averythingelse

Last years resolutions...

2011-01-04T11:22:00.000Z

Last year I set myself some work resolutions for the year, here they are...

- Keep creative, try and drown myself in a bottomless pit of art direction.
- Don't stop being pro active.
- Shout more.
- Get some TV work out of the door.
- Blog how I was wrong about twitter. Here's me.
- Get back to reading more.
- Take more photographs.
- Drink better coffee.
- Push. My self, my ideas, my crafting.

Well, on 2 points I've failed. I'm still drinking shite coffee and haven't read as much as I wanted. To be honest I'm pretty happy with how the year went so won't be taking either over to 2011. On all the other points I'm pretty chuffed that I've stuck to (although the HR people might not agree with the Shout more one).

One I am going to take forward from last year is...

- Take more photographs. Again.

And adding just one resolution to it...

- Do work that will start pulling in awards.

That's the lot, just 2. There they are. I'll report back on how it all goes.

Night night...

2010-12-10T17:29:00.000Z

Hello, this is Adam's blog.

I'm going to bed for a while now as I haven't been very good as of late.

I might wake up at some point, I might curl up and drift up to the big blogosphere in the sky. Who knows?

Night night x

What I has done...

2010-10-07T17:46:00.000+01:00

New ad's for The Co-operative Funeralcare

Really good brief. Really good strategy. Really good client. Happy days.

A new job...

2010-09-29T19:05:00.002+01:00

I've had a few 'cold call' style emails from various people offering me jobs in the last 12 months, a new one arrived in my inbox this afternoon. Here it is...

Dear Adam,

I am writing on behalf of XXXXXXX, Design Consultant at XXXXXX Europe, an international executive search firm specialising in design, luxury and fashion. Our clients include for example: Avenue A/Razorfish, AKQA, victoriassecret.com

, poloralphlauren.com, Lipman Advertising, BETC Euro RSCG, Estée Lauder Companies, Y&R, TBWA, Calvin Klein, A/R Media, Assouline, Pentagram, Desgrippes Gobe Group, Frog Design.

We have often many positions in Graphic Design / Art Direction throughout Europe (for the moment in Paris) for Advertising agencies and leading international companies which may interest you.

We would appreciate if you could send us your CV and selected samples of your creative work (especially in advertising/print) in either fashion, luxury or cosmetic fields.

I am sending you the job description which we have at the moment:

Fulltime Junior Art Director
Well known French based Advertising agency is seeking a Junior Art Director with international experience and a very high taste level. Candidates must come from a similar background with experience in either the fashion, luxury or cosmetics fields. The ideal candidates is a perfectionist, and very detail-oriented. Position is based in Paris.

Also, bear in mind that this is a full-time position in Paris and requires relocation.

If you would like to contact us: I am reachable by email and phone that you can find in my signature below.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best regards,

XXXXXXX

Anyway, I'm quite happy and not interested in any other jobs, even though the offer of working in the Paris fashion world sounds great. I just couldn't hack all the drinking, fine food and european models.... errrrrm.... what was my point....

Ah yeah, I'm guessing some desperate recruitment person has just googled keywords and I've cropped up as we've done quite a lot of fashion/cosmetic/hair based work.

But does anyone know if these things are genuine or just a load of crap that would never amount to anything? And does everyone else get them?

And does anyone get emails asking if you'd do a talk on advertising in some far flung country, all cost and flights included? Maybe these are the new 'whole family died in a planecrash, can I give you $10million' emails, just more specialised.

Should be posting more stuff...

2010-08-27T15:19:00.001+01:00

I realised I haven't actually posted anything advertising based for yonks. And I should. Well, not that much as no ones basically reading this as much anymore as we've all moved over to Twitter...

But here goes...

Nice idea for using one of those round the corner billbaords.

Russian drive driving ambient featuring cars that have been in booze fuelled car crashs. I can't translate the line, sorry about that. (If you can then leave a comment)

---------------

I know none of you are reading this but needed to splurt out a link for SEO reasons....

www.farrallcleaners.co.uk

Simples...

2010-07-28T09:19:00.000+01:00

And here was me thinking Apple had the music packaging thing covered. Denied.

Wrong about Twitter...

2010-07-14T10:35:00.000+01:00

We’ll it’s half way through the year and one of my resolutions for the year was write how I was wrong about Twitter which I now seemingly can’t live without.

Here is pre Twitter me asking questions to post Twitter me, weird I know but let’s give it a go…

Q: “Why would I want to hear about people’s dull lives?”

A: “If you hear about dull lives if you follow dull people.”

Q: “Why do I need Twitter when I have Facebook”

A: “Because ‘that’ London creative director isn’t your mate and won’t accept a FB friend request. Yet knowing what he and another bunch of worldwide CD’s and creative people are up to and being influenced by on a daily basis is a pretty decent thing.”

Q: “Why do I need Twitter when I have a blog”

A: “Blogs take time to write, twitter is an instant fix. I’ve been writing this fucking blog for the past three years and still no ones reading the fucking thing apart from you, did I mention you have amazing eyes.”

Q: “Won’t it slightly take over my life?”

A: “Yes a little, it’s hard but sometime you just have to put it down and not read the constant stream of inspiration and creative goodness being thrown upon you.”

Q: What’s the best part of Twitter?”

A: “That is let’s me be a big fat advertising geek and now I can send out my thoughts to other like minded people. All my Facebook friends and people I used to know who I don’t have the heart to delete don’t want to hear me rambling on about advertising all day long, Twitter people hoover that shit up, and if they don’t like my drivel, they ‘unfollow’ me, no questions asked.

Q; “Is that it, you’re boring me?”

A: “Yeah, just give it a go, it’ll be weird at first but just give it 1 week and it all fits into place, oh and follow me at twitter.com/adamjrichardson”

If any of that did manage to sink in and you fancy giving it a go, here’s a few people you should start off with…

Dave Trott… Mostly tweets links to his blog posts but that’s enough really.

Ben Kay… Writer of IFIABWC, award winning creative and seems like a bloddy nice chap.

Lee Clows Beard… Strange name but words of wisdom from the TBWA guru.

Peter Hough… What he doesn’t know about the internet isn’t worth knowing, he’s a fine purveyor of ‘cool links’.

Jam Sponge… weird name but behind it is one of my best mates Matt. Works in PR, but don’t hold that against him, he’s a good laugh and always has something funny to say.

Jayde Nicole… Playboy Playmate of the year. Complete bitch but often post pics of herself in small dresses/bikinis.

London Town...

2010-06-10T15:41:00.002+01:00

I’m scribbling this in the train on the way back from London where I’ve spent the day overseeing some retouching at TBWA\London. I’m writing this mainly because I’m pretty bored but also I suppose as a bit of a reply to the comment on the second to last post “Or move to London and work in a proper agency?”.

No I’m not narrow minded enough to think that working in Manchester is the same as working in London but with less pigeon shite. Over the last few months I’ve been in London a fair few times. Why? Because the standard is higher so we go there to get things done and done to a great standard. Unfortunately clients also do the same thing, if they want the best ad’s then they pack off to London. That’s not saying that the standard of creative isn’t in the regions, I believe it is, there’s a lot a amazing creative’s I’ve met in Manchester who have won many global awards, the problem is the hit ratio of work is a lot lower so the awards they’ve won over ten years could be gathered in 3 down there.

Bringing it back to me again, the problem is…

Do I want to live in London? No.

Do I want to have a decent career, make some memorable ad’s and hope to earn a packet in the process. Yes.

These two things might not go hand in hand unfortunately. I love London but I’m a chilled out kind of person and love the Manchester life. I love the fact I can finish work, go home and be in the middle of nowhere in half an hour and the fact it’s not a constant scrabble of people to get home day in, day out.

Yet the pull of the advertising scene there is big, everyone seems young, fresh, creative and excited to be doing what he or she is doing. No wonder with the range of clients and briefs that fall their way. I realise it’s hard work but from an outsiders view in it looks like their having a lot more fun.

But in Manchester at the moment someone is attempting to turn the tables on things and bring in good briefs and produce award winning work. There is no actual reason why a Manchester agency cannot produce work that is on a London level if the clients are right and everyone in the agency has faith in the work. Luckily for me the guy’s my boss. If it all goes to plan then maybe I can have the best of both worlds. If not then maybe I better start practicing that double kiss thing you all seem to do darling.

(P.S. It only occurred to me when writing this that if the person who wrote that comment knows me then I know exactly who it was. Hello. If it was some random. Fuck off but thanks for reading.)

Scamp's book...

2010-05-25T09:06:00.000+01:00

'How to make it as an advertising creative' fell onto my desk last week. I've not had chance to read it yet as have been mad on shoots and new briefs. I can only pass comment on the my quick flick through the book which looks good. Nice art direction inside, like the cover. There's a few sections I'm looking forward to reading. Luckily for me the 'getting your first job' bit is not needed but from looking at it, I wish he'd written the thing 3 years ago. I feel this could easily set the standard of the book to read before your first job, easily overtaking Whipple and Cutting Edge advertising which were my past favourites. Nice that there's some chunky interviews with CD's as well, something a few others lack.

I'll have a decent read in the next few weeks and post a full review.

Manchester Ad Jobs...

2010-05-13T10:02:00.000+01:00

I got an email last night from a nice chap called Patrick, this morning I was in work early so emailed him back. Rather than keep it hoarded away in an inbox, and because I haven't written much about advertising in Manchester for a while, I thought I'd share. Hopefully it might help someone out there at some point.

His dilemma was that there are no organisations like NABS or Lonely Hearts book club in Manchester as there are in London. A lot of Manchester partners seem to come out of uni together, not many of these pairings survive to be honest. So it makes it very hard to find a partner in Manchester when you're on your own.

My (slightly edited) reply was...

You're totally right that there isn't a decent way of finding partners easily in Manchester, it was a problem I had when I was doing placements. I ended up getting paired by the past creative directors of TBWA\Manchester which was a good break for me due mainly to luck with the time I approached them.

The best way I can think of getting in touch with other creatives who are after jobs is by doing the D&AD North Workshops ( http://www.dandad.org/category/learning/?ctag=workshops ), I think the deadline for entries with the Manchester workshops is July so you could be in good time. I never did the series of workshops but went to a few lectures by D&AD North, a fair few of my mates managed to pair up through them, plus it's getting you under the noses of the top Northern agencies every week.

I also got in touch with a few people through by blog, one of which I ended up working with. That could be a good way to get noticed although it takes a while until people start noticing your blog. If you're not already on Twitter then that could be a good idea, by following people like TheDrum you start to get a feel of the Manchester community.

My only other piece of advice is to start placements and book crits on your own at a few agencies. I did a year of placements in Manchester at places like BJL, McCann and Dinosaur and when I was there I was often put in touch with other placement students who came in.

The Manchester advertising scene is quite close knit, once you've managed to get in it's very easy to use contacts to bounce from one agency to another, if you're persistent, show lots of enthusiasm and have a bit of luck then you'll be sorted.

Fingers crossed that might help him and someone else reading this.

And if anyone out there is currently looking for a copywriter to hook up with in Manchester then leave your details as a comment and I'll pass them on.

My thoughts on the election and why I'm voting Lib Dem...

2010-05-05T13:58:00.002+01:00

Firstly the opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone, if you don't like it then bore off. But I’ve put one hell of a lot of thought into this election and it's taken a fair while to reach a decision so I thought I may as well share, that's what the internets are for apparently!

I don't for one minute think that Nick Clegg has all the answers, I mean the guy has Lembit Öpik in his party so he must be a little mad or have a very acute sense of humour. But I do like him, yes it's been pointed out that he has come from money and yes his school might have been more expensive than Cameron’s but he seems to understand the problems faced by the everyday people in this country and also seems to have genuine empathy with them, something that seems totally void from both Cameron and Brown. There are a few reasons why I'm going to vote Lib Dem and Clegg tomorrow. Here they are...

He isn't Cameron.

I thought Cameron was really going to shine in these TV debates, but after each one I have disliked him more. He has totally avoided many questions put to him time and time again whilst he just stands there sweating it out. His problem is that the whole idea behind the Tories winning the election was simply 'We aren't Labour', which would have worked a treat if little Nick wouldn't have reared his little head, but he did and we now know that the Lib Dems also 'aren't Labour'. Hence his winning argument fell apart in front of his eyes. I always knew Cameron would walk out and just slag off Brown but what I was really waiting for was him to tell me 'Gordon has done this wrong, this is how I'm going to do it right...' the second part of that sentence has never come and I very much doubt it will. He feels he is entitled to now be PM simply because the other guy messed it up.

He isn't Brown.

I trust Gordon Brown, I would happily give the guy my (quite minute) life savings and ask him where he thinks it's safest. As a chancellor he was great. But as a figure head of British politics and indeed our own country? No. My biggest gripe is that he never got voted in yet has hung to power like a child not letting go of his toy, if he would have let go a year ago and let David Miliband take control, there's a very good chance I would be voting Labour. I'm not going to go into the bigot thing much, I don't care that he has a hot temper, the guy stressed out and made a mistake, but that’s not what a leader should be like, goodbye Gordon.

I hate Osborne.

George Osborne is my MP and could be running the countries finances in 2 days. There's reason they have kept him out of the cameras way, it's because he's an incompetent rich snob who wouldn’t know the first thing about ordinary people. Personally I wouldn’t trust him with a child’s lunch money. He’s been the Tatton MP since 2001 and what’s he done apart from shaking hands with a couple school kids and nurses every now and again for the local papers. He’s a total Londonite and doesn’t deserve to have a rural constituency like Tatton.

Voting needs to change.

I live in Tatton, which apart from a spell with Martin Bell has been a Tory stronghold. I don't like this, it makes me feel my vote has been rendered useless when I desperately want it to count. My vote shouldn't be worthless and Nick Clegg wants to change this, and I want to let him. If you live in Tatton and agree with what I'm saying then please vote Lib Dem or Labour or whoever else but Osborne needs to know that just because he is in an easy seat he should not just get his own way when he does nothing for your area.

A hung parliament sounds ok to me.

The term 'hung' parliament gives off a negative connotation but in other countries it is referred to as a coalition government, which I like the idea of. We came out of World War 2 with a coalition government, if it worked then why can’t it now. The answer to that is because politicians are power and money hungry and can’t stand to give either away. Germany work with a coalition government also and guess who has the strongest European economy, you guessed it! If it works for them why can't it work for us? Yes it may mean that laws can't be passed as quick but isn't it better to talk about things and get what's right for the country rather than which ever party fancies some good PR. Take methadrone for instance (well don't literally take it), the pre election government needed some PR so found this drug which has been around for ages, linked it to some deaths (all of which had been stupid people who had taken it with other substances) and went to the scientists that THEY employ, the men in white coats said not to ban it and that it wasn't really a problem. So Labour got rid of said scientists and just banned it anyway and over classified it to B for basically no reason. Maybe not the best example I could have used but one I'm sure you know about and can relate to, if anyone is still reading this that is. My point is that having a government with different points of view could benefit our country more than the Tory party who plan to rob from the poor and give to the rich and basically ban anything and everything that the Daily Mail tells them to.

On that note I'm going to stop, I could go on for a lot longer as I do have views on the other topics like Trident (agree with Gordon/David), immigration polices (agree with Nick), first time buyers (agree with Nick), the environment (agree with Nick, again) and economy (agree with Gordon, really disagree with David) but I won't blurt it all out now as you're probably bored already. Sorry about that.

Final note… I don't care if you vote Lib Dem tomorrow as everyone’s choice is their own but please just go out and vote for someone. It's our country, let's have a say in it.

Advertising advertising...

2010-04-28T12:27:00.000+01:00

Nice little viral just released by Watford to promote their Advertising Course. Features a budding creative team as well as Graham Fink...

Very well observed with a few tiny little details that I remember from my days on the book tour and made me smile.

Junior Teams...

2010-03-01T10:02:00.002Z

If your an aspiring junior team and reading this then firstly this is just my opinion and advice, feel free to totally ignore it.

I've recently noticed something in the junior teams trying to get jobs, some have been into TBWA and I've heard about them, others I've seen through blogs/twitter. There seems to be a misunderstanding that teams have to almost be one person and one mind. I get the impression that some are trying their very hardest to sell themselves in as a single entity. I've seen blog entries where teams talk about spending all the time they have together, get mistaken for each other and also a team this week decide to sell themselves on ebay, going as far on their blog as to comp 2 heads onto one body. (If you read this girls, well done though, without the stunt I wouldn't have found you and be writing this, so job done, some nice work on your blog too!)

But why would a creative director want to employ 2 people and pay 2 wages for the same thing? I think it helps teams to be different and each must bring their own thoughts and inspiration to the table. Teams don't have to be best mates, you're being employed to do a job and if you can do it well then it shouldn't matter if you spend every waking hour together. If you are good mates that's maybe a bonus, but could also cause problems when their is a difference of opinion.

My particular gripe I suppose is something I was discussing the other day with a senior creative here, there is a trend of teams giving themselves names and attempting to brand themselves as a company, I'm not going to name and shame people, it's not really my place. For me a simple 'Dan & Mike' or 'Emma & Carrie' works because at the end of the day, you are the product and you are trying to sell yourself to the creative director, why confuse things? A company doesn't want to buy another company or a brand, they want to buy a pair of people who they are happy to work with every day and ones that will deliver good and consistent creative.

Thoughts?

I love TV...

2010-02-26T15:24:00.000Z

In total contrast to the subject title... I never watch TV.

If I do it's on iplayer or 4OD, I like to watch what I want, when I want. It's the future and the way things are going yet people still sit through programs waiting for something to come on. Anyway, due to a few lunchtime pints I'm digressing. My point was...

I fucking love TV... making it that is. We've had some idents going through in the last few weeks, they were wrapped yesterday and I shall share them on here next week once they have aired. The whole process of making TV ad's is something I can't get enough of, from choosing directors to the tiny details on set, selecting shots, CGI, audio mixes and pulling it all together at the last minute so it fits like a jigsaw, I love it.

Fortunately for me I'm at one of the few Manchester agencies who get to make TV adverts at all. Fingers crossed a few more come along soon.

Office desk

2010-02-05T11:47:00.000Z

My good pal Matt Lees has started a 2010 One-a-day blog at http://www.iwantedjamsponge.blogspot.com/. He is a (ahem) PR based chap but don't let that put you off, he's good with words and it makes a great read.

A post yesterday of everything on his desk promted me to have a look around me and do the same, so here goes...

My iMac, complete with post it notes covering a film reference (A Matter of Life and Death), dates for Glastonbury, a very rough idea for an art direction layout, the word Lotto (£85million draw tonight) and 2 x coupons for LoveFilm. A Cadburys mug filled with various pens as well as coffee sachets stolen from various travelodges, a plastic fork and a set square. Another mug, now empty. A biro. My iPhone on the bit of card i use to scribble stuff on, also with the keyboard and current (dull) brief. Infront of that is a memory stick from the nice people at Chief.

My phone with own number written on top. A Top Gear V8 pencil sharpener alongside 2 empty bottles of Westland Plant Rescue. A file thingy with an Obey book and old/current briefs. A sodastream cd (due for bin). A Wild Bean Cafe brand guideline book and a scamp of an idea for them. Half a fan (half on my desk, not half a fan).

Sennheiser headphones, Uncle Joes Mint Balls tin with pens, mostly chewed N60's and N50's, along with 2 pencils. A lamp with a reminder for me to ring a ticket hotline that messed my order up online. A PG tips monkey hands from the lamp by a pair of thumb handcuffs (how very 'advertising'). A collection of various papers/scamps/layout pads from current projects. A desk tidy (ironically) stuffed with a note paper stacks, external hard drive (don't tell IT), a SD card reader, Ben Sherman union jack wallet, a business card that I made into a iPhone stand (geek), a snow globe, some horrible mints in a pill jar and my keys, complete with Swiss Army knife.

If you want anything from it, ask, i might not send it to you but you never know. I might.

Twit briefs

2010-01-29T00:15:00.000Z

Idea stolen from an idea retweeted by Dave Trott...

If planners are so in love with Twitter why don't we get them to start writing briefs in 140 characters!

Brillant!

New Year, Same Blog

2010-01-04T10:23:00.000Z

Happy New Year all. I haven't made any new years resolutions as I'd never keep them. But work related goals for the year...

- Keep creative, try and drown myself in a bottomless pit of art direction.
- Don't stop being pro active.
- Shout more.
- Get some TV work out of the door.
- Blog how I was wrong about twitter. Here's me.
- Get back to reading more.
- Take more photographs.
- Drink better coffee.
- Push. My self, my ideas, my crafting.

( image via cakeheadlovesevil)

FFFFound

2009-12-18T09:34:00.001Z

I love FFFFound and have done for years now... I even had some work featured on it a while ago. I'd love an invite to join it. If your in any kind of a position to offer one of these then please spread some Christmas joy my way and invite me!

adam@adam-richardson.co.uk

New Durex Press Ad...

2009-11-20T12:48:00.000Z

Invaded Space...

2009-11-18T16:55:00.000Z

Something very strange but nice happened yesterday. As well as the normal 'work' work I've normally got a couple of random bits and bobs going on myself, just to release a bit of creative energy I suppose. One of these was a collection of war photo's I had collected and wanted to do something with, not necessarily to prove a point or make a statement. I had the idea of mixing the photographs with old space invaders to see what happened. I liked the results so put them on my behance profile.

Above is one, click here to see the rest. I uploaded them about 7pm just before leaving work. The next morning I had an email saying they had been featured here. As I got into work it became pretty apparent it was zipping around the net at a rate that really surprised me, features on notcot.org and designyoutrust were some of my favourite.

It was good to see how a viral message can travel and spread from blog to blog and around the world. A lot of the work we do in the agency never goes anywhere which can be quite frustrating at times, it was good just to send a little something out into the world without all the red tape and barriers.

Many thanks to everyone who forwarded and featured the work, and all the postitive comments, a few people have succumbed to chinese whispers and claimed I took the photos, which I did not (they are credited at the source) but thanks all the same.

Ex girlfriend's back...

2009-11-13T11:47:00.000Z

I've heard many people talking about the feeling that when an brand leaves an agency and you see the first ad from the new agency, it's that 'seeing her with the new boyfriend' moment. For the first time it's now happened to me.

I spent a lot of the last year working on ghd, a good product with a great brand. It was a good learning curve and although a lot of work never saw the light of day there were some ideas we did that I was pretty proud of. A few moments ago I saw the new tv ad, more info here if you fancy or have a look...

I wasn't sure what my reaction would be when I saw it, and I'm still not sure now. I'm not going to do a Simon Cowell and crit the ad, it's not my place. I had mixed feelings about it but I wasn't filled with a 'fuck me we should have done that' moment. Maybe ex's are best forgotten.

Hey Jude...

2009-11-05T11:23:00.000Z

Click to make biggggggger

Normally I wouldn't post something so suit-like as a flowchart, but this made me smile.

Advertising Blogosphere

2009-10-22T18:40:00.002+01:00

Well that was a long week, it's hard to keep the momentum of the blog going sometimes, especially after a break. A lot of people seem to have jacked in their blogs recently but I'm not going to, I'm just going to post as and when I feel like. If that's once a day or every six months then so be it.

Anyway... a new project... train of thought...

I like following blogs.

Lots of blogs.

I've got them bookmarked and some with RSS feeds.

But it's a pain in the arse to keep following them all. All the time.

Wouldn't it have been great to have a site to track them.

There wasn't a site that did this.

I'll make one.

So that's what I did...

advertisingblogosphere.blogspot.com

I've put on all my favourite blogs, in categories showing the last post made and when it was posted.

It helps me, saves time, hopefully it might do the same for some of you.

If you like it, want to be on it or have comments please leave them here (or there).

Adam

P.S. I've also tried to design it to be iphone friendly.

Off...

2009-09-07T23:02:00.001+01:00

Off on holiday this week, due to credit crunch goodness I'm not out of the country but enjoying the wonders of Cornwall, the best of which is pear rattler, possibly the nicest cider I've ever tasted.

Anyway, back in a week when I have something special blogging wise to share

Adam

-- Post From iPhone

Formula 1...

2009-08-26T14:01:00.002+01:00

I don't look at Adsoftheworld much anymore, it's full of ripped off, overly art directed crap from agencies that don't hold the account for the ad they produce. Rant over. But I had a quick look today and loved this. Nice art direction, true and simple. It also appears that Showpony Advertising in Australia, hold the Bridgestone account. Tres bon.

------------------

In more me related news, finally after working at TBWA Manchester for over a year, I've been given a Man United job to work on, only a small one nice to work on never the less!

I hate this woman...

2009-08-19T09:32:00.001+01:00

Best invention ever?

2009-08-10T17:19:00.003+01:00

In my humble opinion the best invention ever has to be Cheese on Toast, but Lollipop Pies could be a very close second.

Twitter...

2009-08-06T09:03:00.004+01:00

I've been wanting to post a little something about Twitter for a fair while. A lot of people at work use it, some rave about it, others try it and get bored. I had a good look a few months back and decided it wasn't for me, I think I've made the right choice.

This chart on shows 'if twitter was 100 people' and I found it through Cakehead Loves Evil.

Twitter would only make sense to me if lots of people had something interesting to say, I think it's clear to say they don't. It's serving its purpose well to give a slight ego boost to minor celebrities, I can just see them at cocktail parties comparing how many followers they have.

Maybe if I had thrown myself in head first and tried it it may have been good, it now feels like the ship has sailed and like Second Life (fuck me, remember that, it was going to be HUGE, yeah right) I can see it falling from it's perch back into obscurity. Stephen Fry can sit at home and tweet but no one will really listen.

Anyway, to me it's like Facebook without the voyeurism, no fun at all. Rant over, I could go on but I won't.

In other news, blogging seems to have taken the back burner as work seems to be busier than ever at the moment, I spoke a while ago about time (or lack of it on jobs) and this hasn't changed, but there are some nice juicy pitches happening which I'm happy about and me and bec's have got a nationwide press campaign for Carex going out next week, good to have something going out of the door again.

Nando's Fail...

2009-07-28T12:14:00.005+01:00

If your a company who makes (in my opinion) amazing chicken based dishes that are close to perfection, and on top of this have spent millions of pounds branding yourselves in a Portuguese manner which to me worked well (past tense)...

Then PLEASE don't post photo's on Facebook of your really boring headquarters which appears like the kind of tower people generally like to throw themselves off.

HOWEVER...

If you do accidentally do this and realise from the 100's of comments that you've fucked up then REALLY DON'T get some tool on photoshop to try and make it appear like some kind of rainbow encrusted 'willy wonka-esque' amazing place to work, you've fooled no one.

Nando's... you have not lost my business because your food is amazing.
Anyone else... if you haven't been then you need Half Chicken, Hot Sauce, with Spicy Rice and Chips, your life will never be the same.

Some things shouldn't make you laugh...

2009-07-13T15:55:00.001+01:00

...but inevitably, in true Peter Griffin manner, they do.

Stolen iPhone

2009-06-23T12:46:00.001+01:00

I think my girlfriend would agree that this is me.

D&AD Show

2009-06-22T12:02:00.005+01:00

No not that there London outfit, I'm talking about BA(Hon) Design & Art Direction at Man Met, my old course.

It was the exhibition show so I popped my head in after getting and invite (below) from Tom and Ciaran. It was good to see their work as when I went in a while ago I didn't get to look at it, there's a Nissan brief that was given out and I've seen what a few people have done but there's was one of my favourites from the ones I've looked at.

Another piece that caught my eye was some work by Grace Gascoigne which involved sewing sentances onto objects and canvases, the effect looked really nice, as seen on the Cornerhouse here...

As I walked across I also saw this bench which I loved, it follows the ends of double yellow lines and just looked really good, no idea who did it sorry!

The Void of Scamp

2009-06-17T22:09:00.003+01:00

So Scamps gone to write a book...

I thought this was a shame, I've enjoyed his blog since I started looking for jobs in advertising and found some real gems of wisdom, some from him, others from comments left behind.

But without trying to sound like a div, what Scamp had there was more than just a blog. I'm sure it started that way but it ended up being a portal for advertising creatives, planners, gossip spreaders and the odd suit. People would use his site as a way of connecting with other sites through the comments left and his links, I was fully aware that if I ever made a comment on Scamp then it would result in double the hits over the next 24 hours. I'm sure others where aware too, Wal for instance used to comment on a regular basis and through this people came to know him and followed his blog.

To me it does seem that someones sorta pulled the heart out of the advertising blogosphere a little now Scamp has stopped, if there was a spare minute I'd go on, read some comments, visit new blogs and read new stuff. I'm sure that's how many of the people reading this now ended up here.

I'm sure Simon was well aware after some time what his audience wanted, they wanted to comment, they wanted to share stories and to gossip. The amount of comments in 24 hours he could pull was a credit to some of his astute observations of the industry, certainly someone spouting garbage on a daily basis (me) couldn't keep that amount of people coming back.

And now what?
Where has this conversation gone to?
Will anyone step up and fill the gap?

Maybe. Maybe he'll be back when the book written, I personally suspect he'll miss the buzz and will return, and the mass conversation will start right where it ended last week. Time will tell.

For one thing though, thinking about all this, plus the fact that Wal, Iain Tait and Biscuit Barrel seem to have new looks, I thought I'd join the crowd and make my site more in line with my personal site. I've even gone and got myself one of those fancy blogroll link bar thingys.

Giant baby attacks Manchester...

2009-06-16T12:45:00.005+01:00

Billboard spotted in Manchester city center t'other morning whilst looking at a location.

Not even sure what to say about it?! I suppose at the least the giant baby crawling over the Manchester skyline caught my attention. Not that I read the copy until I uploaded the photo. I would have loved to see some of the routes they turned down.

UPDATE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Giant baby strikes again!!

This time put the fear of God into TBWA copywriter Paul Williams!

New Blood...

2009-06-10T17:35:00.002+01:00

Click click to enlarge

Facebook Recruitment

2009-06-02T09:06:00.003+01:00

I got this friend request through Facebook yesterday, it's from a bloke claiming to be 'an outlawed urban revolutionary currently living life off the grid'.

Apparently he is 'providing people with the tools to differentiate between the authentic and the counterfeit.'

Sounds very matrix doesn't it?

Not a clue what it's all about, should I accept and find out how to differentiate the authentic or go back to the day job and continue trying to sell stuff?

Manchester Chips

2009-05-29T11:48:00.004+01:00

This is Chips (not sure about the name), it's part of the planned development of an area of Manchester. I love the design of the building, but from my experience of the area I don't think I'd want to live there.

Have a look here

I just loved the quote from the article...

‘the sun may not shine much in Manchester,
but it does sometimes,
and when it does we want to sit by canals’

Recession bites...

2009-05-20T18:13:00.003+01:00

I'm one of the lucky ones, I know this. I managed to get in the door before the recession hit and (touch wood) have kept my job so far, something I don't plan on changing.

But has it changed the way I've been working, how has it affected me so far?

Obviously budgets have been cut and that TV idea is now a quarter page in a local paper but apart from that my main observation in terms of the creative process is time.

Time was something that seemed abundant at the start. Go away, take 3 days to sit with your feet up whilst you think of an idea. Now it's a different story. Whole campaigns are wanted in a matter of days, I got a brief the other day for a global campaign covering any media we see fit, brilliant. But after walking out of the briefing at 10 a review with suits is penciled for 4.

In some ways there's positives, it gives people less time to dwell on the ideas, less time for a planner to pick holes in the logic. But one thing I always enjoy is doing an idea, going home, coming back in the next morning to see if it's still good. 9 times out of 10 we'll find something to change after a little time away.

I've been wanting to vent this for about 3 days. I've not had time.

New Drench Ad

2009-05-15T10:56:00.003+01:00

Here's the new ad which follows on from 'Brains' in the Drench campaign...

It's a random one. I feel people are going to slate it because it's 'another' random ad that has been made in the wake of gorilla. I like it though, I'd love to make something as random and visually impressive as this, and bonus points to the agency for actually featuring the product somehow.

Thoughts?

Found Foto

2009-05-14T11:31:00.003+01:00

Found this photo the other day on Flickr...

And in it's heyday...

I never went, but for some reason it seemed like a really sad photo.

Back to School

2009-05-11T20:43:00.004+01:00

I've not updated the blog for a week or three, I've been a little busy.

I'm not going to rabbit on about what I've been doing because why should you really care to much, but things of note have been...

- I went to a local high school for the day (hence the pic) to help run a day of advertising. It was a great day and some of the little guys really impressed with some pretty decent ideas. Some of them won a day in the agency.

- Got a new creative director.

- Had first BBQ of the year.

- Worked on a really challenging pitch.

- Am in the course of making some more TV idents.

- Am pulling hair out because of said TV idents.

- Found a new really good blog that I wish I had found a year ago. http://lifeatthebottom.com/ Don't let the name put you off, it is about advertising.

- Ate too many cupcakes a charity cupcake week at work (pic below)

- Got my old mini started for the first time in 2 years!!

Good times.

Advertising Evolution...

2009-04-09T09:20:00.001+01:00

Which stage are you at?

Regional Smile

2009-04-07T16:24:00.004+01:00

I said (to myself) a while ago that I would try and blog more work from regional agencies, since then I've been very busy and haven't really stuck to it at all. In this time I know I've missed a few really nice ad's out, notably one by Cheetham Bell JWT for Kelloggs Cornflakes.

I've just seen this new ad for Greggs by Propaganda. It hasn't blown a gaping hole in the world of advertising but it really made me smile, probably helped by the fact I have two Jack Russell's and they are indeed the best dogs in the world.

Here's the ad, have a look...

Busy

2009-03-24T19:07:00.003Z

Busy busy busy at the moment. Good times.

Less time to blog. Bad times.

It's my birthday. Good times.

I'm still in work and it's past 7. Bad times.

Dear Alan Harvey

2009-03-12T13:00:00.003Z

Mr Alan Harvey wrote the review above about our Tiger Balm work. Now I realise criticism is a very easy thing to dish out but the opening line of "Did I miss something?". Yes Alan, I think you did.

You suggest to us that visuals to fit with the end line of 'Works where it hurts' should be 'action images of impact or pain'. When you where looking at the adverts Alan, did you make sure you were looking at the right screen?

Is a man climbing 500ft up a sheer rock face and losing his grip not an action image? Is a canoeist fighting against the current in a midst of rapid water not showing pain?

Just in case you did miss them, have another look here...

http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Tiger-Balm-Idents/181042

Lost my virginity...

2009-02-06T14:37:00.002Z

First time for me in Campaign. Fingers crossed it's the first of many. It's nice to get some work we've done under so many noses.

Coincidence?

2009-02-03T18:21:00.001Z

Tiger Balm

2009-01-30T14:48:00.003Z

It's been a hectic few weeks which is why the blog hasn't really been touched but at last I can write about my first TV work.

Firstly I'll say that I fucking love TV, it's been amazing seeing something we did go from a shitty drawing on a piece of paper turn into something real with life. I've loved getting stuck in, everything from planning it out, standing on a cold hill and freezing my tits off to the post work which was great to learn about.

The idents we've produced are for Tiger Balm, if you don't know the product then find out, it seems to be one of those products that no one speaks about yet everyone who knows it will swear by it.

The spots include people doing extreme sports and pushing themselves past the limits for the love of their sport. This is supported by the line, "Works where it hurts".

Here's a sneak peek at some of the final shots but for the whole thing you'll have to watch them on any Extreme Sports show on Sky Sports from Monday. Legally I don't think we can post them on Youtube etc but if they turn up there by another source I'll stick a link up as soon as I can.

Merry Xmas

2008-12-24T09:06:00.002Z

Merry Xmas to anyone reading this. Apologies from me on the fact I've been a little absent recently, I've been busy busy with 2 great briefs which means in January I will be doing my first TV shoot as well as having another campaign launch in Feb. The TV is some idents for great little client, you'll have to wait and see but they should be really good when they're done. I can't wait.

This'll be the last post of the year. And what a fucking year it's been. Got the job at last, it's going well (i think!?!) so as they go it's been a pretty good'un.

Adam

Corny Done Brilliantly

2008-12-03T16:16:00.002Z

A few days ago Dave Trott wrote about 'The corny done brilliantly'.

Now for two reasons this is something I'm interested in. One is that since reading a paragraph in "Hey Whipple" (if your a student and haven't read this book, go and find it now) I've been intrigued about how shit adverts can work so well. The other reason is my mother who has nothing to do with the industry, yet loves adverts and insists on randomly spurking out strap lines from the worst ad's around when we're sat around the table (don't ask).

Then I saw this the other day from Tesco, it's shockingly cheesy, an awful song, crammed with silly carry on style humour, it's something that if seen on paper I'd hate...

and I fucking love it!

It easily blows away the other xmas ad's because it's not trying to be funny, it knows it's cheesy and embraces it, but not too far that it oversteps the fine line into utter shite. Maybe a new career goal should be making a shit ad everyone loves?

See the light...

2008-11-25T09:32:00.001Z

by TBWA\Manchester

Should have gone to...

2008-11-20T12:18:00.002Z

Brilliant, and done very quickly as well. Specsavers are know for having their own in house creative dept, most times this would make me cringe and assume they would be sending out shit all day long. This evidence says different. Well done guys.

Credit Crunch Time...

2008-11-14T17:18:00.001Z

Times are hard...

Get your 90's on...

2008-11-14T12:55:00.002Z

Great video for anyone who grew up in the 90's, that may rule a fair few of you out, maybe not?!

The guy took over 2000 still images to make this into what he describes as 'a real life flip book'. A fair few bit's made me chuckle, especially the Pogs, I used to have 100's of the things. I'm keen to dig them out but fear it's just a passing thought brought on by the fact someone at work bought a Yo-yo and everyone seems to have become a little obsessed with it. I'll just wait until next time they become popular, saying that, maybe kid's are too busy nowadays with PSP's and Nintendo DS's to play with a 'real' game?

Dressed to impress...

2008-11-07T14:00:00.004Z

This was us yesterday dressing like them real job people do.

It was charity 'dress up for work day' and made me glad I don't normally have to wear a suit to work. It was a surreal day as we creative types dressed in suits, and the suits... well they just wore suits.

£250 was raised for Macmillan Cancer Support so big well done to Tamsin for organising the day (twas her birthday yesterday as well).

Bloody Awful

2008-11-06T14:13:00.002Z

What is this banner ad?

Why is it pixelated?

Why is the man, the only focus of the image, covered by text?

Why can I hardly read the text as it's white on white?

What the hell is it telling me about BA?

Fuck all that's what.

Love it...

2008-11-04T17:49:00.003Z

Love this ad for the Economist, it was placed so each billboard was one side of the train station it was in...

In other news...

The reason I haven't been blogging is because I'm totally snowed under with work. We're involved with three jobs at the moment, so this week we've been organising a shoot, commissioned an illustrator and been getting 'hands on' with an amazing product from a well known brand. I'll try and post photos from around my first shoot next week, not the photos of the shoot obviously, you'll have to wait until Jan to see them on the ad's!

Barack

2008-10-28T14:02:00.003Z

I've been wanting to write something about Obama for a while now, the campaign he's lead has really captivated me which is an amazing result as seen as I'm not remotely American or have ever bothered about US politics before. I keep thinking of what I could write about him, the Shepard Fairy propoganda maybe? The Wassup style skit? Just the fact he has branded himself so well with the power of one word (I'm not going to say the word, you know it already).

Then I found this photo by Callie Shell and it says everything about Obama that could ever be said. I'd vote for the guy on the message that this image tells. Here it is...

Apple fight's back

2008-10-23T14:20:00.002+01:00

On the back of Vista's 'I'm a PC' adverts... Apple up's their game and fights back.

Let battle commence.

Mr Toledano

2008-10-14T14:46:00.004+01:00

Today I'm searching for photographers for a shoot in a few weeks, I seem to have trailed half the internet trying to find what we're after. And on this trawl I found Philip Toledano. Now even though his work is nothing to do with what we're shooting, it really captivated me into finding out more. Here's a few examples of his work...

What maybe makes his work so appealing is that he started as a photographer, then became an art director working for agencies such as TWBA\Chait\Day and Fallon. After a decade of being an ad man he's gone back again and is doing some amazing work.

As if this wasn't enough he's done a book which is out soon about Phone Sex Workers, there's a bit of a preview on the site at http://phonesexthebook.com/, it's well worth checking out, it seems like a great insight into something no one really knows (or maybe you do). Can't wait to get my hands on it.

New Age Bullshitting

2008-10-10T12:36:00.003+01:00

This was shamelessly ripped from the w+k blog because I loved it. It took me back to a client workshop I was sat in last week and was pleasantly surprised at just how excited they became whenever someone mentioned any kind of online activity.

Because the economy seems to have gone to pot, maybe what we need are ways to 'wow' clients into thinking we know what to do with their brand, and something that won't set them back an arm and a leg.

This is the modern day guide to getting client brownie points...

If the ads have gone to pot
Mention blogging quite a lot

If you want to dazzle them
Drop in terms like CRM

To make your clients think you're sage
Give campaigns a myspace page

To make them think you're clever chaps
Make references to Google Maps

If accused of strategic shirking
Bang on about social networking

If they still think the work is crap
You must present an iPhone app

Good luck!

Lynx

2008-10-08T13:05:00.003+01:00

Nothing to do with B.O. Basher...

I was looking at my links yesterday whilst blogging about Channel 4 and realised a lot were out of date and abandoned blogs etc. So I stuck some new links up, a few blogs I have been reading and like. (If you don't look at NotCot by the way, start, it's fucking brilliant inspiration). Along side the agencies I've been lucky enough to spend time at as well.

Anyway, point of the post is that if you fancy seeing your link up there then leave me a quick message on this post and I'll stick it up there as long as you do the same.

Now for a picture...

Channel 4 Innovation

2008-10-07T13:57:00.003+01:00

Firstly I'll start by saying... I love Channel 4. Reasons are...

E4 idents.
Scrubs.
4od (4 on demand).
Miquita Oliver.
The amazing 4 idents. Best one below.

So I was really pleased when the 'Channel 4 Innovation team' came in today to give us a chat about working with them in the future and what is possible to do in ad breaks. Now the simple answer from them about what was possible was literally anything. If they can work with w+k and Honda to lob a dozen guys and gals out of a plane and film it live all in the middle of 'Come Dine with Me' then they seem to be up for anything we can possibly throw at them.

It was refreshing for this buzz of creativity to come from the channel themselves and they really seemed keen to push the limits of ad breaks and try something new. After the success of the Honda ad in terms of PR before and after, I would hope that it could be an attractive idea to clients as well.

The idea of weaving program and ad break into one big message is one that's exciting and finger's crossed sometime I'll find a client and brief that will dare to leap into the unknown.

Wii & Youtube Combine

2008-09-23T16:41:00.004+01:00

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Click the link above to see an awesome team effort from Wii and Youtube. The page starts as any other game demo until the action comes out of the frame and into your screen. Then the Youtube page falls apart and allows you to throw all the elements around the screen. Don't take my word for it though, it's well worth a look.

IWOOT

2008-09-23T13:54:00.000+01:00

Stands for...

I want one of those.

How to get a job in advertising...

2008-09-15T13:47:00.003+01:00

I get the impression Sarah Jane won't be having as many problems as I did to get into the industry. Just a hunch.

Sorry for the lack of recent comments as well, as I've been out of the country and uber busy!

Cactus Kid: Cack or not?

2008-08-29T14:33:00.003+01:00

When the first Cactus Kid ad from Mother came out, I'll be the first to admit that I thought it was shit. I could see what they were going for, the back road Americana thing always seems to be a hit (Levi's, My Name is Earl etc) and was this Mother trying to pull a 'Gorilla' on us with a ad that makes no sense. Maybe.

As it's rolled out into a campaign I'm finding myself warming to it and almost enjoying watching the ad's. Getting a series of ad's telling a story seems to be a hard thing to pull (I'm assuming because of the budgets involved) but I wanted to see where it was going.

Now they have sent it over to the web and are asking people to decide the end of the ad I'm really feeling involved and yes I voted, if you ask me everyones going to vote for the 'Twist' ending, which I'm sure Mother is well aware of. It'd surprise me if they have even filmed other ends to be honest. Anyway, I'm not sure what got me and how I got sucked in but well done again to the chaps at Mother and even more well done to Oasis to buying into the concept, brave move and it's paid off in my opinion.

Well, I say it's paid off. It's not remotely given me the urge to buy any Oasis, yet seemingly made me want to buy a cactus.

EA Games...

2008-08-22T13:02:00.002+01:00

EA Games has come up with a good reply to a youtube video posted which pointed out a glitch in the game meaning that the golfers could walk over water. This was posted on youtube by a eagle eyed gamer and can be seen here...

Any who, EA have responded with a great video showing that the glitch was indeed intentional as Tiger Wood himself can walk over water, as you can see here...

Great idea and good to see a company like EA is interacting with it's target audience directly instead of trying to pull the clip from youtube as others have in the past.

New Direction

2008-08-11T10:38:00.004+01:00

Here's a brief history of my blog...

1) Start blogging about trying to find a job.
2) Also blog about stuff I think is cool.
3) Blog some bits of work I'm happy with.
4) Meet some cool bloggy mates and feel like a sad techno geek.
5) Keep blogging about trying to find a job.
6) Keep blogging about trying to find a job.
7) Find a job.
8) Not knowing what to blog + no time because I'm working all hours = 1 blog with lost direction.

Now the obvious thing to do is to start blogging about how I got this job and to try and give advice to people in my situation but 12 months behind me. Sounds good, something I'd love to do. But am I needed, not really. There's so many out there now, you can read the exploits of Jai&Wal, Happy Thought is now in an agency and churning out some great advice to ad juniors, The forum for junior ad creatives has just been started, not to mention Scamp giving out worldly advice. While I feel I have some good things to say, they have been said before, and I'm sure their better written.

My only angle on the others is that I made a conscious decision to stay Manchester based, a move many people said would hold me back. In my opinion it hasn't, I'm sat in a great agency doing some great work. If you'll pardon my french... I fucking love it. I do know however that my experience of getting a job up here is very different to the London boys, and a story that hasn't been told so far.

So in the coming weeks, there may be some changes. A new blog, a new tale and a new direction.

Ad Scout Winner

2008-07-30T11:24:00.004+01:00

A while ago I blogged about entering an online advertising contest run through the Behance Network. Well, I was fairly surprised when I entered work this morning and found out I had won!

It was announced at ten last night (as the site is run in the USA) and to be honest, I'm over the moon. It was meant as a way of finding the rising stars of advertising on a global scale and fingers crossed I'll be one of them. There was a total of 170 people entered and 2nd and 3rd place went to some really good projects.

Please check it out and if you haven't heard of Behance then you should have a look around (message me for an invite), I have already found a freelancer through it who has been commissioned for a project (more details to follow down the line) and there are some amazing people on it.

Cheers to everyone who commented or voted for my work! Part of my prize is a book crit
which is with a New York agency, anyone got a spare plane ticket?

----------------------------------

You can see my work and the runners up here:

http://www.behance.net/Contest/Ad-Scout-08/44841

Forgot something?

2008-07-22T16:25:00.005+01:00

This is Imogen. She was in Big Brother.

After this she's had a long and fruitful career getting her norks (Zoo's word not mine) out for the lads.

Now everyone has seen her boobs. No one wanted to see them again.

So she got some new ones. Here they are.

Unfortunately someone in the Zoo Magazine photoshop lab may have missed something when smoothing out her feminine figure. I bet Peter Pan never had this problem.

No Nuts...

2008-07-22T09:22:00.002+01:00

I saw this on Guy and Sarah's blog and loved it! Great campaign and another good execution of it. I wish I liked Snickers, unfortunately, I have no nuts.

inCRedible

2008-07-16T11:30:00.002+01:00

Today at work I find that approximately 2 meters from my desk are a collection of Creative Review back issues from about 2002 up until now.

This made me happy.

TBWAdam

2008-07-09T16:14:00.005+01:00

Today is the day that I have been holding out for for over a year now, various placements, book crit upon book crit have added up and as of Monday. I have a job. At TBWA Manchester.

This is a visual approximation of how I have been feeling today:

I think that says it all really doesn't it. Since I got here at the start of last week (hence the lack of blogging) I've had an amazing time, everyone has been really helpful and I feel really at home already here. As already said, the offices are amazing but most of all I'm impressed by the drive of the people who work here to push the boundaries and see what can be done.

We (that's me and new partner Becks) have made sure we're kept busy, this week we've done a couple of mailers, a little ad, tshirt concepts and some concept and art direction ideas for a client's ads which I'm really happy with and can't wait to see through (their going to look f**kin brilliant)

As Paul (who I now sit directly behind) was saying when he got a job, I'm not sure in which direction the blog will go. I have a few ideas and an idea for another online project that I want to start sometime soon.

I know this is a proper Oscar/geek thing to do but if any of these people are reading this then I would like to thank you for all the help since I started the quest into advertising. Chris and Marcus, Stew and John, Ade and Carla, Si and Steve, Gary and Lisa, Josh, Nick, Dan, Brogie, Kerry and Nikki from BJL (as well as everyone else there). Mark and Chris from Dinosaur for giving me my first placement. Lianne and Imogen from McCann for the help whilst I was there. Lisa from Aquent for getting me past the bouncers at TBWA. Kerry Walker for the help and advice. Eric, Lenore and Liz from MMU. Mark Walker for being part of the oddest art director/art director creative team (well done on the job as well). Sonia for being there to moan and complain to! Last but not least my mother and father for putting up with no rent as I spent a year on placement without a wage to speak of! I hope I haven't missed anyone out but thanks everyone as well for reading this!

Right, that's it for now. Back to work.

Adam

Busy Week...

2008-07-04T10:18:00.003+01:00

This week has been a busy one down at TBWA, hence the lack of posting. We have had 3 briefs on which (fingers crossed) are going well. It's a great place here and I have loved every second, there seems to be a really positive vibe in the agency which I'm sure has been helping the work. The building is amazing (I'll get the camera out sometime and upload some pics) and the people are great, it seems that half the blogging community of Manchester are sitting around me. Right, I would love to write more but I've got to present some work in 10 mins so better get it organised post haste.

Update:

Bacon butties this morning, Ice cream this afternoon. I love this place.

End of a era (that's a bit dramatic but you get the idea)...

2008-06-27T16:08:00.004+01:00

Well one step of my quest to join the world of advertising has finished and another is beginning.

This afternoon is my last day after about 7 months at BJL. I have had a fantastic time here and really can't put a price on the amount I have learnt. Everyone at BJL has been brilliant, if your reading this as a junior ad person I really couldn't recommend them enough. I have really got stuck in and will be sad to say goodbye to everyone but I'll be keeping in touch. If any BJL'ers are reading this then thankyou for all the help.

I'm excited about the new challenge down the road at TBWA\ and am going to jump head first into anything they throw my way. I love the work the agency produces and hope that soon I will be contributing something towards this creativity.

Deux Video's...

2008-06-26T14:30:00.002+01:00

Today I have two videos for you, now often I don't watch video's on blogs because many are pretty crap, these two however are not.

This video is really short but hands down the funniest thing I have seen for a fair while, I must have watched it about 20 times today, I hope it's not me who just finds this funny...

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

This video is a little more advert orientated, it's basically a viral of virals and is quite a good little case study on what works and what are the kind of things that go viral. It's interesting that they have put in the john west 'bear fight' ad (which is defiantly a top 5 ad of mine). Great song as well...

Update...

2008-06-24T14:48:00.003+01:00

From Monday 30th June

More details coming soon.

Great banner...

2008-06-24T12:43:00.003+01:00

I love this...

It just goes to show that however small the job, there's a good creative solution hiding somewhere.

Explain this...

2008-06-23T11:09:00.002+01:00

I have been wanting to write about my current situation for a while now but been unsure of how to put it into the right words. Luckily for me Dave Trott has done it for me here:

------------------------------
Many years later Bill Bernbach took a look around advertising and saw people worshipping conventional thinking.

All the rules that produced the same old dull, boring, hard-sell advertising.

He said we should change it, free our minds up to be more creative.

To question the way everything had been done.

To do things differently.

One of the first things he questioned was why the copywriters sat on a separate floor to the art department.

He thought he could put art-assistants together with copywriters.

To make a two-person creative unit, a ‘team’.

It had never been done before, and it worked really well.

Gradually everyone copied it.

And it stopped being unusual and different.

It became conventional thinking for the advertising industry.

Every advertising agency creative department in the world is now made up of ‘teams’.

In fact nowadays, you can’t get a job unless you’re part of a ‘team’.

Art schools put their students into ‘teams’ before they even let them graduate.

Their end-of-degree shows are done in ‘teams’.

Last week a student told me that an agency had said they wouldn’t even see his portfolio unless he could find a partner and become part of a team.
------------------------------

Now I have been offered an opportunity at an agency, on the basis that they find me a writer. At the moment I'm in limbo because I need someone else to get a job in order for me to get a job. For anyone reading this in advertising that's a simple concept. But try explaining that to 'non ad' people down the pub. That's more difficult than finding a good copywriter.

Ad Scout Competition

2008-06-20T16:16:00.002+01:00

Hey guys,

Just a quick one. If any of you are members of the Behance network, can you do me a favour? (if your not a member you should be, it's like Facebook for creative types)

I have entered my London 2012 work into the Ad Scout 2008 competition. If your a member or if you become one after reading this then please 'appreciate' my work and leave a comment about it. I want to try and win the competition and if I get some good feedback then I reckon it will help this! If I win I get a crit by a executive creative director (not sure where but might be new york, dunno how I will get to that!), a free magazine subscription, an article about me in a magazine and some free 'goodies'.

This is the link to my work:

http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Adcepts-London-2012/93735

I am a man of my word and if you leave feedback, I will buy you a pint! That's a promise! Cheers

Big Bother

2008-06-20T11:35:00.002+01:00

I'll admit it, for years I loved Big Brother, I watched it from the start of series 1 and always got sucked in every year. But this years freak show is just so far beyond what it once was that I can't even be bothered to watch it. What happened to the nurses, builders, shop assistants who once made the program interesting. Watching people build friendships and relationships over weeks as we would in the 'real' world was what it was about. How far is it this year from putting 16 people in a cage and poking them with sticks?

The format is worn and old, people need change and why doesn't it come from us.

Why can we not decide what happens in the house through web voting? Why not vote for evictions though the web (money being the reason)? Why not put variables in the house that the public control, even down to the cameras? If BB wants to keep milking the cash cow, chuck the wannabes, get some real people and step back and let us have some control for a change.

Adam's Apple

2008-06-18T12:15:00.002+01:00

This is something I started a while back and picked up on again this morning... someone thought it was an ad for apple which was an interesting twist. To be fair and honest it was me just playing around in photoshop.

CBJWT

2008-06-16T10:38:00.003+01:00

This is the latest ad from CheethamBell JWT for John West:

Nice ad, I like it, good mood and good feel and doesn't give anything away to easily. The ad is inspired by another video directed by Gemma Burditt which can be seen below:

The reason really for writing is that's it's refreshing that JWT manged to track down Gemma through Facebook and ask her guest direct the advert. With so many creatives surfing the web and ripping ideas (e.g. Bravia Bunnies, Budweiser latest) it's refreshing that they spotted her talent and got her on board. I love the style of the ad and have been wanting to do something similar since seeing Plan B - No good. In fact I did a similar vid in my room at uni using my digital SLR for a project but twas only a 30 second clip, good fun though.

Anyway, getting off subject and wittering now. Watch the vid's and enjoy (and if you work for JWT get in touch and give me a book crit, cheers)

Prostitute Cards...

2008-06-13T15:19:00.004+01:00

My favourite celebrity phonebox calling cards, found on B3ta.com

Facebook lies...

2008-06-10T14:46:00.003+01:00

Today I was bored and a feeling a little evil. So on my facebook profile I changed my status to "Adam Richardson has just won 10 grand".

Now it occurs to me that I could have whatever I wanted there and I reckon people would believe it, if I left a message saying I was going abroad for a year, would anyone not think it was true? We will find out if anyone comments about my new found fictional wealth.

It's a mate's birthday today yet I only know because of Facebook, I got an invite to a party (through facebook) and checked my events page to see if I had any other events that night. It seems that Facebook has become more than a social network, it is now my journal and diary. The new tool for instant chat has deemed MSN Messenger useless, MySpace was sacked off months ago because of all the shit bogging it down... all my online communication is now done through one site.

Scary stuff.

WTF is that...

2008-06-06T11:16:00.004+01:00

If your wondering wtf that bouncy little balloon is in the corner of my screen then the answer is a stroke of genius.

I don't like Orange. I have never had a phone with Orange. I don't plan on getting a phone with Orange. I really don't like the idea of the 'animal' call plans.

Then why am I whoring out my own little acre of webspace for them to stick an advert on?

Simply because the slippery, annoyingly genius folk at POKE have come up with an idea so good and executed it so well that I couldn't not be a part of it. I hate you all! I feel like a cheap tart who's just found a cool thing and desperately want to let my mates know so I can trade in on the 'cool' myself. And that is exactly what I'm doing. Bastards!

Waiting...

2008-06-03T12:15:00.002+01:00

This could possibly be the longest day ever...

I am waiting for some news which should get to me by tomorrow sometime and the second hand of the clock seems to be taunting me endlessly.

Not much work on today so been surfing the blogasphere all morning, most people seem to be chatting about the Honda advert and the PR surrounding it. I threw my 2 cents in on Scamps blog. I feel like doing something creative this afternoon. If i do I will report the results tomorrow!

New Worst Ad

2008-06-02T15:18:00.003+01:00

A while ago I blogged an advert that I found on the street and said...

"This is taking the crown for the worst ad I have seen this year, it's gonna take some knocking off."

And lo and behold it hasn't taken too long but this ad really could be the worst thing I have ever seen. It's sick and wrong on so many levels, putting aside the fact a boy is drinking biofeul, look at the expression on their faces. It really is beyond me how an ad like this can be put together and make it into the real world.

Update...

2008-05-28T14:42:00.003+01:00

Hey guys...

It's been a bit of a hectic one over the last few days, I have met with creative recruitment peoples and had an interview at a top Manchester agency which went really well. It's all going A OK, the response to my work seems to be good and I think I am finally at the point where I'm happy with the book, I killed 3 ideas from it last week and was wondering about the effect but it's really pulled it up a notch I think.

I seem to be spending half my life on the phone and emailing people but it's all going well. I was only saying this morning that to be honest I really enjoy book crit's, when I get a job sorted I think I'm gonna miss them after the amount I have had in the last 18 months.

Still... room for a few more yet!

In other news, I got to finally meet Paul, aka pisspoorenglish, it was a little random how we met but good to put a face to a name at last! He seems to be doing very well in his new job!

This takes me back...

2008-05-22T12:25:00.002+01:00

Isn't it random how you can completely forget about something and then an image reignites a memory, I found this today on www.fffound.com

Does anyone else remember these things? How much do I miss being a kid right now!

Rapist Search

2008-05-19T12:42:00.004+01:00

This made me laugh a lot. The end.

In Love...

2008-05-19T12:06:00.001+01:00

Today I wanted to share some love.

MACchester

2008-05-14T14:29:00.003+01:00

Click to make bigger!

Here's a view of picc gardens this lunch, a few more people than usual, walking through town was a bit of a mental experience to be honest. the days highlight was a pissed guy who couldn't stand up on the corner near work, at 9 o'clock this morning! these scots seem to know how to drink well enough!

Update...

2008-05-06T10:21:00.006+01:00

Firstly... sorry for not blogging for a while, I have been ultra busy as usual but have still not as yet secured the job! still, things are moving in the right direction, but I have been saying that for the past couple of months. I have been busy on new clients down here at BJL and been getting stuck into new briefs.

Two notable projects have been Eurocamp and British Airways, the Eurocamp work has been really good to work on as it has been designing a new look and feel for the 2009 campaign, the work has gone to client and I believe they like what they saw. The British Airways ad's for London City Airport have also been a good one to work on, a client I had not done any work for before this brief. But we presented 3 routes and one got chosen which is really good, one of the executions is here:

It's good to have some work out for such a big client, should look good in the book and I have been put down to work on the client again, happy days.

I shall try and keep blogging a little more regularly to let everyone know how it's all going down here!

Adam's Work... on the road!

2008-04-16T15:05:00.003+01:00

At last here are the photo's of the lorry I designed for Ugo's Deli Cafe. There's been a few ad's I have done and worked on go through but this is the first that has gone from layout pad though to client with me overseeing it from concept to artwork (cheers to Chris, Marcus and Rob at BJL for all the help, pointers, getting it out etc).

It's pretty cool that it's basically the size of a 96 sheet and will be driving around the roads for the next 5 years! If anyone happens to see it take a pic, I'll give you a prize (maybe a hot crispy panini, you should really try them, there pretty good!)

A lot of people are saying I should stick it in my book but quite how a lorry side will fit in the middle of a load of ad concepts I'm not sure, we shall see.

Headphones...

2008-04-16T10:21:00.003+01:00

This isn't me, I'm not a woman, I'm not shopping for shit CD's.

But i do wear headphones.

For some inexplainable reason i WILL NOT for any reason put the right headphone in the left ear and visa versa, I live by them little R and L symbols. I really don't know what I think is going to happen if I do, would everything be back to front and my head will explode, I assume not. I'm wasting valuable time in my day checking which headphone in which ear, maybe not as much time as blogging, on that note...

Update...

2008-04-15T16:51:00.002+01:00

It's been a bit of a mad time recently, in a nut shell... in the past 2 weeks I have been offered a job, offered a placement and had 2 good book crits, had two ad's I art directed get through and got a lorry side I designed printed (photo's soon).
Unfortunately nothing will be coming up jobwise at BJL for another month or so but I have been here so long it would be a real shame not to see it through until they can make a decision.

Now it's make my mind up time...

Should I stay or should I go?

If I go there could be trouble

An if I stay it could be double

New ad's

2008-04-07T14:20:00.003+01:00

It's been a while now since I posted some new ad's on the board, not that I haven't been doing any, I just don't seem to have posted any. So here are a couple of ad's I have been working on for Plusnet, the internet service provider. the ad's are aimed specifically at students and my aim was to give a subtle cheeky message that students would connect with rather than the usual, "we are faster than everyone else" message that they get bombarded with.

Anyway, have a look, please leave some comments, I'm also working on an ambient/stunt and as well as some web element to sit with these if they make it into the book.

Cadburys Truck Remix

2008-04-01T09:24:00.003+01:00

This is something I have been wanting to do for a while, everyone knows that Gorilla was a huge success and a lot of the reason behind this was because people hijacked the video and made there own versions of it, the best being 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' and the Eastenders videos. So i decided to do my own for "Trucks" which came out the other day, my idea was to sync up the song with another Phil Collins track, the reasons behind this being that the song worked so well on the last ad. I'm not a closet Phil Collins fan, honest. Fallon have decided to stick Queen on the normal ad, not the wisest move as what made Gorilla was the surprise at a forgotten classic song, something "trucks" is lacking... until now.

Anyway, I have had 100 hits in the last 11 hours, not too bad, shall have to see how that goes, I'm sure there are a fair few people who haven't seen the ad yet so if your going to watch the original as well, it's on my youtube page