Behind the Idea

I was surprised to find a new weekly section has been added to the Metro, "Behind the idea".
Supported by D&AD, every Tuesday an advert will be chosen by an expert and analyzed. The first feature is by Paul Brazier, AMV/D&AD president. He focus on a viral ad which involves sheep with LED's on being chased into shapes. (see article below or on emetro date 29.09.09)

I'm intrigued to see how the public view this new feature, so I will be paying close attention to how long people spend reading the page and wondering if they are generally interested or they may in fact just be another ad man commuting to work finding a common interest. Advertising critiques are no longer tucked away in marketing trade mags, blogs and advertising sites. I think it's great as advertising should be a worthy page filler, becoming an industry that people like to follow and have an opinion, just like cookery,fashion,arts. It does however mean we might, if glossy mags take hold, we could start to see big red circles round typo errors and bad art direction or having such headlines as "when good concepts go bad".

Either way, its great that the industry is getting national publicity. It may also mean my mum might know what my job involves now and what makes a great ad!

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!

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."

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.

Reading is good for you.

Yet another brief set. This time by FARM. The brief it to promote/ raise awareness for National Book Tokens. MMMM. Bit boring but we are thinking a good challenge. It's going to be hard to persuade someone to get a book token over any other gift. I mean in the brief it says a stat like 65% of adualts read, potentially that's a big market to tap into. But who cares when, WHS, John Lewis, Waterstones all do their own tokens and personally i only remeber book tokens as a naff prize the school library would give you if u entered one of their competitions. So stigma, image, and other book shop competions to shred. See below for some of FARM's work for National Book Tokens:







Off that track, I might be moving to london soon, does anyone have any suggestions of good areas to live in?

Also DANAD, extended the deadline for a few briefs for another week. Apparently because of lack of entries... mmm like 4,000 entries wasn't enough to judge. Dammit.
I did fancy entering again, but i have had enough of competition briefs, for now.
We have started our website. At the moment, its pretty simple and lacks a brand identity/ concept. But do we need to actually brand ourselves? Or is that all a bit tack and try hard? Shouldn't the work speak the loudest?

Knitting away the blues

I've been suffering from a nasty cold today and to keep me entertained i have started knitting. I'm finding it's a good way of keeping busy but also makes time for creative thinking. Although not much has popped into my head regarding the AMV brief (See below) but i have found an article in today's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/06/credit-crunch-lunch

Apart from knitting and generally feeling sorry for myself and fooling my daffodils on my desk by shining my desk lamp on them to think its spring, I have been doing final edits on DandAD before its sent next week. EEPS!