Thursday, December 21, 2006

Last second xmas present

Just celebrating the last day before holidays, worrying about our flights (we're flying tonight but there is evil fog everywhere in London), we received a phone call from Nick Bell, JTW London. They want us in from January 10th for a month long placement, which is brilliant. We were worried a lot since we didn't have anything lined up, but now we can start the xmas vacation very relaxed knowing that we'll have a place to work and be creative at in the new year. It takes a load off our mind!

Monday, December 18, 2006

A few ideas

We've been working a lot on our book lately, so far the outcome is strategies and some execution ideas. Here they are. Comments are very much welcome!






Friday, December 15, 2006

Sri Lanka?!


After uploading some of our work on the D&AD talentpool website we got an email the next day from an ad agency from Sri Lanka. We met up with them three weeks ago when they visited London to hire people. Now we have a job offer from them. They want us to come to Colombo, Sri Lanka and work in their creative department for six months. We cannot decide. It sounds tempting, it sounds very much like an adventure, go to a country you never thought of and explore. But is this worth enough to leave London? We are afraid of missing out here, and we aren't sure of the creative standard there. Any thoughts or advice?

Lick it good!

We had a tought brief today, the strategy was 'making it sticky'. Both of us gave our best in order to envelope all the christmas cards, Kristin's tongue got dry after the first 200 so she had to water it from time to time. We succeeded in the end! Everything's sealed.


Beer evening

Thanks for coming around yesterday to everyone! Didn't capture everyone on camera, will do so next time. It was good to see everyone, we expected more people to come, but it's christmas party time. Good luck to all with their placements and the job-hunt! Congratulation to Nishma & Anna who got their first job at Chemistry, well done! Also to Chris & Bill who got their first TV ad + poster produced and running!


from left: James, Rick, Gary, Hannah, Yasin, Kristin
also there: Nishma, Anna, Val, Goran

A present for Xmas?

Christmas is coming up, time is running away – we still have loads of work to do. We promised ourselves to have a few new spec campaigns ready for January, so far we've got some strategies we like and we are about to run them by our favorite creatives. Our placement at pd3 seems coming to an end after Christmas, so long we're still enjoying to work on ambient ideas here!

But just when we were starting seriously worrying about having a placement for January people started to call us with possible offers. We're looking forward to hear more from DraftFCB, the Law Firm, Grand Union and JWT. Could Santa please bring us news about a placement for the new year?

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Meet for drinks


Tomorrow night we are going for drinks + talks to meet up with former Bucks advertising students and friends. If anyone wants to join in, you're welcome to pop around. Thursday starting 7ish at 'The Blue Post', 81 Newman Street, W1T 3ET London, nearest tube Tottenham Court Road. Sounds like a younger version of coffee mornings, doesn't it?

Monday, December 11, 2006

Live in concert

Looking through Springwise I found tourfilter, a neat tool to keep you up to date with the tour date of your favourite artists. I was missing such a site without knowing it.

'The concept is simple: a user sets up a (free) account, picks his/her own city, and then enters all of the bands he or she would like to see in concert. Twice a day, Tourfilter's software crawls through live music venue listings for each city it covers. If it comes across a band people are tracking, it sends them an email, and lets them receive show updates via RSS or iCal.'


One thing that was slightly annoying though is to actually enter the band names. A logic next step would be a tourfilter build into iTunes, so I could set up a 'Live Column' next to genre and see the next concert date – maybe buy tickets via MusicStore?

See my band list here.

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Rabbit

Woooooh, an amazing video, interesting but slightly disturbing.

'Rabbit, an animation by Sclah Film could well be the weirdest animation you have ever seen. It won the Best Film At The Cutting Edge Award at the British Animation Awards 2006. Bizarre and original, it delivers a strong message at the end of the animation.'



Do you like it? I certainly do.

Found on PSFK

What we're up to now

Our placement at pd3 is going very well, we feel really good here and it's quite busy. Our briefs include the guardian, o2, a museum and several novel launches. The best thing? All of the work is ambient or stunt, so we get well practiced in creating brand experiences and interacting with our surrounding – urban communication.

We got asked to stay here for the next weeks, so that's brilliant. At the same time we try to spend as much of our free time as possible to get a new book together, you can expect some stuff on this topic very soon.

Kristin is feeling half-dead today, since we worked on some strategies for airlines yesterday (in the pub) and it turned into a discussion about fear of flying she could only stand with some drinks, maybe too many? I hope she'll be fine since we have a bookcrit scheduled at TBWA later on. Maybe she will even be able to do the D&AD president's lecture tonight?


Desk at work


View from the back of the pd3 office

Friday, December 1, 2006

Last friday @ Studio52

Yes, it was a glorious partay. I enjoyed it a lot and hopefully everyone who attended. The good news: this weekend we've got two more houseparties scheduled, one on our floor, the other on the first floor, Wool House is goin' crazay!


Quick impressions from last friday

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Sex sells!


Last week I brought a jacket to the cleaner when I saw this poster. Can you belive it? It's standing there in the shop so lonely and it looks all yellowish – funny. Pay attention to the art direction...
After seeing this ad, I really want to buy the Escort Carpet Care now. Sweet haircut, cute girl. Give me an email if you want her number.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Roof Sex


Seen yesterday at Short & Sweet it might be perfect to start a tuesday in a good mood – enjoy! It's done by a young director who calls himself PES, check out his website for more sweetness. By the way: This video is definitely safe to watch at work, but please make sure to wear headphones.

Friday, November 24, 2006

PD3


Right after the Drugstore we started yesterday at pd3, an agency near Old Street. A little part from their website says

"Authentically creative people do not (even under torture) want a job. They will work with you, but not for you. We let our teams create ideas in a free-range manner and the end result is not that of a typical ad-land battery hack. We work with people who think without fear...of a boss...or a retainer...of an atom bomb...or even what their peers might say about them. They write books, launch mags, play in bands and do stand-up comedy. They are forging culture, not leeching from it. pd3 is a co-operative for these creative misfits. (Or, as our landlord calls us, a talent brothel)"

Sounds great, and it is. The first briefs we're working on are open for everything, it's big fun so far. Unfortunately Kristin is not here today but she'll be back on monday.

Drugstore Adieu


After two and a half weeks we left the Drugstore on Shoreditch High Street. It was a brilliant time, we really enjoyed the challange of some hard briefs but were glad to do some good work! Thanks to Russ, Ben & Marc for letting us stay – We learned a lot from them. Check out one of their really fun projects right here.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Studio52 *unfurnished*


I spent some time today to design a flyer for our party. Since I finally found a home in London in a brand new flatshare, we will be celebrating this friday at our place. If you would like to join in drop me a line to mail@waldemar-wegelin.com

Gamble on your commute


We've been quite busy sorting things out, doing work for our placement and our book, Kris is doing some freelance work on the side (nighttime) and I'm taking care of my new flat. So in order to make up our absence we present you this concept. Found as a film on Short & Sweet on monday, tubepoker is well worth to take a look at.

'This is Poker with a difference - cards are replaced by people. Whether male or female, young or old, everyone is worth a certain value. The game can be played by two opposing players on any train with five seats in a row.'

If it's a real thing or something Simon Levene made up for his brilliant short film, find out for yourself and check out www.tubepoker.com
My friends and I played two games last night on the way home. Even if I couldn't stand a chance against Marco's royal flash and lost my change, it was big fun. Try yourselves and pass it on.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Week's over

This week has gone by quite fast. We went to a couple of agencies, including Ogilvy & Mather, BBH and WCRS. We worked on a great brief here at Drugstore and we'll start to work on a pitch next week. Unbelievably I finally got the keys to my place. Yes! I am finally a proper London tenant – I'll move in tomorrow to a stunning apartment near Aldgate East. It took me and my friend Daniel a lot of time to find two other people for a flatshare, but now it's all taken care of, we signed the contract today, and I can relieve my friends Ian, Hannah, Jordan & Bill who were so kind to let me stay at there place for the last couple of weeks – thanks a lot guys!

So before everyone takes off into the weekend relax your brains and laugh about our business with a short but amusing animation of flags of different countries – and the comments a client would make on them. Check it out here.


Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Monday at Short & Sweet

We enjoyed an exquisite fresh line-up of short films last night at Short & Sweet. If someone would like to join in and have a drink with us afterwards – we're there every Monday from 19.30 o'clock on. Location is the Cafe 1001, 91 Brick Lane, E1 6QL.

In order to stay interested we love watching and attending new things, we usually would not look at – or would not know about it. We think: Staying curious – that's one of the key skills in being a creative person.


A cozy place to enjoy some eye candy


Daniel, was curious enough to join in for last nights S&S

Monday, November 13, 2006

Hmmm...

Kris: Val, do you know what time it is?
Val: No!
Kris: Beer O' clock!

W+K

Last monday we saw a creative team at Wieden +Kennedy, they gave insightful feedback on our work – we learnt a lot from their opinions. They were the first agency who took a little bit of extra time for us. To demonstrate their point on brand strategies they showed us how they work on them. Usually, we come in to show work, we show it, talk about it, and we leave. Thanks to Sam & Frank for the good time. Afterwards, over a drink, we finally figured out the hidden secret of our initials – it was in front of our eyes all the time! Waldemar + Kristin. Spooky, huh?


A snapshot while waiting at the W+K reception

Thursday, November 9, 2006

Inspired...

Hello world!
Yesterday we have been at CHI and met two creatives. I just wanna give you the two most important lines they gave us to think about:
1. Your ads are like advertising, not more, but you have to go through this in order to make something more unique, there is no shortcut.
2. You can do everything! Your book is magicland.
Sounds nice but this means for us to f**king work our ass off!

We are still at Drugstore enjoying our placement. It's getting colder in London everyday now and we are both looking up flights to come home for christmas. Actually we should get presents twice this year because we are half Londonesier now and they celebrate christmas the 25th of december. Fancy that Santa! Don't you think?

Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Promax Charity Challange

On saturday we were invited to present our 30" tv idea for crisiscampaigns we did with iris. Our presentation went good, still another agency won the opportunity to shoot the spot. The best bit was the direct feedback from the jury after every idea. It was a good lesson for us, and I do love failure, as long as we can draw something from it!

Thanks to Russel for illustrating the storyboard so amazingly well! We really do like this TV idea and will work a campaign out of it for our book, if you would like to see the script, invite us over.


We need to improve on our presentation skills


The iris-crisis crew discussing the challange with a beer


Storyboard in the making

D&AD President's Lecture: James Jarvis

Last week we went to listen to James Jarvis in the Peacock theatre. Thanks to Gemma from Kendall Tarrant who had two spare tickets and we were just at the right place at the right time to get them, cheers!
Jarvis is the creator of the potato heads and his name should be familiar to anyone who is into designer toys. One of his very first toys is Martin. I really liked listen to James telling about how he struggled to decide on what helmets the policemen in his potato head world should look like.

Creating characters, the worlds they live in and toys people like to have in their homes – that's how advertising should be! We need to aspire stuff that we are proud of and that people actually enjoy. Did you ever felt like ripping your student bookapartt and starting from scratch on? Mmmmhhh... *rip*


James loves the process of drawing and heshowss us


Whole worlds created for the potato heads

Monday, November 6, 2006

First day at Drugstore


Today we had a book review at Drugstore in the tea building. And surprisingly they kept us here straight afterwards. So 30 minutes later we sat at our new desks starting to work on the first brief. Coool!
Starbucks office adieu, see you again but hopefully not that soon.

Sunday, November 5, 2006

Last week...

...was a tough one! We went to see Saatchi & Saatchi, NABS, Fallon & Kendall Tarrant. We called many many people, and it seems that this week is going to be even more exciting. We're seeing St Luke's, WCRS, Drugstore, CHI and Wieden + Kennedy. We're trying really hard to get a placement and we started improving (?) our book after some eye-opening feedback from Micah, one of Fallon's creative directors – thanks a lot for this!

We had a pitch presentation for iris this saturday, but I need to find my camera cable first to show you some visuals before writing about it.

Thursday, November 2, 2006

Our new office this week


Not being on placement means not having a proper place to work. This sucks. So does living at Starbucks, I am hooked on Caramel Macchiato and Kris is shaking after her sixt Latte ;)

Can anyone give us some good tipps for places for creative work in London? Starbucks on Oxford Street (the one in Borders) seems like a good meeting place for junior creatives, we always see teams of two sitting and working on their books. Why? Do they put something in that coffee or is it just the cozy atmosphere? Well, it's not THAT cozy, since it's always darn crowded and too loud to make phonecalls to agencies.

Working at home sucks just as much, since you get distracted more easily. Mhhh, I'd better get myself another macchiato...

ADC - Wooohooo

Good morning! Kristin won an award at the ADC (the D&AD in germany) for her BMW poster work. Thats good stuff! Check the whole results here.


The line reads: Natural Enemy

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Lamp / Lamp

Ahh, just returned from a sweet long weekend from Hamburg, Germany – I went there to visit my family & my lady. Feel very destressed and relaxed even I had to go through London Victoria at 8.30 this morning to get home.

Since I used to do a lot of packaging design I get quite excited about good product design, so when I saw this brilliant lamp the other day I wanted to share it with you.



Designed by 100%, a japanese design company, Lamp Lamp is wonderful a clever & simple product I'd love to have in my home. 100% 'aims for a design that gives you goosebumps' – so check out their website to see more great stuff.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Aurevoir iris


After four weeks on a creative work placement we had our last day on friday at iris London. We both agree that it was an amazing time, work & social wise. They do great work, they have great people and they have great fun! Thanks a lot to everyone there!

This week is all about improving the book, showing it to more people and getting the next placement, quit tough in London but we should do it somehow ;)

Julie

Thursday evening we went to for a few drinks with Julie Wright, my former tutor at Bucks university. She was the one who teamed us up, but that's another story (where Rick is also involved in). She is a lovely person, no wonder she knows every important creative person in town. Thank you Julie!


From left to right: Val, Rick, Julie & Kris


Who is who? We should call ourselves hairycreatives

Thursday, October 26, 2006

The morning after...

You thought you can drink? Well, may I politely correct you that my partner Val can do more. Yesterday Iris had a Halloween party where he went to. Unfortunatly I couldn't. But that is alright because I feel a little bit drunk already just by sitting next to him and let me clearly point out - I am talking about the morning after the party.

I can smell VodkaHAHAH tonic, Whis-HICKS-key cola and a weird mix of tequillaLALA, Sambuca and TabasFUCKINGHOTco.
Cheers Val... HICK-UP!

But maybe he just needed a drink 'cause W+K rescheduled our meeting, actually I needed one too :(

Almost got stabbed for not having a costume...

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Mommy doesn't love us!

Yesterday evening, a typical cold & rainy one in London, Kris & Val visited Mother in Shoreditch. Afterwards the two of us went for a few drinks and seven packs of crisps, in order to get at least some kind of happiness. Our thoughts this morning? Read on...

Kris Wednesday. The day where the revolution begins. Burn down the book and let's press the Re-start button. Here we go!
Val Yepp, the guys had a very good point, our book is good, and we'll get a placement (somewhere else), but it's not good enough. We have to reach 'the next level'
Kris Mmmm...s even packs of crisps. I could go for it again. Yummy.
Val Are you sure? People will rather think well trying to kill ourselves with a salty overdose of crisps after this book review which got us back into reality (which is: we need a better book).
Kris Ok, better book, more salty dogs 'n beer. Stop this talking we need to work ;-)
Val Can do. Thanks to Rob & Andy for taking time and comment on our book. We will work hard and we'll come back in a few weeks time.

Yesterdays lesson: It's good to fail. Much better then hearing 'Yepp, book's good'. Now we need to fail harder, and embrace the failure, while keeping the optimism. And what's a better place to go next for that then Wieden + Kennedy London? This one's scheduled for this evening. Hello crisps again...

Celebrating the blahs at a bar called Redchurch

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Welcome to Short & Sweet

This is something you really have to check out! It's called Short and Sweet moderated by Julie, a very cool girl. It takes place every monday in Shoreditch, Brick Lane and it's full of creative people. Julie presents short films of young or well known directors which often come around themselves to enjoy.
I'm used to go there with my boyfriend too and we always leave in a good mood and full of inspiration. It's really a good thing and you are all invited to join us next monday. I gonna post time and location later.
See you there, thanks Julie!

Monday, October 23, 2006

P.S.

Hallo Papa!

How to survive monday morning trains

It's easy! Just don't take the train.
If you have no other choice, well then there is nothing left to say to you then ENJOY it! If you made it on one of the trains you gonna survive everything else too, belive me. Not many people make it on the train. So you are already one step ahead, leaving the rest of your folks back in the station while you are rushing through the dark tunnel underground. So what do you do while standing squeezed with 36 other people on 2 square meters (That's a piece of art itself already but more about that later)? Enjoy the international flavours of deodorant when they lift up their arms to hold on to something (it doesn't really matter where, just make sure you don't fall over). Once more indefinable odours? Take a deep breath of what we call the "monday morning flavour" because at least you are one of the lucky ones who could make it on the train (even after 24 trains but that doesn't count) (english humour). What? Never forget, London Underground is giving their best to make you reach your destination relaxed. Thank god the next monday is a week away and PLEASE don't forget the deodorant.
Cheers!

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Zapatillas Puro shoes & bags




There are many websites out there, providing their visitoirs with the latest trends from all around the world. One of them is The Cool Hunter, in one of their articles they mentioned a very interesting brand from Argentina, Zapatillas Puro, they make shoes and bags in the most fabulous designs. Check them our yourselves, very sad indeed that these pretties aren't sold over here. I'd love to have one or two pairs from their selection – mmhh...

Friday, October 20, 2006

Borough Market

It's a good place to be, espeacially every friday when the market is at its fullest potential. Grab a delicious Falaffel and enjoy it in the sunlight in the garden of the beautiful southwark cathedral. Markets in england are much more exciting then the ones in germany (for us), they emanate proper british character. We are very happy to know that next week, we'll be lunching there on friday again, Iris likes to keep us for another week, and we are more than content to enjoy this place for this time!

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Visiting Fallon

After harrassing Fallons creatives for one and a half weeks they invited us to come around and show them our work.

Preparing for this visit today, we spent the last couple of days getting our book together in a good shape. We spent our lunch time yesterday to check out London Graphic Center, Brodie's Portfolios and Cowling and Wilcox to have a look at books and that. After considering all options we decided to drop the book idea, instead we bought a chic black box. We printed off all our work at iris, our beloved agency (thanks!) and mounted it on 400g white card. We love the look. And Fallon? Well, they liked it so much so that they kept it to show their creative director. Fingers crossed! The downside of it: We have to print off everything again and get another book / box 'cause we're visiting VCCP tomorrow – no lunch, again. We don't mind starving though, at least when we get the chance to meet nice people.

Monday, October 16, 2006

(M)adness - PostIt

I really love this found, the line reads: For the little things you'll forget. I found it on a random russian website, so can't provide any credits. Anyone knows if this one is a real or a spoof ad?

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Another week

We spoke to Kevin, head of copy here at iris, we'll get to stay for another week. Good news for us! We worked on a wonderbra brief since yesterday and we'll might get some good stuff out of it for our book. The day continues to be blue since we met also
friends today, bluey & his family from the ground floor.

Yesterday was the summer(ish) night out with the creative department. We went to the Comedy Store, free meal & drinks. The show was amazingly funny, just as good as a workout at the gym. We also got to know more of the crazy people at iris. With almost 100 creatives it's a mission to remember everyone's name, but we're workin' on it.


The loonies at their desk


Our new friend bluey, he tastes like yesterdays blueberry cheesecake kris says


lilb, blueys younger brother, nice little guy!


iris slogan, this blue light makes you crazy though, we think they're trying to hypnotize

Blueberry morning

We met up earlier this morning to eat delicious blueberry cheesecake while waiting for Daniel Morris from Major Players, a recruitment company for the creative industry. If you need any contacs, espeacially for the integrated side of advertising, he's the right guy for you. Good Meeting!

Bluejeans & Blueberry cheesecake, good start for a day

Daniel is a very nice guy, had some brilliant advice for us

(M)adness - Wrigley's

Brilliant Ad for Chewing gum, took me a couple seconds though.

Copy: Longer lasting taste.
Advertising agency: Graffiti BBDO, Bucharest
Advertiser: Wrigley Romania Produse Zaharoase
Creative director: Bogdan Mirica
Art Director: Alina Zaharescu,Cosmin Simionescu
Copywriter: Dan Stanescu


Found on AdArena

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Second week on placement

It is ous second week on placement at the iris nation. We enjoy it quit a lot so far. We worked on stuff for Sony Ericsson, Jack Daniel's and Shell. As this might be our last week here we sent out short & sweet versions of our book to Fallon and BBH.

If you are searching for contacts in certain agencies you should try to speak with someone from LIZH a creative headhunting agency near Carnaby Street.

We are curious when we will get our next placement at. But so far we will continue enjoying the atmosphere and the friendly people at iris, a good place to be, indeed.

Thursday, October 5, 2006

Hello world! We're setting up our blog.

But who are we? We are Kristin & Waldemar. Just a couple of weeks ago we were students in different advertising schools. Now we graduated and starting a career in advertising. We just begun our first placement at Iris, an integrated advertising agency in London.

And what is this blog going to be about then? We will tell you who we are, at the same time we will keep track of this journey. Our voyage starts now at our first placement together – hopefully our way will be an exciting one and you will enjoy it as much as we will do.

Let's see how this will work out...