My lunch tale

moo said the cow to the rabbit, and the little sweet rodent nodded and continued to chew that shiny yellow carrot he found in the mysterious forest. its teeth went numb and it decided to chew on the cow instead which was struck by the randomness of the rabbits behavior 'mooooo, why do you chew me, mooo?' asked the cow. the rabbit but, flexed his eyes and just for a wee second looked like a squirrel with nut diarrhea. silence hushed over the rabbits lips and the rodent mouth spitted out a mixture of carrot and beef. for a second it resembled a disgusting yet delicious meal – alike the petit lunch your mother used to cook on a good day. 'ratatouille du vache' whispered the rabbit full of evil madness and started to run tossing his feet high up in the air. the cow instead took its bell from it's neck and hurled yet missed it towards the hurrying fugitive. 'stupid lapin, i'll get you sooner or later and you will, moooo, see what i can do with a carrot.'

Green workshop brief

(redesigned for my viewing pleasures)

I received the D&AD Workshop Brief. It is for 'As Nature Intended', an organic store chain in, located mainly in London. Does anyone have a clue who've set this brief?

I am kind of annoyed by it, don't get me wrong the brief isn't bad. No, the brief is alright in itself. Here are three products/brands that were used to set the last three D&AD workshop briefs:

• Ford Focus Flexifuel, a car running (partly) on renewable resources
• Government campaign to fight CO2 emissions made by cars
• As Nature Intended, an organic, and green store

Anyone sees the pattern? I'm getting a headache from this greenness. What to do?

Google traffic

A couple of months ago I installed Google Analytics on my blog to get more detailed information about the traffic. A lot of it comes through Google – but the things people look for don't always match the content on creativeinlondon. Here are my top ten search inquiries:

• impressing an art director with a package design
• london christmas placement
• creative things to do in london as a single
• image of alex bogusky
• creative night out in london
• source of a book tightly shut is but a block of paper
• lick creative london
• cool cultured stuff "to do" "in london" the evening in london
• buy kazakh art
• amazing quality paper ideal for business cards in london

Thanks G. Maybe I need to write some posts to inspire singles in London, we'll see. My tribute to you Google, two print ads I did back in university – just for you:

theartschool

Graham Fink, M&C Saatchi's creative director is organizing is the brain behind theartschool– a creative gathering for idea minded people. It has been a long time since the last session and this time the guest speaker is Alan Yentob, (he must be a cool guy since he has his own wikipedia page – is that the standart to judge?) creative director of the BBC. It will take place next week on the 5th of December (same day as Publicis' Christmas party, woohoo), starting at 2pm sharp. Come along, but drop them an email first to theartschool@thefinktank.com

It's free and it sounds like good fun, there is also a placement at M&C's at the end of it for 'the most promising people'.

Magic for the workshop

Signed up today for the D&AD Advertising workshop for January & February 2008. Exciting, getting the brief on monday and cannot wait to do some work for it. In advance I am practicing my voodoo skills on an innocent gingerbread man. Beware to judge the briefs, muaaaah! (putting small finger next to mouth)

Arcane voodoo materials (cake & pins) kindly provided by Publicis, cheers.

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.