and share the same career goals. Luckily cate is already on a placement so I will join her next week!

So now we will have to combine our portfolios and create new joint campaigns and get the placement ball rolling.

Sour Marbels

I really love these press ads by Ogilvy & Mather, India. A nice concept and lovely art direction. I can imagine this concept working really well in tv format. Imagine trying to get a scenario which would last 30 seconds of animals spitting out another animal, which would spit out another animal and so on, which eventually leads to a human spitting out a sour marbel, done in a kind of "walking with dinosaurs" realistic animation style. It reminds me of the kids rhyme "There was an old woman who swallowed a fly, who swallowed a spider, who ...."

end of a era

It is with deepest regret that I have to announce and myself and Aaron are no longer a team. Despite our recent sucesses Aaron has decided he would like to work outside of London and unfortunatley I want to work in London. It is a shame, and I have tried everything to persuade Aaron to come to London. I guess it's just not for everyone. I would just like to say a few things about our time together (sob)

Here are the highs and a just a few lows from our partnership:

The Highs:
* Aaron's constant hard working ethic and commitment to our portfolio, even when he was feeling really ill you never let me down!
* Aaron was always the first into the studio and last to leave.
* Our joint love for "princess" the coffee lady who kept us going upto the deadlines
* The themed music days- Power ballad days were my favourite!
* The damn right blunt but brutally honest way we had with each other and the chilled out way we could say no thats a shit idea.
* And of course... the pencils!

The Lows:
* My really bad date keeping duties! oops
* My website idea- still not finished and caused alot of stress for alot of people!
* The end of "churchesmccarthy"

Overall, best of luck mate, it's been a fantastic year and you will be missed!

What a week.

Monday
After quickly setting up our stand and art directing it, The stand looked great. We got some lovely comments about it. So all geared up with 100 business cards and portfolios bound we waited for the VIP night to begin and to hopefully grab some agency's attention. We got a bit of interest and a few contacts which we can follow up. Special mention to mike and phil. Nice to see you guys.





Tuesday
A day of rest/check out the competition/British Museum. Commence photos...






Wednesday
Portfolio surgery with Augusto from Mother. Wow, what a cool guy with a great Brazilian accent. He gave us some tips and said that our book is better than his was when he graduated, so that gave me a warm fuzzy feeling but we know we have a hell of a way to go until we are really happy and proud of all our work. Later that night I was off to see Madonna at Covent Garden, well some naked photos of her. The pictures were taken before she was famous at the age of 20 when she posed as a nude model for just $30. The photographs have only just been released for the public to see. Really nice photography by Martin Schreiber, I just wish that I had the finances to purchase a print.



Thursday
Today begun with a few workshops. The first being a session giving tips on interview skills and presentation techniques. I really enjoyed it and both Mandy Wheeler and Patrick from NavyBlue made all those pre-book crit worries fade away with their advice. I left feeling positive and ready for action. The second workshop consisted of ex students describing how they made it and tips to get into the industry. Both of them had different experiences of how they got in, but it both came down to hard work and persistence that got them a job.

The week was topped off with the award ceremony in the evening. My heart was pounding and with two categories to sit through, I was getting more and more nervous by the second. But the results... well I am now a proud owner of TWO D&AD PENCILS!

Clippings

As requested here's some clippings of our Lloyds TSB pillow in the latest Digital Arts magazine. Feels great getting to see our work in print.







I'm about to pack for New Blood and have just about finished scamping. I'm frantically trying to get some ideas we've had, drawn for our portfolio surgery appointment at New Blood. Greatly we got an appointment with Augusto Sola of Mother. OH MY! I'm really looking forward to meeting him.

I thought I would post a video which may pretty much some up my next year of placements and job hunting. I'm sure indeed after many a crit and disapointment this video might be relevant and a good slap in the face!

She Says

I have been contacted by She Says. An organisation that put on events where top females in the industry share their thoughts and help people to either get started or work their way up.

I have been invited to present my work as part of the next event showcasing new female creatives. She Says looks at the digital side of the industry. At the moment digital probably makes up only 25% of our portfolio, so I think we can definitely get our teeth sunk into more digital work.

Whilst I am preparing a presentation and trying finish our website, one week remains until the New Blood exhibition and one week until we hear our nomination results; commence fingernail biting.

Published

We are very happy to announce that we will be in the graduate guide of Digital Arts magazine, released on June 25th. The Lloyds "comfort for the real world" pillow has been chosen to feature.

Wow, this site has made me into a nervous wreck!

Oh my! All the awards have been put on the student awards site. Ours can be found by clicking the 'Ambient' section and the 'Product Design' section.

There is some tough competition and and really nice work so all fingers and toes crossed until Thursday 1st July.

Exhibiting

Everything is go at uni. We are all getting our books together. Above is a little glimpse into our theme. The wallpaper patterns will form a unique pattern for everyone's portfolio book. I'm getting very excited about London now and the New Blood 'tick list' of jobs to do, are finally getting ticked!

Wanderlust

I was very happy to find out that the video Wanderlust, for Bjork, directed by Encyclopedia pictura and produced by Ghost Robot got THREE D&AD yellow pencils! Just a really nice dreamlike video and lovely animation. The making of the video is really impressive, see below. Here is s short preview about the story behind the video, as told by Encyclopedia Pictura to Dazed and Confused:

"Björk is an archetypal nomad, shepherding giant yaks through the Mountains. She does hydromancy to decide whether to take them down a river or not.

A second self, the Painbody Backpack, sprouts from her like a growth and then engages her in an action play which displays their relationship.

The force which compelled Björk to go down river begins to manifest itself in Björk's head and in the physical world. This character, the Rivergod, is a transcendental attractor which pulls her into the future."

Gyro:HSR Grad open day

We spent an eventful Tuesday trying to navigate through London without the Tubes. But we managed to get to Gyro on time. However, keeping to tradition, National Express are still at the top of my most hated companies. I never have much luck with them and the simplest of A to B journeys always turns into a complex one. Basically this time, the bus driver decided to stop at Earls court (20 min from our final destination) to have a 45 minute break. So 50 passengers angrily got off, after already being over an hour late because of traffic. Anyway, rage over....

Gyro is based in Chelsea, right on the river. The agency, well at least from reception looked very nice. The meeting started with some Polaroid photos taken of us, which felt very much like a model casting, then followed by a quick 5 min flick through our portfolio. Depending on our success, we may be called back for a second interview in two weeks time.

I'm not to sure how the meeting went. We weren't allowed to ask questions about Gyro nor were we given any feedback on our work so we're not too sure how we did, eeeps. We also came to the tricky question of... who's the art director/copywriter? Of which we both promptly answered "a bit of both". This answer didn't seem to impress, which worried us. Now, we know that this team structure is particularly important to some companies, whilst others see you as a creative team, sharing both roles and some even say its an old fashion system that in this day, of less and less copy, this structure is becoming more and more irrelevant. The problem with Aaron and I, is that we both enjoy art direction and copy, yet, we would both say we are stronger in art direction and both okay at copy but it is not our strength. Now, does one of us simply cave in and take a role, or do we simply stick it out and hope that agencies take us the way we are; a creative team, who work well at conceptualising together. Its all a bit confusing. At the end of the day though, we don't want this structure to ruin our chances in interviews, so how much does it really matter?

Whilst we ponder on this situation we have a couple of weeks left to prepare for New Blood and finish our website.

celebrate good times, C'mon!!

We got our grades today and pat on the back to us we got a 1st class hons! wooo. We have made our parents proud!

Busy Bees

Next week, is the week to get the ball rolling.

We have just taken our degree show down and get our final degree results on Tuesday 9th! But we cant celebrate too heavily as we are off to Gyro the next day for a 5 min "impress them session", to get a placement. I'm not quite sure what they are expecting, but we can just be ourselves and show them our portfolio.

We have just about got our CV written for Gyro, and it was blummin hard. I haven't ever written a CV for us as a team and wasn't too sure what to avoid or include and how to write about us and show abit of personality etc. I will report more about Gyro next week.

I thought i would attach my current favourite telly ad by BBH, London. I know its been about for a month, but its just the attention to detail that I love.. Tweat magazine, a little man saying hello out a cookoo clock. Brilliant.

The milky bar kid

Here are some photos from our Degree show. I didn't get a chance to take many photos from our exhibition though.

Still working hard on the theme for our New Blood stand and starting to write a creative team cv,mixed with two jobs, i reckon im in the running for the whitest legs about.;2 weeks of missing the glorius sun is criminal. I think I'm turning into a hermit. So today, yes, im going to get rid of my milky white legs and bask in the sun.(whilst cross stitching for our website of course) Hurah.

We have 3 weeks now to perfect our stand concept for d&ad. We have the 1950's style- "the new golden era of advertising" I'm not to keen on an over done theme though, I think it can steal the limelight away from the work and if done badly can make the work look bad too. But we shall see. I think simplicity and lightness of touch when it comes to props will be the key to a successful stand.

Oh yeh, any tips on writting a Creative team CV? What to include/avoid.