February 2, 2010 – 10:37 pm
Alpacas are not llamas. Llama fleece is not alpaca fleece and alpaca farmers are not llama farmers. Which is a shame really, as writing this would be far easier with alliteration on my side. Anyway, I recently designed and built a little website for Farrlacey Mill to direct people to their shop selling alpaca duvets. The website is pretty simple; a few pages, illustrations, photographs and alpaca products, all drawn, or shot, or coded by me. Alpaca yarn is pretty good stuff, and the duvets from Farrlacey are very, very comfy – obviously I had to have a sample duvet to properly design the website. Obviously. What?
December 30, 2009 – 2:14 pm
It’s time again to reviews the reviews of 2009. Some have been good, some bad. Overall they have all been reviews, and reviewing them only serves to review the fact that they have, all in their own way, been reviews. Some have been lists, some have been long-winded TV shows hosted by Jimmy Carr. Here is my round-up of some of them, please feel free to review them, and this list, and add your own:
A review of the year in online advertising
A round up of the year in art.
It’s Nice That review some nice things. Nice.
The Top Ten (really obvious) moments in marketing from marketing magazine
The Top 20 lists to appear on Times Online in 2009. Another list of lists. Listed.
A programme. Strangely without Jimmy Carr. Reviewing all the news from 2009.
A list of culture top 5s from 2009.
November 16, 2009 – 7:12 pm
Smithandjenningscaterers.com is a little site I have just finished. It’s for some caterers called Smith and Jennings. Hence the title. And the pictures of food. And frequent mention of the names Smith, Jennings and the word ‘caterers’. I designed the site, and took the photographs, and built the site. Spending an afternoon photographing food is not easy. The point is to make it look as mouthwatering as possible, obviously. But then you want to eat it – so you do, and then more food has to be made, so you make that look really tasty; good enough to eat – so you do, and then……. Anyway, Smith and Jennings cater for loads of events in South Manchester and Cheshire. And their food is very, very tasty, all their details are on the site. Hmm, I’m hungry.
October 27, 2009 – 2:16 pm
Apparently frivolity outweighs solemnity at Anish Kapoor’s RA exhibiton (showing till 11th December). Well, I didn’t think so. And I know everything about art. Obviously. The exhibition is good fun, the work is accessible, which is probably why it was packed. There is a canon firing blood red wax blocks, a room full of odd concrete wormy things, and even an arty-farty hall of mirrors, which should probably have circus music piped in to complete the effect. Kapoor plays with space and time, monkey-ing about with his audience, and there is nothing wrong with that. The biggest draw is a huge, slowly moving wax block, the colour and shape of a London Bus, which slides through the space in a strangely fascinating way. What does it mean? Who knows – but you watch it all the same.
September 28, 2009 – 9:12 pm
Yes, yes, I have been going on about this. But what the hell, it was fun. Last Monday Mi shot a music video starring Richard E Grant, and I was Creative Director. There is more of a story about it all here. My last two posts were my attempt to blog from my phone on the day. (It sort of worked, I think the wordpress iphone app has got a few versions to go yet). As a creative, most of my work was done before the cameras started rolling, really I was there in case practicality dictated an emergency re-write, or scenes had to be tweaked. I tried to keep out of the crew’s way and stick my nose in as little possible – nothing worse than too many voices in the director’s ear. The 17 hour day went well, and the results should be around in the new year.
September 21, 2009 – 1:22 pm
So, not halfway through yet. And behind schedule. On the plus side the catering was really good, and our Hollywood star is being brilliant. Especially considering he spent all morning getting slapped……
September 21, 2009 – 10:45 am
So you spend months planning, re-writing treatments, getting crew together, juggling budgets, hunting locations, and all other manner of stuff, and then eventually the shoot day arrives. Then, really, you are at the mercy of time, and Lady Luck. Today is that day and so far things are good. I’ll post again in a bit…….and apologies if the picture is gubbins, iPhones eh?
September 10, 2009 – 10:18 am
If you have read this article, or maybe this one, or even this one, you’ll know that I have been lucky enough to become Creative Director at Mi. I have a degree in animation tucked away somewhere, so after 10 years in advertising, design and digital agencies, this is me going back to my roots. Also Mi were graceful enough to allow the role to be flexible – I am not there all the time, so will still be freelancing. This means I get to keep all my existing clients happy, and generally get the best of both worlds. I’m a lucky bugger really.
August 10, 2009 – 10:06 am
Selling. It is sometimes easy for creatives to ‘uncouple’ sales from what we do. Preferring instead to discuss craft, user experience, or brand awareness. But ultimately, everything we do comes down to sales of one sort or another. It is also easy to fall into the usual agency rhetoric: “Of course our campaign will sell your product, trust us”. However, if asked, would most creatives put the selling power of their design to the test?
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Designers know all about typography. (Well, some at least). But some typography techniques that I’m sure a few of us were taught are now often sadly neglected. Maybe the digital age is slightly to blame for this, but I suspect that budgets and deadlines are more of a factor. A lack of time does lead to a lack of craft. And if anyone thinks I am being a bit grumpy old man about this, well, I probably am. Er, Sorry. I have just listed 6. I am sure there are more………..
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Bill Bailey is a nice chap. Here he is playing the point at the camera game at last night’s Big Chip Awards with the gents from Creative Spark and ahd mi. I am chuffed to say that ahd168 won two awards; Best use of Animation and the Anthony Wilson Original Modern Award. I am slightly embarrassed to say that all I managed to say in my winners speech was “Cheers. Top.” Perhaps I really am turning into a Manc after all these years. A big thank you must go to all the genius staff at ahd mi for putting the hours in to make our film as successful as it has been. And a big congratulations to all the other winners on the night; Matt Booth, Love & everyone else. A full list is here.
The Chip Shop Awards took place at Fabric in London last night. (10th June). Depending on your point of view the Chip shops are either pointless, just a bit of fun, or a serious attempt to show how creative the industry can be unhindered by budgets or (ahem) clients. They are certainly getting bigger and attracting more entries, and this year Dave Trott headed up the judging. On the night the winning work is awarded a ‘chip’, with commendations also being awarded in the form of ‘vinegars’. Despite not actually being able to attend, I was lucky enough to win two chips, both for projects which I have collaborated with Creative Spark on. We won the first award for our massage card concept, and the second for a recruitment ad in the ‘Invent your own category’ category. All the winners can be viewed here.
Advertising and design has a lot of awards. A lot. Adforum lists 170 award shows from around the world. The Drum lists 15 award shows (at time of writing). They are big business, and they are here to stay. But are they are good thing? Do they benefit the industry? Maybe it’s worth having a proper think about them. I have listed 10 pros and 10 cons, in true sit-on-the-fence style….
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Ideas. Tricky little blighters. If you are a creative it’s your job to come up with them everyday. Relevant, interesting ideas; and usually within a tight deadline. There are lots of techniques out there for idea generation, from books and from tutors and from colleagues. Ultimately though, I think it is a personal process; creatives utilise what works for them, individual combinations of methods. You may even have a process of no process – and if it works, good for you. But I find I need structure, over the years I have developed my own steps, they work for me, and maybe they could help you. I have used the example of having ideas for an ad campaign, but the process can be applied to lots of creative tasks………
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Founded by ex LOVE and The Designers Republic people; Golden is a very exciting start up. Soon to be based in Leeds, this studio is already winning business and looking to staff up. This is a great opportunity to get in at the start of something which could be the next great design agency of the North. So if you are a junior or middleweight designer, really know your onions, and have a portfolio stuffed with beautiful work, get in touch with the gents at Golden. (Probably quite soon would be good; I have a feeling the competition is going to be pretty fierce).
