Best of Bucks hunt

Last Thursday my former advertising school Bucks New Uni had their annual London graduate exhibition. They had some really great books on show – a vintage year so to speak.

One of my favourite portfolios was created by Alex & Linda, two girls from Austria who have been at Bucks for three years now and just finished the course with a great collection of work. They have a very interesting selection with many packaging and product innovations and a huge range of media.This print campaign that had me laughing at the show was done by Matt & Matt for Gillete, here are two of the posters.
Have a look at the Bucks hunt website to see all creative teams and their work, there are way more goodies in there. Like Sarah & Laura, Sam & Kieran, Fiona & Sarah and many more.

Wal & Banksy in Bristol

On Saturday the national train took me to Bristol so I could have a look at the new Banksy exhibition (watch this video). It was one of the best museum visits I've been to. After queueing for almost two hours we saw the entrance area, fully taken over by Banksy. Inside there was another queue to see the 'Banksy Room' with lots of his stuff and tools. The next room was full of cages with the best animated sculptures I've seen. But that's only where the fun began, the rest of the museum looked normal but if you'd be very observant you could discover the details he changed, sometimes more prominent, sometime less – like a dildo in between different stones and minerals. Because of those hidden goodies you would doubt many things in the old museum. Is this real? Is this Banksy? Very very amusing. Go have a look if you don't mind a ride to Bristol. A train journey makes for a nice place to think about ideas.

I'm writing this from Stockholm. I arrived in my Hotel a bit ago and will go to sleep now, as the Hyper Island fun will start tomorrow rather early. I'm excited. Don't know what to expect.

Saatchi Gallery

I made my way to Sloane Square last week to visit the new Saatchi Gallery in the Duke of York's HQ. I've never been to one of their galleries and was quite curious what I will find in this place which 'aims to provide an innovative forum for contemporary art, presenting work by largely unseen young artists or by established international artists whose work has been rarely or never exhibited in the UK'. The exhibition they have running to open this new venue is The Revolution Continues: New Chinese Art.

For me contemporary art is a big gamble, most of the time there is a lot of junk with a few sweet pieces in between. Not this time. I was blown away by the fact that I liked most of the stuff in there. It's the kind of stuff I really dig. Give it a try, you can't go wrong, it's free, and it has just the right size, you won't get bored in there. Some of my favourite shots below.

Cream – lots of work and a bit of fun

Thanks to Rory from The Talent Business for organising this exhibition. All went smoothly, we mounted our poster and some work on our stand, then enjoyed a cold beer to loosen up just before the first visitors arrived. The work of all teams on view was great, a good opportunity to see what we're up against and to meet more people in the same boat. Cheers to everyone who came up to us to say hi, here's a big hello back.

Cream Cream Cream

The exhibition yesterday was lush. It went quite well for us, we met lots of new people and saw old friends. It was all about networking so we tried to talk to as many people as possible. We'll see what comes out of it. Event photos and more paper hat goodness coming your way soon, maybe even a review of the event? Not now though, as we have a fresh new brief on at adam & eve and will hang around here for at least another week. Way to go.

Who's got the strawberries?

This Thursday, The Hospital turns into portfolio land. The 20 best young creative teams are showing their work – and we're in. Good timing as new stuff is waiting to be seen in our book. Is anyone else rocking up?

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.

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?

Art Car Boot Fair

I enjoyed a whole lot of Brick Lane on Sunday. My quest – to gather inspiration. After checking out Nike's brilliant exhibition / brand experience Made for Skate and a graduate show about Transportation design I visited the Art Car Boot Fair – 'a day of art and frivolity'. It was east London at its best. Besides having lots of cars (seriously retro-pimped) on the Truman brewery backyard there were dozens of small art projects going on everywhere.


Vauxhall did a great job sponsoring this event and appeared as a rather brave car brand turning some cars into great art pieces.


Most of the stuff selling at from car trunks was crap. In a good way. If you visit Brick Lane often you might got the idea that Crap is Cool. It's the new Black. (for more advertising cliches join here).


The whole crap thing shows a great deal about the current materialized lifestyle of people. We want more things, just to have things, we're even ready to buy crap. The only thing missing on these Pooh Cakes is a flashy Brand mark!


After they sold London to you last year, an art group were selling the world. For just three pounds per country. Sadly, I was too late to buy Kazakhstan, my home country and free it from Nazarbayev. Still, I've get my hands on Ukraine. Odessa could be a nice retreat during summer time. I will give this country as a present to my girl. Muah!


Carbon Footprint anyone? An indication that people finally start taking the whole green issue seriously.


For the loners, you missed the chance too buy real love. In bottles. I wonder how 'love potion no.9' is different from no.2. Platonic love?


Action Figures for adults, GI Joe taking care of Guantanamo bay – Great stuff.


There was a huge amount of stands selling drinks (the fun ones). Personally I thought 'The End of the World is nigh' is quite a reason to have one at 2.00 pm on a Sunday – Cheers.