Squashed Lemon!

So you may have noticed it's been a bit quiet on the old lemon front.

This is mainly due to the fact that Mark and I are splitting as a creative team. He has decided to pursue other ventures so I am a lonely Lemon. It's a shame as we have done quite well, but it's exciting to see where I'll end up next.

We are staying as a team at Wunderman for the time being, but I am on the hunt for a new partner.

Although I'm a copywriter here, I feel as though I'm an art director at heart. My ideal job would be to do both, but that doesn't seem to really happen.

So if you know anyone, or fancy teaming up yourself, please get in touch at hello@laurajdavies.com

Follow my new blog here or stalk me on twitter here

Thanks to all our followers over the past year :)

Shellsuit Zombie VS Night

Last Tuesday night I attended this little number - Industry VS Graduates, organised by Shellsuit Zombie. The venue - Old Blue Last was pretty cool and the small room was packed, with coloured badges everywhere - distinguishing industry from graduate. I thought this was a really good idea as with similar events I've been to, it's hard to tell who's who. I found myself somewhere in the middle.

It was a good night, with a great atmosphere. The loud music however, gave it more of a club feel, rather than a networking one. But I met some really interesting people from different creative backgrounds. The idea of 'VS' is that anyone could challenge anyone to anything. The main talking point of the night ended up being the challenge of the 'most imaginatively drawn willy'.

And now HelloYouCreatives is doing a meet up too, so I might go and see what that's all about.
You can find their upcoming event on Facebook. Maybe I'll see you there.

Happy Accidents

Recently I saw this set of great photographs by Matt Stuart, entitled 'happy accidents'. A glimpse of funny moments in life you would rarely catch with your own eyes. These are my favourite images but you can see more of his work at http://www.mattstuart.com/

There's also this ad for Twix with a similar style:



Not sure whether the two are linked, but I really like the concept. It is, perhaps more effective through photography as you really get the feeling that you miss these kind of moments all the time.Anyway, they made me smile : )

Land Rover Banners

It's an exciting day as our first online ads are up for Land Rover.
They tie in with the Winter Olympics and can be found on the Times and Yahoo.

Check them out at http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/

Puma Hardchorus

" They want to be in your arms. You want to be in the stands. What do you do when Valentines Day falls on game day?"



You may have seen this already.  A great tactical ad for Puma football for the upcoming game/valentines weekend. A group of hard-faced looking men chanting Savage Gardens 'Truly, Madly, Deeply' to their other halves to apologise for spending Valentines with their beloved football team instead of them. Genius. Another winner from Droga5.

Andes Beer: Teletransporter Stunt

A nice PR stunt from Saatchi & Saatchi for beer brand Andes. At first I thought the idea was a but of a cliché, but when you see the guys using it, it's brilliant. A great way to reach their target audience. I would have loved to try one out.

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?

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

Works. Doesn't work.

 

Just came across the new Aol logo created by Wolff Ollins New York. At first i didn't really see anything special about it, seemed a bit of generic logo for a brand wanting to recreate there look. But then i came across the video idents. The way the logo just appears from the white is a simple technique but yet adds some kind of warmth to the brand. Any video footage could be used across this format which is what makes it so exciting and also fits the brief perfectly. Aol wanted to be seen as having a breadth of content which can be easily adapted using this format.

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

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

It seems like the Christmas work keeps coming thick and fast in adland, saw these fantastic, simple lynx ads by BBH earlier today and they made me smile instantly. There is three that i have seen with the one above my pick of the bunch, i just like the bum cheek prints so much in that one. Another thing to note is the simple use of putting a Christmas glove on the hand of the model and also the way the type just wraps around the glove. Very nice, very nice indeed! view the rest here

Another that caught my eye is the Christmas McDonalds advert by Leo Burnett, check it out here. It looks like myself and Laura are looking forward to Christmas as there seems to be a lot of festive posting going, all this festive goodness surely secures Santa coming down my chimney.

On another note Charles Saatchi's version of the x-factor for artists is on tonight, BBC2 9pm. Will post thoughts tommorow.

Channel 4 1d week

So it was channel 4 3d week this week, where images would literally pop out of the screen at you and make you feel as if you could touch the queen (careful!) Unfortunately that didn't quite happen, the whole house suddenly found out we could see the footage better without the stupid glasses on.

After the wonderfully dull Queen in 3d programme came Derren Brown's magic show, something which everyone thought would embrace the world of 3d and take advantage of it. Or not. The one bit that even caught my attention was the card trick were the cards literally flew at you and you were told to choose a card, it was really neat but unfortuately it was already on the advert. Basically the whole show was a best of magic from around the world with 'so called' 3d imagery. To put it in advertising terms. 'Polishing a turd'

I have nothing against 3d but to label your week 3d week and show programmes that would be better in 2d makes no sense whatsover. None of the two mentioned above utilised 3d at all to it's full advantage. If utilised correctly the feature could be brilliant but obviously not right now.

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.

Agency Christmas Cards

Christmas is less than six weeks away and the agency christmas card is well on it's way. The brief got us talking about other 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.