Put your hands in the air

Last week while looking around in Selfriges on Oxford street, the UK's second largest shop I came across something funky. The limited edition of Absolut Vodka packaging – Absolut Disco. A shell for the iconic vodka bottle which can be attached to the ceiling to function as a disco bottle, simple idea but oh so cool. A gift packaging which not only looks good but is very useful and full on brand, I bet the vodka drinkers will love it! I want to buy one just for the packaging, but then again I'm very seduced by this kind of design stuff.

If this isn't enough they have a digital experience to back this up, hit www.absolut.com/disco and if you have a webcam record your disco moves and funk them up with certain visual effects.

Responsible for the concept was Swedish agency Family Business, well done. although I must admit the the web experience isn't really flawless, it took eight hours until the email arrived with my blog code since they seem to check all the videos pre-release – also the webdesign, especially the html email isn't reaching the standard Absolut Vodka usually sets.

Continue

That was my office this week as I was working with Nick, a copywriter whose Art Director had this week off.

A month has gone by in Publicis Dialog/Modem now and I had the pleasure to work on two pitches. I also got offered to stay for another month, yay. In the beginning it was rather boring to be honest, I had a lot of briefs not involving creative, but design. The situation rectified quickly and there are some interesting things on my table now. The work load is pleasantly balanced between online stuff, and fully integrated work and the old bit of design in between, to keep the skills fresh.

Other exciting things are happening as well – I'm hitting the streets again with my book. Curious, what will come out of it.

Agency Night Out

Right, I still haven't figured out the details, like most other creatives here, but the production brand of the agency is joining the integrated which is joining halfway with the interactive. The only thing I know is that it's an occasion for am agency party for people getting to know each other. Part one was yesterday, a night club in Mayfair and it's looking like they are planning a trilogy – fun times ahead.

Get naked – Get creative

The Young Creative Council is a facebook group for all kinds of creatives, just like the Creative in London group, which hosts more than 400 members nowadays. The evening was filled with life drawing and a big amount of young creative minds. I enjoyed meeting new people and making friends.

Unique drawing styles everywhere. The art teacher gave everyone advice which helped a lot. Graham (red shirt) very much enjoyed the evening, and kept drawing only hair. Interesting.

I haven't been doing life drawing for quite a while now and it was refreshingly great – I can only recommend this to all art directors.

The outcome was astonishing.

Of course we went to the pub afterwards, free drinks inclusive! Thanks to Three Blind Mice who sponsored this event.

Graham (right) was picked as the art teachers favorite and went home with a bottle of exquisite champagne. Earned I say. I liked the drawing on the left as well.

Craig was the one started it all, thanks to him for this brilliant evening.

Festival of Lights

Today is Diwali, a Hindu festive holiday. I know very little of this culture and noticed posters on the tube talking about Diwali. So this morning I received a message from a friend, congratulating me with the new year. I asked him to shed light over this occasion. his email

«Time for a brief Religious Studies lesson:

One of our gods was exiled from his kingdom for 14 years. Nearing the end of his exile he defeated a bad guy, freed a nation, which is now Sri Lanka and rescused his wife. On his return home to show him the way, people from his kingdom lined the path with 'Divas' indian candles. This was to light his path home. And his return was today, so we call it Divali. Its the most religious day of the year for us. So on these days Hindus all over the world light divas in their homes, give gifts, charity, visit loved ones, light fireworks and pretty much party hard in celebration of good over evil, light over dark. It's very special.

Tomorrow is new year for us. So we visit the mandir (temple) and all our elders and ask for their blessings for the coming year.

I want to go to India one day to experience this. I bet its amazing. There's more but that's for a proper conversation.»

They are celebrating Light and good over evil, a wonderful and spiritual thought missing in the western culture. Thanks Jai, I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Redesign

This blog design seems to get dusty. Just ordered the whole set of Make My Logo Bigger Cream in order to funk it up, bring the colours out more and that. Aaahrw, I cannot wait to rub that Emotionator onto my design and harvest those thousands of new arriving visitors, all thrilled by the visuals. See yourself at www.makemylogobiggercream.com

For preparation, I started already by labeling ALL the previous posts, so readers can navigate quicker through the content, even I have to compromise my dear un-usability for that.

Listen

To podcasts. I'm currently catching up with American Copywriter, it's great fun, two guys from Kansas enjoying their job, my favorite episode is the Jedi Copywriter Special Edition, don't miss out on it.

What seems to be another interesting project evolving is How I got a Job in Advertising, a creative on it's way to a job in the idea business. Both podcasts are from the states and it gives you a glimpse about adworld over there. In between I'm chilling with Lounge Radio, fantastic music. What do you listen to? Are there any British creative podcasts? Enlighten me, please.

Not thinking, doing

Advertising. We read about it. We watch it. Care about it. We make it. We're interested in reviewing ads, discussing them, liking them or hating 'em. Lately I noticed I care a small but unhealthy amount too much about this business. I try too hard…

It's like being 25 and having an idea what advertising is. Frankly, I shouldn't have an idea what advertising is. And I shouldn't care about finding out.

It's the hardest thing to obtain the view of a child again. To forget the textbooks and stop being a schoolboy. I'm not talking about going cold turkey on campaign magazine. The key shall not lie within ignorance but rather in an open mind for other things. Seeing more, and most importantly doing more. Not thinking, doing. Stuff. Whatever. But doing. Let's see where that takes me.

Wal Scissorhands

Halloween arrived pretty early this year, our lovely neighbours had a party with the topic Tim Burton. Anyone fancies a haircut?

Black Cat White Cat

What a wonderful day for no reason. Maybe it's Thursday approaching me unexpectedly with the feeling of the weekend in a hidden pocket. The delicious cappuccino coffee I usually miss out on in the morning? More likely the music I listened to during the battle of commute. I will share some of that on a distant day.

I have never written about a movie, I never intended to – there are enough movie review resources on the net. Yet there is Emir Kusturica, a director of sheer brilliance who made my single favorite movie picture – Black Cat White Cat. There is nothing else playing in a rectangular shape that can lift my mood into such joyous heights.

Every scene is packed with vitality and music, a purely beautiful combination that is, for me, Kusturica's trademark. The characters are escorted by a gypsy orchestra during all possible situations – old school portable music I say. A spectacle of absurd but amusing characters that has to be experienced with a Hollywoodless open mind. There was never a movie I thought about countless times and dreamt of watching it again and again. See for yourself, to get yourself in the right mood listen to Bubamara, the musical theme of this masterpiece that offers unequaled opportunities. You won't forget this melody after watching Black Cat White Cat.

I do not want to link to a trailer, as I don't like these short summaries of film in general, mostly they are unworthy – especially of this movie. I would not doubt that after this on screen performance you feel the urge to go o a journey and explore more of Kusturica's work, as there is way more to discover about this artist.

'This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship'.

Status from Publicis

One of the very first briefs I received at my current placement at Publicis Dialog was the creation of a new holding page for Publicis Agency since they are working on a new web presence. It's online now – lo and behold – somehow even my face made it on there. Can you spot me?

Agencies and their own websites, that's a difficult combination. There are great articles about this topic, read about digital masturbation on webink.com and here on the reasons why you shouldn't ever let an ad agency make a website. We'll see what Publicis comes up with.

Meanwhile, in the last couple of days I helped Nick & Lex, a great creative team, preparing bits and pieces for a pitch that happening pretty soon. Exciting, as pitches always are.

Publicis Dialog

Arrived here yesterday morning. Followed up the offer I received at the cream exhibition. I'll be at that place from now on for a couple weeks of placement. Let's see what I can learn here. First time on a placement without a partner – feels weird – I need to get used to it, or better, get someone in. Savour the raindrops today.

Games – the real new media

This has been on my mind for quite a time now. I am a big fan Games, all kinds of them. Chess (anyone fancies a match?), cards, board games and of course video games. I've started back with an Atari and played most of the 'important' video games systems in the last 15 years. Last evening I saw the hilarious Toyota ad for their Tacoma and tried the Yaris Video Game on Microsoft's Live, a multi player platform on the Xbox360. Here's the ad, it's running on US television and works very well as an online viral.

It made me laugh, since I used to play World of Warcraft back in the early days of the game. Nothing ground breaking though. Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam used the Grand Theft Auto look for it's brilliant Coke spot and set the first step in this direction. Games in ads – a concept to use a world familiar to the audience to tell a story. The flip side – ads in games, or adgames is also well represented – the Burger King games who've won Titanium Gran Prix at Cannes this year for example.

I preferred 7Up's game with Cool Spot from 1993, they didn't need an agency to come with the stuff back in time, the only thing they got for it was 'Best Cartridge Music of the Year'. Anyway.

I consider video games as the ultimate media, the best way to tell something and engage. Why? Let's see. If TV ads are to be considered old media, and Internet is the new revolution then movies are old hat and games are the way forward. Unlike films which tell a story to a passive beholder, games have the ability of interacting with the audience and tell the story in much more engaging way.

Wait, aren't games more about jumping from one platform to the other without falling down to be eaten by the pink giraffes? These times are long gone. There are games telling epic plots, the game series Final Fantasy had several main protagonists falling in love, experiencing adventures and dying – an emotional journey for the player – only squeezed by the pixelated faces with three expressions. Yet granted toady's technology flashing by as fast as a rabbit on speed, games can already keep up with production values of movies, the quality of sound and picture is amazing.

Take a look at Bioshock, a game experience taking part in 1960 in a fictional underwater dystopian city built on the mid-Atlantic seabed. This game is full of tension, great music score, intelligent dialogs and a story that draws you in from the first few minutes and forces you to take moral decisions later on in the game that effect the whole shebang. Watch the trailer here.

It is time that a brand makes a serious game, driving around in a pocketbike racer might be fun for a while but so much more is possible. Will we see Cadbury's 'Food Sabotage' or Apple's 'iAdventure'? Will we see a new type of creative agency emerge? One that specializes in telling the story of a brand in an epic game? Boy, I can't wait. I'd love to be a creative, responsible for making a great game for a brand. BMW could follow up its film series by asking different game developers to create a game with their brand, mmhhh…

Creative Portfolio 2.0

Okay, sorry for trying to raise the coolness factor of my topic with that number .0 thingy. It just fits and there is no other clever name for it – yet.

I'm thinking of setting up another blog dedicated to the development of a new creative portfolio. A blog that would establish a platform for an interactive online portfolio review.

It would start with the choice of brands along with the first thoughts. It would contain relevant research and links for the chosen topics. Propositions, strategies as well as first creative ideas would come next, followed by executions of the thoughts and media thinking.

During this whole process people are invited to leave comments to improve the ideas or point out weaknesses. The blog could function as documentation of the work in progress. As an application tool it shows one's thinking and what happened between the first idea and the finished campaign.

Of course there are down sides to this idea. Would people comment? This depends on the quality of thinking and the consideration of improvements.

Does this makes sense?

One day placement at VCCP

Thanks to NABS I participated yesterday in the one day live-brief placement at the London above-the-line agency VCCP. The day started early and was held by Simon and Nikki, the planner in charge was Micheal. They briefed us on an interesting project covering broad range of media. Creative starters helped getting the brain going and after some coffee it started to be fun. Three creative teams and five individuals attended. All together a good amount of work was created and at the end of the day it was a great experience. Get on NABS' mailing list in order to be informed about the next one.

Some of the young creatives in the workshop room

Simon reviewing some work on the walls

The blue walls provided a great canvas for creative ideas

Work we've done

Advertising's Young Minds

Pleasantly surprised about being on Daniel's list of Top 27 blogs of people under 27. Creative in London is ranked 23, that gives me exactly 2 years and 2 days to improve my ranking. Thanks Daniel (danielmejia.wordpress.com).

All suggestions to make this blog a better one are cordially welcome!

Damn they're good

I have to share this. Introducing the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Not quite new, actually they've been around for 14 years now.

A Friend of mine send me one of their songs, I can't stop listening to them since. I would describe their music as nu-swing rooted in classic New Orleans Jazz, influenced by international styles including asian and klezmer music. Their song lyrics are tasty – who else sings 'Teeth are extruded and bones are ground, Then baked into cakes which are passed around…' to a highly dance-able groove? The band recorded their second album 'Hot' without using a sound studio, they rather searched for unique rooms like a billiard room for their recordings to catch the room ambient feeling in combination with their music and Katherine's amazing voice, you'll hear what I mean. Great stuff.

Take two minutes and listen to them, you won't regret it. Also check out their songs Hell and The ghost of Stephen Foster. Their music videos are uniquely odd. Pure inspiration. Where are my bubbles? Bubbles.

Cream '07 retrospect

It is over. It was stressful. But very much worth it. The evening started early with a briefing with the Talent Business at 5 o'clock. The exhibition was formed of over twenty young creative teams or individuals, most of them from the UK but with special appearances from international teams as far away as North America, New Zealand and Australia. After setting up our stand we took some time to go around and gaze at some work. I was very much impressed with the standard of most of it, great stuff.

The exhibition was open to the creative 'public' from six o'clock on, it was amusing – the clock turned six and all the creative teams were watching the doors, tension in the air. The poor guy who comes in first will be attacked from all sides. Surprisingly, it was fine. Many people turned up, lots of creative directors, senior creatives, talent spotters and other important people in suits.

I exhibited with Jai, a copywriter I worked with the last couple of months, as well as doing some campaigns back in university. There were two rooms full of work, we were lucky enough to be in the one with the bar, so lots of people hanging around and looking at the work. Awkward to lurk around your book and wait for someone to talk to. They should have had pictures of the creatives next to the work like last year. We could grab some contacts, so it was very much worth it. Since I was in the cream exhibition last year, I was very happy about the clean stands – good exposure for the work. Last year was crammed, everyone customized their stands and it looked more like a circus. Personally speaking, it felt like there were more people attending last year, maybe that's because of the location being in east London, rather than central. They should have advertised with being close to the shoreditch house :)

This morning we had a first email from a creative director asking me and Jai to come for a placement starting on the 1st of October. Sadly, Jai will not be able to take it up since he's going to take a marketing job on the dark side, the client side. Please, please, let a good copywriter fall from the sky for me, I will do everything for it, I promise…

Anyway, thanks a lot to the great Talent Business crowd including Rory, Davina, Andrea, Anna and co. You gave all the attending teams the opportunity of a great exposure in this industry! Oh, by the way, I've got my powerbook back today – happy again.

(copy) Jai & Wal (art)

Our (almost completely) handmade business cards, people seemed to like them, but were reserved to rip the seal apart since it looked precious, damn.

Our stand + book, I loved the black.

Dead. For at least five days

Live from London apple store, blogging from one of the free-to-use macs. Why? My beloved Apple Powerbook died yesterday.

So I arrived here early morning to get it repaired – it seems it's gonna take the delicious amount of five days. That means no chance of gettin' some decent business card design done for Cream. Oh and printing out those A2 files? From what data? Damn… This happened just in time, like always. I'm still in a good mood though, just taking some time off from my computer. Back to pencil n' paper. Enjoy your Monday.

Crème de la Crème

Earlier this week I've received the message that the book I sent in a couple of weeks ago with Jai, a writer I worked with lately, got into Cream – an exhibition to showcase the best 25 young creative teams from England … and this time from all around Europe. It is organized by London's Talent Business. We're really excited to show our work in front of some of the greatest creative directors in the idea industry. Yay! Good times.

Lots of stuff to prepare for next Thursday. But for now – Where's the rum?

Rum alchemy

A few months ago my flatmate & I spend a day making our flavored own rum. After getting the finest ingredients from London's Borough Market we mixed three different flavours. First one is cherry and chili then peach, ginger and honey and finally a balanced berry mix out of cranberries, raspberries and strawberries. All infused with a combination of three different Havana Club rum's. They have been shaken once a week for months now and are soon ready to be tasted. Mmmhhh...

They fit a celebration – it seems some reasons are coming up soon.

Qatar Lions?

A couple of weeks ago I answered to an ad in Luerzer's Archive for a creative position in Qatar. They wouldn't give anything away in the ad itself and asked to submit some work before they would reveal their agency name etc.

So I did. They offered me an art director's job in Qatar – with a wonderful payment, you can dream of as a junior creative in London. The specs: huge client portfolio, big budget just for fake ads, no brand strategies – win awards, loads of 'em. Tempting. Very. Worth it? Let's see:

I dream myself of working in a creative London agency. It's a though one. Would it be easier to get into a good one after winning awards? Awards for fake ads, in categories which haven't been exploited that much? Could I come back to London from Qatar after a year and get a job easier? I know quite a bunch of people who came to London from other countries. They had agency experience, they had awards. Still, they couldn't gain ground in the city. After some time and countless meetings with headhunters they had to travel back to their country. Of course – there, people would throw jobs after them. London's international ad victims.

I turned the offer down. Maybe you would think that I'm really picky. Yes I am.
I'm not looking for that one ideal agency, I'm not after a big name. I want a place where I can grow and learn stuff I admire. And that is not necessarily ads just made to win awards. And hell yeah – I consider doing that outside of London. As long as I'm getting better there it doesn't matter where it is or how much they pay.

Coherent? Or stupid?

The Kaiser - Germany's ad prophet?

Countless young and old creatives from germany are fleeing their country. They long for more glory. They are attracted by the 'holy idea grail' that the UK promises, as the most creative place on earth.

Is it still? I'd like to think so, since I'm here now – but let's not go there, lots of other blogs (Robert & Richard) discussed this pretty well before.

Now, there is a pretty good chance for other countries to grab the flag and run forward and lead. And I'd like to allege that germany is in a great position for that. So thinks The Kaiser. Check out his blog, especially if you're german. Make up your mind if he's the one to lead.

Hey there

Just arrived from Gatwick airport. Had a great flight from Hamburg to London, got to write stuff, to read stuff and had the chance to nap a lil' bit. It was great to see family & friends, and have time off, but it feels like I've been away for too long – can't wait to get going again. Now excuse me, there are lots of things to do. Have a fantastic Monday everyone, it's good to be back. Quality.

Blogging pause

Welcome, to the intermission. It's august and I'm away from London in Hamburg, doing random stuff, meeting friends, playing games and working on my portfolio. Will be back in London soon - I am preparing some posts in the meantime, about music, rum, and advertising. Won't be blogging regularly in august though. Enjoy the quirky summer.

Off to see the simpson movie now. Check here for advertising world news so long.

AHA!?

Sorry for reporting back on this so late but the weather has been to good to be inside – right.

This AHA! was great, lots of people, different people, more people than last time, thanks everyone for coming around! Thanks to my dear friends from creativistan namely Reinhard, Christos, Sara and Oksana for organizing this together with me!

Besides mingling, chatting and drinking we tried this time to find the ultimate answer on how make life more meaningful. We asked everyone to tell us their secret wisdom of life on an AHA! fortune cookie paper. They did. While people were reflecting heavily about their contributions to what is now know as the 'AHA! way of life', sadly, someone nicked Charles' bag and Lauren's iPod. Have a look at the pieces of wisdom they sacrificed to write:

• 'It's all about the people' Renee
• 'Don't scream at a deaf person' Camilla
• 'The path is hard, but the butterflies are flying' Julien
• 'Star today what you've planned for tomorrow' Christos
• 'Stand on the steeple and piss on the people' A.J.
• 'Always try to remember peoples names, it's just polite, sadly I remember no ones!' Damien Knowles The Kiwi
• 'Going down every little helps' Juliana
• 'Don't get caught in the shower when a fire alarm goes off...' Ann
• 'You are going to have lot of sex, but no tonight!' Anonymous
• 'Don't shit where you sleep!' Agatha
• 'Your shoes will watch your shadow so polish them,
  otherwise you will lose your shadow.' Sara
• 'Arts Lunga – Vita Brevis. If you can't do the best why even bother with the rest?' Oksana
• 'A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.' Ray
• 'Peace still works.' Nina
• 'The yellow snow is the tastiest. Don't listen to the rest.' Peter Brown
• ' A Jelly Baby walks into a bar – bar keeper says what's that smell?
  Jelly Baby says 'Oh Fucking all sorts!' Will
• 'To thine own self be true.' Lauren
• 'An idea is like a leaf that needs rescue from the wind' T.C. Jeeves Basu
• 'You can't always get what you want.' Charles
• 'Don't take yourself to serious! Seriously.' Marco Warstat
• 'Pigeon, oiseau à la grise robe, Dans l'enfer des villes, à ma vue tu te dérobes.
  Tu es vraiment le plus agile' Jann
• 'What if OK isn't OK? If this was true, no-one would ever be happy.
  Strive for everything, but there is value in being content' Ant
• 'The Picture has a moustache. It's how you perceive it.' Matt
• 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' Tam
• 'A book tightly shut is nothing but a block of paper' Ray
• 'The path is long indeed, but the door at the end is not Blue.' Wal

Enlightened? We hope so. We can't wait for the next one! See flickr (or facebook) for more pictures. And come along to the one in august. AHA!

Feedback on the Hummer strategy

A month ago Jai and I submitted our entry for the Advertising Planning School of the Web, a strategy for Hummer. Now we've received feedback saying:

'What I find interesting in this is that just like Seb, you’ve identified a bunch of really interesting ideas and then went for the most ‘creatively pragmatic’ direction which is basically a “FUCK YOU” to people who think HUMMERS are for gas-guzzling, gun-toting wankers.

I am all for pragmatism and boldness in creativity but at the heart of your idea is an advertising concept rather than something that would achieve motivation regardless of communication - and whilst it would generate tons of PR, awards and talkability, it would not necessarily translate into sales.

Saying that, you are the only ones who really took on an ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL approach … and while that would probably work VERY well in some countries/cities [Texas?] in alot of other markets, we felt the social-pressure to be ‘responsible’ may actually minimise sales rather than increase them...'

Very good constructive feedback, we fixed some parts of the strategy and maybe there will be a campaign for my book out of it. Thanks Rob and the judges for the thoughts and I'm waiting for the next assignment! You can read the whole feedback here on Rob's blog.

Campaign

A dear reader told me that today's campaign magazine (13th July, 2007, page 5) published a snippet out of the 'Street Creative' post about creative teaming. First time in campaign, yay.

It shows two things. First, someone is actually reading my blog and not only looking at the pictures and second, the creative team of today (or the future) is a rather interesting topic. While I wrote about only two factors (art director + copywriter) imagine how tempting it would be to debate what other ingredients (planner, digital expert) you could throw in to spice things up. I think the idea is everything, almost. Without the necessary skills (art + copy) it won't stand out in today's clutter. But real ad world (is there something like this?) is different from my situation. If you're trying to get a placement and the first job, execution doesn't matter that much. At least that's what they say. Great execution is a good bonus, but without the 'big idea' it doesn't matter. Imagine how crappy a Sony balls three frame storyboard would look like drawn in a student book...

What I've learned so far is that agencies expect young creatives to have lots great strategies in their book. Maybe I should try teaming with a planner?

By the way: If you look at page five, it says 2006, all other pages in this magazine say 2007. Spooky, friday the 13th stuff.

AHA! July 2007

AHA! the sequel. Unlike in hollywood, a good one. We're inviting all kind of creatives from different industries to share ideas. Come along, meet interesting people, have a drink, have a chat. Bring friends.

Wednesday, 18th of July 2007 in Commercial Tavern (upstairs) E16NU London. From 19.00 on. Looking forward to see your there!

Have a look at flickr for pictures from June's AHA!

Thanks a lot to Sara for the invitation design