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….
Read the full post here »
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………
Read the full post here »
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).
Well this re-design took no time at all - seems I am getting much quicker re-coding CSS. The old layout of this blog was starting to feel a bit well ‘bit-y’, so this one is back to clean design basics, except of course the big chopped up background images. As monitors and internet pipes get fatter it seems designers have eschewed the old file size rules and gone image crazy. Which I think is a good thing; sites can now be hugely visual and not offend the hardwear. There are 80 more examples on Webdesignerwall.com (A great site, even if it is a little bit twirly).
After a month or so of pixel tweaking and CSS changes I have decided the Hoggblog needs a much more serious overhaul, so it’s going to be in a bit of a state for a couple of days. The start will be the worst, getting rid of all the old code; dust and rubble everywhere. But as they say, it has to get worse before it gets better. I should of course build the new site locally using MAMP, but I thought I’d do it live, seems to be all the rage these days. So apologies if you arrive and the layout is scattered willy-nilly, normal service will resume soon.
My collaboration with Creative Spark has earnt itself a nomination in the Chip Shop Awards. Full visuals are in the portfolio section. I also helped out with Creative Spark’s other nomination, so the awards night in London beckons. Luckily it is a fairly informal affair, which saves on dry cleaning. Interestingly there has actually been some proper heated discussion on the subject of awards on the Drum forum recently. The thread starts with a discussion on Leeds agencies, but quickly dives into the eternal winning awards versus winning business debate. Personlly I don’t actually think that’s the debate any more, but that’s for another post……..
As a freelancer, my contact numbers are obviously very important. But then everybody’s phone book is important, so I thought I would share this very simple back up; it helps me sleep at night. Maybe it is already common practise for the tech savvy amongst you, and I am merely displaying my luddite credentials. You are going to need your phone (duh), and your mac or pc, and both bits of kit should have bluetooth switched on.
So first pick up your mobile phone, navigate to contacts, then probably options or something, then advanced settings or similar. Within advanced there should be an option to ’send all contacts’. Obviously this is going to be different for every phone, but a quick google of your phone model should provide instructions. Your phone should then give you the option to send all your contacts via bluetooth to your PC, which obviously you select. And there you go - you have a .vcf file on your desktop with all your numbers. Just in case of fire, famine, flood or forgetfulness.
Many things have to be considered when designing packaging; on the shelf appeal, sustainability, brand consistency, practicalities like the barcode and weight etc, and of course budget. But all these things mean five tenths of feck all if the packaging takes pliers and a coronary to open. So, with a cap doffed to Meldrew, here is my top five list of twuntingly frustrating things to try and open without passing out. Please feel free to add your own.
1) Listerine. Packaging designed by Satan for his personal amusement.
2) Any DVD or CD wrapped in plastic. An oldy, but why haven’t they solved this yet?
3) Any electrical item brought from an airport shop prior to boarding the plane.
4) The new thinner ‘green’ shopping bags. (Not strictly packaging but you know what I mean).
5) Any kitchen knife packaging. (Post last year’s knife crime stats).
So the shortlist for this year’s Big Chip Awards has been announced. And ahd imaging and I are on it, for best use of animation. Which is nice. To be honest the robot did most of the work. We just filmed him; I almost feel guilty. There is some very stiff competition in the category, but you never know I guess, fingers crossed and all that. The shortlist seems to be made up of everyone who is doing interesting stuff in the North West at the moment, so it’s good to be amongst good company(s). Congratulations to everyone shorlisted, and I’ll see you on the night.
Remember poor old ahd168? The robot from ahd imaging’s Christmas viral? Well 2009 has been pretty good to him so far - he has secured the leading role in a music video. The Chemists are an emerging band signed to Distiller records, who toured with Feeder last year. The record company approached ahd after seeing the viral on YouTube. I helped out with the creative for the promo, which is now in production to be released later in the year. So all in all quite a success. Over 40,000 views on YouTube and a job. Result.
March 25, 2009 – 12:33 pm
You set up a blog. You do some blogging. Then blog stops working because technology has overtaken it. Boo. Time to upgrade blog to latest version of blog. But that’s just plain scary. What might happen to blog? Blog took work. Blog precious. Well thankfully if you use Wordpress things aren’t too bad. I have just upgraded to the latest version following the very clear instructions in the Codex. Get everything backed up. Get a nice cup of tea and get cracking. I was pretty worried as I have monkey-ed about with the code quite a bit, inserting my own section in the header and fiddling with the CSS way too much. But the upgrade process doesn’t touch your content - just all the very clever php gubbins that Wordpress provides. So hat doffed to the Wordpress people, a lesson in clarity and ease.
February 2, 2009 – 7:02 pm
Yes, it’s award deadline time. So creatives up and down the land will be tweaking layouts and frantically trying to convince their bosses to part with the entry fees. Well, at work they will - in the pub they will be telling any other creatives that awards are rubbish and pointless. After a decade of award success and failure I have a love hate thing going on with the gong shows - and have written about them a couple of times on this blog. Perhaps I’ll leave the bigger picture alone for the moment and just wish everyone who is entering lots of luck.
January 5, 2009 – 10:51 am
I have been lucky enough to enjoy a cold New Year away, but I find on my return that apparently we’re all doomed. Doomed. Jobs are being cut. Businesses are going under. And the sky is falling in. It feels like 2009 is starting on a pretty bleak note. But there is business still going on in advertising, and lots of it. It seems Norwich Union and AMV BBDO have completely ignored the credit crunch (and maybe their audience) and spent £10million on a rebrand campaign starring a couple of people you may have heard of. (Aviva? Really?). It also seems 2009 might be quite a good year for the robot star of ahd’s Christmas viral, our hero had a lot of attention over the holiday, and even got to appear on North West Tonight. Let’s hope it doesn’t go to his head. Happy New Year everyone.
