First post of the year

It's been almost a month since our last post. It's a bit late for the Happy New Year/ New Years Resolutions post so here's something to make you smile.

Our inspiration for the year ahead, I present, Mr Croissant.

This little guy has caused a fair bit of discussion at work, like why isn't he called monsieur croissant? why does he speak English? and why is he being tricked into being someones breakfast?

Poor Mr Croissant

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

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?

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

Monster Christmas Party

Tomorrow night we are going to the Church of London's Christmas party, thanks to Little White Lies, an independent film magazine here in London.

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!

Champion

We won our blog battle! We're now voted best creative blog at battle of the blogs. A big thank you to everyone who voted for us and enter your own blog here.

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?