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.