Monday, December 21, 2009
A collection of December treats
What a month December has turned out to be, great agency Christmas greetings such as this one from Rebel Viral's and really bad ones like this (sorry Publicis). There are lots more to see on the Creative Review blog here. Carrying on with the month we have the Rage Against the Machine xmas no1 battle against x-factor. When i first heard about the campaign i thought there was a slim chance that it could beat Joe Someone but i thought the sales would be too strong for him. However it seems that i underestimated the power of Facebook and Twitter with Rage winning by 50,000. This truly shows what can be achieved within social media and if the public want something, they can make it happen. Watch out Gordon Brown!
Now my final xmas treat that i have found is this browser pong game. Essentialy you play the classic game Pong with your browser windows. Enjoy and have a Merry Christmas.
Ps: Laura has just found the parody of the Publicis video, great fun. Watch here
Mark
Monday, December 14, 2009
Wunderman Christmas Card
It's less than two weeks away, our desks are filled with decorations and the agency Christmas card is out.
You can see it, personalise it and send it at http://www.winterwunderland.co.uk
Haven't seen too many as of yet, anyone found any winners?
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Spoken Word
This is a post about my new favourite thing - Spoken Word, which I have discovered since moving to London. I first heard of it through Scroobius Pip's work after liking his music with Dan le Sac.
It's performance poetry and watching it live is a really great experience.
Last night I went to Pure Groove to Kate Tempest's album launch and saw her and some other artists perform - including Scroobius Pip, David J and Polar Bear who all have their own styles.
It's always great to find new creative avenues and thought I'd share it with you. Next I want to go to a Poetry Slam - 8 mile style!
Hope you enjoy and if you do check out the other guys I mentioned
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Monster Christmas Party
It should be a good night and we're really excited about it. Lately, the magazine have featured a lot of monsters due to the Where the Wild Things are film release - and the invitations were no exception. On the back of them, you are encouraged to create your own monster, for an art show on the night.
You make your monster with other people, folding the paper into four and each of you drawing a part of the body without seeing the rest. I remember doing this when I was little and it brought a smile to my face. So here's our creation - we think he looks pretty good!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Champion
Friday, November 27, 2009
Sophie Lancaster Video
Back in May we entered the DMA GRT Awards. The brief was a toughie, to change perceptions of young people to become more tolerant of one another - for the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. Sophie Lancaster was a victim of hate crime - she was kicked to death by a gang of boys because she looked different. So the topic was very emotional.
We were shortlisted for the award and on the day we had a series of one to one feedback with the judges. It seemed that our work was not emotive enough and that we should have made more of Sophie's story - which was true.
And today on Creative Review I see the video Propaganda have made for the organisation, which will be played on MTV.
It's made beautifully, the music is perfect and it's a great cause with a great message, but is that enough?
For a story so horrendous, the scene where the couple are attacked is such a minor part. With using animation especially, it seems they could have made more of it.
The task is so huge, will it really make the MTV audience stop and think?
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Return to the Doghouse
Possibly the best Christmas campaign I've ever seen, Saatchi & Saatchi's JC Penney ad is back for another year - Return to the Dog House.
From the insight of men not knowing what to by the women in their life at Christmas time, JC Penney brings you the answer - jewelery. Other wise you'll be in the doghouse. Simple and funny.
I'm sure last year there was a section on the website of people in the doghouse with photos of themselves but can't see it as of yet. Check out the Doghouse here
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Works. Doesn't work.
Although it works perfectly for the idents i am not so sure about the static logo, it almost seems like its from the stock photo library. Dull and generic. It will be interesting to see what this looks like when it is released. Time to order a free aol cd and pretend i'm interested in using them.
See the videos here
See the logo here
Monday, November 23, 2009
Battle of the Blogs
By the way, this week we are in battle of the blogs so please vote for us if you like our style: http://www.thebattleoftheblogs.com/
Tis the season to be jolly
Friday, November 20, 2009
Channel 4 1d week
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Schweppes Christmas Idents
Another Christmas post I know, but these idents for Schweppes by Mother are great. Glowsticks is the winner for me but there's a whole bunch that are all quite funny (http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/bulletin/creativebulletin/article/966941/?DCMP=EMC-19November2009)
Nice to see a brand doing something different for their Christmas advertising and loving the style.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Agency Christmas Cards
AKQA's microwave jingle bells video seems to be a favourite. Here if you haven't seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgBUqJzgvBo
But for me, this is one of the best things I've seen. They were launched by Wieden and Kennedy a while ago but seem to be returning again this year. It's a different approach to a christmas card but they certainly make people smile.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Little White Lies
Just thought we'd let you know about a magazine we've recently subscribed to. It's an independent film magazine run in London, called Little White Lies. (http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/)
It's beautifully crafted and features some great writing and design. They've also started running creative competitions on the website which are great to get involved in. Some of the back issue covers are great and I wish I'd found it sooner. Anyone interested in film or design will appreciate this little gem. And their blog also features a lot of interesting stuff, so check them out.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Turning viewers into users
We watched this video in the session we attended yesterday and found it really interesting. It is part of the larger discussion about the way people watch TV. These days, people watch TV whilst doing other things, particularly whilst being on the internet.
So areacode created The Sopranos A&E Connection, a sync-to-broadcast game that makes watching the repeated series more engaging.
"When the episode of The Sopranos premieres on A&E, the players' online gameboards come to life and animate synchronously to the TV signal. As the characters, settings and objects of the Sopranos appear on TV, the corresponding pieces animate and score points. This represents the first time a game was ever designed wholly for synchronous two-screen entertainment." (http://www.areacodeinc.com/work/sopranos/)
We were told by a famous adman not so long ago that the way we watch television is about to change. With this idea of turning viewers into users, it definitely seems something to be excited about.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Baby Made on Board
In this weeks lunchtime training session we were joined by Patrick Collister, CEO of Creative Matters and ex Executive Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather for 'Hot New Creative Work'. The session was really inspiring and featured a load of great work, some I'd seen before and some I hadn't. This 'Baby Made on Board' campaign by Proximity for Dodge in Belgium was one of the highlights for me.
The Dodge is positioned as the ultimate family car, spacious enough to make a baby in. Can't imagine pitching it but I think it's great.
Not so sure about the add-on bit aimed at men who don't want to make a baby as it kind of loses the whole idea. It's really just two people having sex in a car.
And to think, now there are (at least) 72 little people walking around thanks to this campaign!
Monday, November 2, 2009
Pop Life and Pornography
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Orange Film Club
Orange are, I think, my favourite brand.
I like most of their advertising, the 241 cinema spots, endless site and of course balloon race. I even like that their tariffs have animal names. And of course I like Orange Wednesdays.
I've recently discovered their film club http://www.facebook.com/orangefilmclub which has a lot of free film-related giveaways. I have got tickets for their 'Fright Night' on Friday for Halloween. And it's pretty scary sounding:
A screening of The Exorcist in Tower Hamlets Cemetery. The audience will be given state of the art wireless headphones for a cinema experience like no other. Special 4D effects during the screening to really bring the film to life. With an introduction by Empire magazine’s horror expert, Kim Newman.
I'm not really sure what 4D means but I hope it's good!
What I wasn't so impressed with though, was how they decided to give away tickets for the night.
At first, they posted long, confusing horror riddles on the fan page, with the first person answering correctly winning tickets. This went on for a few days. Next, you had to register to say you were going to pick up your tickets at a secret location in London between a certain time frame on a certain day. Bit of a mission on a Saturday morning.
I assume not many people could be arsed with all that as a few days later Orange said all you had to do was email them to get tickets. And this is where I came in.
Might still be tickets left if you have a look on the Facebook page. If you think you can handle it!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Calling All Creatives
A few months a go when we started at Wunderman we made this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tjav1JFqi0
Now we want to start a new blog - a big collection of advice inside different agencies to help other creative grads/students trying to get placements and jobs.
So we need all you creatives out there to start making videos of your experiences to share with the online world. It can be a straight forward collection of advice or an agency slice of life.
We already have a few other teams on board but it would be great to get loads of people involved. It's also a nice bit of self-promo.
And you might even have fun!
Please get it touch if you have any questions/suggestions.
Lemonheads
Friday, October 23, 2009
Video Painting
SWEATSHOPPE, 4spots, the landing extras from SWEATSHOPPE on Vimeo.
Amazing new technology from Sweatshoppe, don't have a clue how it works but check it out.Monday, October 19, 2009
Lemon in ≠Twitterpicture
Illustrator Johanna Basford has been doing an interesting project on twitter recently - ≠Twitterpicture. Anyone on twitter could get involved by tweeting what they would like to see in the picture.
The result was a mad combination of contributions, including our 'all-singing. all-dancing lemon' (circled so you don't miss it). It was a really cool idea, which I'm sure will inspire more social network creativity projects.
You can buy one of the 100 silk screen prints of the artwork on her site http://www.johannabasford.com/blog-article/168 (£150 though).
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Great way to be inspired
Stack magazine is a great concept for magazine subscription. They offer a great selection of independent magazines from around the globe and send you one randomly each month. What i like about this, is that as creatives we never know where our inspiration may come from so the thought of randomly having a different magazine each month seems like a great way of helping our thinking.
It's my birthday coming up so a subscription is on the way for me and i can't wait to see what surprise magazine i will get. I suggest everyone get's clicking on to this bit of linkage and starts subscribing.
http://www.stackmagazines.com/
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Free Muffin Day
You had to buy a coffee to receive a free muffin. I tentatively printed off a voucher thinking that the free muffins would be smaller, not so delicious versions on their normal muffins. We pass a Starbucks on the way to work anyway so on Monday morning in we went to check it out. No promotion of the muffin day anyway in store but we asked and it was true. And with normal-sized muffins!
Anyway it wasn't so much the idea that impressed me, (although I enjoyed the lemon and poppyseed), but the way they did it. Through facebook they knew exactly how many people had said they were attending, who they were and where they were from, which they can now compare with how many people actually went in and got their free muffin.
And cakes make people happy. Especially when they feel like they're free.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Brick Lane
I went to Brick Lane on Sunday for the first time. The market was a little disappointing and a little scary at times, although 'dirty perkins' was an amusing find on the clothes stalls.
Made a few arty discoveries though:
The first being a cool little shop called Shelf - http://www.helpyourshelf.co.uk/ which is full of handmade things and works of illustrators.
The second being this: http://www.bigantidote.com/ an on-going screen printed comic, created from a selection of different illustrators and story tellers. The work that was displayed was really good, with a few different styles going on. Check out the website if you want to get involved in the project.
I'm seeing screen prints everywhere at the moment, but I wish they weren't so expensive to buy!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Birmingham B-Hive Competition
We entered last year and bagged ourselves 2 paid placements in the Midlands, gaining a lot of experience and some good contacts. It was it's first year last year and didn't get that much support from universities, but I'm sure it will be bigger this year. They've got a new website, more briefs and more agencies involved, so if your a design, advertising or PR student/grad I strongly recommend you enter! It's a lot of fun and a great way to get your foot in the door. I also have a nice little guest appearance on the site.
http://www.bhive-creative.com/
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
D&AD 30 day challenge
Came across this today: http://dandad.typepad.com/dandad/2009/09/30day-challenge-for-student-winners.html
D&AD are running a competition for 2009 student yellow pencil winners to encourage students and tutors to enter this years student awards. The idea is to create the biggest buzz, with the winner getting a paid placement at AMV.
It's a great idea to use last years winners to promote the awards to this years students, but I haven't been able to find much buzz so far.
Will be interesting to see what they do with it.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Long copy is alive!!!!!
Back at the end of July Rory Sutherland posted up an article titled 'The day the copy died'. He goes on to explain that long copy adverts seemed to be a thing of the past and that it is a struggle to get the concept through clients. Well, to my surprise in the underground yesterday there were 3 long copy ads side by side (you can see 2 on pic the other is just before the dixons ad). It appears to have become more popular since VW launched their long copy ones a few months back, very good ads they were i might ad.
So is long copy dead? certainly not by the looks of it.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Do you love anyone enough?
Was thinking today about the 'My last Rolo' campaign and how cute it was.
Then I found this website: http://www.mylastrolo.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/2
You can even buy your loved one an engraved gold rolo!
Nice idea but I think it was more romantic when it was just a chocolate.
Glad to see the message is still out there though.
I hope someone will give me their last rolo one day...
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Birds on The Wires
Fantastic piece of film by Brazilian director Jarbas Agnelli. Inspired by a newspaper photo featuring birds on wires. The music is made by taking the real bird locations.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Creative Review question of the week
The CR blog question of the week is, 'who do you admire most?' a perfect way to show our thanks to John.
We have already got a few people involved, but if you feel the same, show some love at:
http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/september/question-of-the-week-150909
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Employment
We'll be working at Wunderman until Christmas eve.
Woop!
A is for Letdown
Last night we went to the YCN awards at the Village Underground in Shoreditch.
We got there a bit later than the invite said, as we were at work and thought it wouldn't kick off for a while. And we were right. In fact, it didn't kick off at all. No speech, no introduction, no sign of anyone working for YCN and no work up.
The venue itself was pretty cool, but felt more like a club. There was a video playing on the wall which was kind of showcasing the commended work. People were trying to capture their 3 seconds of fame as their tiny piece of work flashed up on the wall. It was a shame there was no actually celebration for the people who won. Instead, the trophies that have been made are being sent home. And this is the first year there's been a physical award, so it should have been quite a big deal. Especially the way the night was being promoted on the YCN website. Unless of course, something big happened after we left?
All in all, disappointed, hungry and soaked. But thanks for the beers.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Words of Wisdom: advice for young creatives
At the start of our placement at Wunderman they encouraged us to do something in the agency to get ourselves noticed. We went through a few crappy ideas but in the end decided it would be pretty fun to make a video. So we bribed people (with a selection of cakes) in the agency to take part and give us their best bit of advice for a young creative in advertising. This is the result and we quite like it. We hope it encourages other creatives on placements to record their own experiences and get involved.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Crazy Disney Tracker
They're using eye tracking, heart monitors, skin temperature readings and facial probes to measure physical reaction to different types of ads.
(Sourced from Contagious News Article)
Sounds mad!
Check out the original article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/technology/27disney.html?_r=4
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Birmingham City University Advert
The advert we worked on at Unsuitable, both behind and in front of the camera is now playing on ITV central and E4. There's also a making of video on YouTube. Mark is loving being the star of the ad with his cheesy grin. Ha!
Friday, August 14, 2009
Sold!
The design process begins next week which means we get to see the whole thing through. It's also a great thing to add to our ever growing book of ideas.
Our first week here at Wunderman has been wunderful (ha) Great people, great brief and really great atmosphere. Oh and free beer on Thursdays and Fridays and also ice-cream and sweets today!
Anyway, onto the next brief we go, a tough one, but then again what brief is easy? Life is treating us well here in Camden and later tonight we will check out some of the delightful delicacy available to us and get even fatter!
Happy Lemon
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Full Speed Ahead!
Yesterday was a good day for Lemon.
We had a day off from WAA to drive down to Bristol to meet 'digital guru' and creative director of Mason Zimbler, David Sloly. We had a great meeting with him and it was refreshing to see a different approach to the industry and an all-round nice guy. The agency had a cool atmosphere with strange objects and ideas covering the creative offices. We are very excited to be working with David and Mason Zimbler in the upcoming weeks as it's a really great opportunity and we're sure we're gonna have a lot of fun too. I really feel like we could fit in there which I don't think we've been feeling at agencies we've been too so far, so we're very optimistic, hope we do some good work for them! Then to top off our lovely day, soon as I get in the door, have a phone call from J Lowe saying we have a placement at Team Saatchi!
It all seems too good to be true...
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Better late than never.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Baby Break Dance
great little viral from evian, the whole roller babies campaign is quite funny, check it out
Monday, July 6, 2009
One Black Bear
Today is the first day of our placement at One Black Bear/Unsuitable in Birmingham. So far so good, working on an interesting brief, the place itself is cool, pretty chilled out vibe. They also have their own mugs which I want to take home with me! They are shooting a TV ad for BCU next week which hopefully we can go be a part of. Should be a fun few weeks!
Sunday, July 5, 2009
And the winners are......
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Museum of Brands
Thought I'd put a few images up from when we went to the Museum of brands, packaging and advertising in Notting Hill. It was pretty cool walking through the different ages of brands and getting a feel for the era. Some of these 3D ads for Smarties and Polo also seemed well ahead of their time, as did some of the Cadbury's Roses boxes. Anyway it's a cool little place to visit and they have an exhibition on at the moment about sustainable packaging sponsored by Tesco.
Monday, June 22, 2009
I'm scared, but I want an ice cream
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Lemon's First Award
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Lewis Hamilton, 104
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Coffee Art
Friday, June 5, 2009
Obama in Birmingham
Saturday, May 30, 2009
lemony
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Our first ad
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The sky's the limit
He spoke about his ambitions and seemed genuinely excited about what he does, including the film Moon he has just produced which we think looks pretty cool.
We are also lucky enough to be taught by John Lowe, the same man that tutored Trevor, who is also a bit of a legend. Trevor was nice enough to come meet us later on in the pub for a cheeky one.
So we really feel like the sky's the limit at the moment!
Monday, May 11, 2009
The First Ever Post
We are Laura and Mark.
We are a creative team currently living in Birmingham and we've decided to set up this blog to start keeping track of what we're doing and what we're thinking.
As well as share the things that inspire us, interest us or just make us laugh.
Lets hope the journey's a good one!
Think Lemon