my new old school stationery

So, I finally decided to take my work as a freelancer seriously, and for this reason, decided that I needed company stationery.

I was going to design headed paper and all that, but then I thought I wanted something a bit different. So I opted to design a wax seal commemorating the inaugural year 2007 for Dead Insect, to use on letters, invoices and estimates.

I got it made at http://www.citycoseals.co.uk/ , just down the road in Hackney. It cost about 25 pounds, the guy hand carved it beautifully. Highly recommended.



Basically, it's brilliant. very indulgent, and very fiddly, and initially you tear all the paper trying to use it. Once I got the hang of it though, it rocked. The smell and texture of sealing wax is beautiful.


you can even see the url perfectly. the whole things is 25mm (one inch) across

I am so obsessed with using it, that I want to send all of you postcards or letters.

Write me with your address, or leave it in the comments, and I will, as soon as I can be bothered, send you a letter or a Moo Postcard (I got a load of these made as Xmas cards, then forgot to send them...!) with a wax seal on it.

dog

I finally went ahead and got a dog! 'Nuff said. I haven't named it yet - any good suggestions let me know!

why I love England

I have just come back from 3 months on holiday, and was feeling pretty down about being back in the UK. But these 2 things reminded me why I love England.

This is Woolacombe Bay, North Devon. I'd never been before, and it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life, 3 hours drive from our house. I say this having been on beaches in Brasil for a good few months.




This video clip reminds me so much of my school and youth in North London, and is irrefutable evidence for how immigration really does enrich culture.

Off on holidays

Debaixo, originally uploaded by Eduardo Amorim.

I'm going to Brazil for 3 months on holiday. I hope to hang around, drink a lot of cachaca, and head to the South to learn to be a gaucho. Back in April 2008.

instructables: ghetto matrix lightwriting special effects

Happy new year all. I've been in Singapore, just hanging out and listening to Indonesian pop songs.

This is brilliant - as a fan of light-writing, I saw this on Instructables and had to share. It's done using 24 ordinary digital cameras strapped to a board. Sweet.


Link to YouTube


Link to the whole instructions thing here.

new camera

I'm going on a long holiday soon, so I finally buckled and bought a camera. I got a Lomo LC-A from eBay - the hipster's tool of choice.

I haven't really worked out how to use it yet, but I really like it, and here are my favourite shots I took. It's another of these products that's popular because it harks back to simpler days - it's very mechanical and feels chunky and good.

colourful jumping thing - fancy dress inspiration

I am deffo going to try and incoporate bits of this for next summer's festival fancy dress season. Incredible.

best ad of the season

I don't normally just put ads here, but I've been carefully reviewing all the seasons ads so far (watching loads of telly) and there are only 2 ads I look forward to seeing - this is one. It just perfectly captures Boots in relation to office Xmas parties. The tone is just right, all the timing is spot on, and it feels just epic enough - any bigger would be a bit ridiculous and very un-English. Great soundtrack too.

Link to YouTube

new bike - fixed gear road cruiser

One of the reasons I haven't been blogging a lot is that I've been building a new bike, bit-by-bit. It's an alloy beach cruiser frame, with just about everything else new on it.



My old singlespeed bike, (The DR06, 2004-2007, RIP) got nicked, and I wanted to build a fixed gear bike. But the whole vintage road track frame things wasn't for me, so I decided to get a cheap US cruiser frame and make it into a usable every day commuter.

It looks "different" in the same way teachers in school told me my paintings were "different", and I like the way it rolls around. Riding brakeless is good fun too - you actually do feel a bit more "at one" with the ride.

So all the bits are now finally in place - next stage is a re-spray, and adding diamond spokey dokeys.

frame: Schwinn Alloy Cruiser
front fork: Kona project 2
wheels: white Velocity rims 36H, System-ex hub back, Shimano disc brake hub front
seat: brookes, unknown alloy seat post
bars and stem: unknown
drivetrain: seguino messenger 44T, 165mm cranks, back cog unknown
pedals: unknown with clips

my new zen blog

I wasn't sure whether to put this here or not, but people were really nice about the Zen Snacking article I wrote, so here is a link to a new blog I've started.

http://everythingsjustalright.blogspot.com/

It's just a collection of notes and ideas on how to not get so stressed and how to try and get more joy out of life, drawing on ideas from various religions, philosophies, and kung fu movies. I'd really welcome any feedback or ideas for contributions.

Bus Depot Fire, Hackney Wick

Fire in London, originally uploaded by qwghlm.

BREAKING, London 12:59 - the Warehouse behind the bus depot on Waterden Road, E9, is on fire. If you've looked east from central london, you can see the smoke rising. It's just behind my house, in the Hackney Wick area, near to Stratford. There are lots of firetrucks there already. More at Sky News.

Rememberance Day Campaign 2007

I've had a fun couple of days working on PR for the Poppy Appeal 2007. The Royal British Legion has created a 6'5" sculpture of a dude made out of poppies which is appearing at various places to raise awareness. He also has a blog at http://whereispoppyman.blogspot.com, detailing his journeys round London.

I've found it really interesting working with the SPA Way - they're a very media focussed PR agency, and the sheer pace and panic of PR is very different to what I'm used to as an advertising account planner. Anyway minor excitement this afternoon as Poppy Man was centrefold in today's Evening Standard.

Mad props to our photographer, my friend Fred who's currently between advertising creative placements and working as a runner for a C4 production.

creative alchemy mega party, westbourne studios, weds 14 nov, free!

This is a party for all creative professionals, organised by Claudie Plen.
You can check out the Facebook group here too.


Me and the HungaMunga arts and crafts gang will be doing our thing there, as well as other fun stuff. I have no idea what kind of people will be there, but Westbourne Studios is a nice space, and it's free, so you might as well.

The Creative Industries party of the year, celebrating Enterprise Week 2007.
Creative Alchemy Ltd, London Westside, Paddington Development Trust, Westbourne Studios, and Make Your Mark.

Join us in our giant interactive networking space, Hungamunga playspace, film, art installations from Artspace, Talkaoke mobile chat show, live painting, and dj's and performances all night...there will also be a couple of free drinks for the early birds, courtesy of London Westside and the Paddington Development Trust!

To book you place or download your invite, go here!

70 things for 70p

The baby clothes label I work at, Oh Baby London, has just been featured in New magazine, which has the best cover starburst I've ever seen - in the top left - "70 things for 70p". Wow.

Jokes aside, we have a bit of product placement for celeb baby gear, which we're really happy about.



Also, I'm looking out for artists, designers and general craftspeople who'd like to collaborate on some fun projects with Oh Baby London - get in touch for more info.

zen snacking (for Blog Action Day)

Have you ever watched someone in London eat a bag of crisps? They toss them into their mouths in a mechanical, grazing fashion, whilst they text, read a paper, or stare into space.

Aside from their mouths opening, their faces don't even register each crisp going in, or the flavour of it. They're thinking about work, people they fancy, what to wear tonight - everything apart from eating crisps.

We've all done this - snacking on total auto-pilot until we get a mild surprise when we look down and see that most of the bag is gone. This is a bad thing generally, because not appreciating what we consume causes over-consumption in many ways.



So here is my take on Snack Zen, which you should try the next time you get a bag of your favourite snacks - crisps, sweets, wasabi peas,organic chocolate covered blackcurrants, whatever.

It is a 5 minute Zen Snack food exercise which will make you happier, more relaxed, more mindful, more giving, less wasteful and hence greener.


- - - - - - - z e n - s n a c k i n g - - - - - - -

One should take a bag of one's favourite snacks, and go to a quiet place, like a park bench, a hotel reception, or the corner of an old man pub.

Do not think about work, or watch people, or admire poster ads. Simply sit and prepare to give this 5 minutes of your life to snacking.

When one eats the snack food, one should attempt to focus completely on the mouth sensations of the snack. Taste, texture, moving it around with the teeth and tongue.

One should not think at all, or analyse, but just concentrate on the feelings from your mouth of eating and tasting the snack. If thoughts arise, just let them drift away, and continue eating slowly.

Initially one will find that one is able to eat only 1-3 crisps before the thoughts wander completely and one must "snap back" to the snack food. Try it if you don't believe me.

If one has worries or doubts - like having to get back to the office, or what to do about some person who's conflicting with us, let these thoughts go and re-focus on the snacks. Right at this moment, all the other concerns are just illusions in the head.

When one can get through half a bag without daydreaming or worrying about the past and future, that is significant progress. The heart rate will be lower and one feels very chilled and 'at peace' with things.

Eventually, after maybe months of practice, one can go through a whole bag of snacks in 5-10 minutes, all the while staying completely in the zone. A similar sensation is found sports, playing music, or making or appreciating art: being totally engaged in the now.

- - - - - - - b e n e f i t s - o f - z e n - s n a c k i n g - - - - - - -

You can leave the office feeling stressed and tired, and come back in 10 minutes feeling refreshed, calm and able to treat problems with a clear head. You'll regain your sense of perspective, because you know that these problems can't control your emotions and that by simply focusing on the present, they disappear.



(My personal favourite zen-out snack is Frazzles, by the way.)

are you the next big dead thing?

Of the 2 types of people in this world -- those who create charts and graphs for fun, and those who don't -- I definitely seem to get on better with those who do.

One such person is Richard Watson at trend lab Now And Next. I haven't ever met or spoken to him, but basically, he makes massive and not entirely serious graphs with somewhat arbitrary y-axises for a laugh, which makes him absolutely sound in my book.

He's the guy who did that way cool Trend Blend tube map you might have seen. Anyhow here's his latest, an Extinction Timeline, showing what ideas and things will die out, and when. I like it, don't understand the reasoning behind some of it, which I suppose makes you want to talk more about it.

99 wolf balloons

This is one of the best things I've ever seen in my life. Artist Cai Guo-Qiang had a Chinese factory fabricate 99 wolves, which he hung in the following fashion - cascading, charging into a glass wall.


I got 99 wolves, but the bitch ain't one.





This has really given me the motivation to do more art-related stuff, rather than my usual blend of tackiness and utility.

More pictures and info here. Link to the Guggenheim here.

crank dat marketing 2.0

One of the best things so far about not working in an ad agency full time is that I no longer feel the need to give a reasoned, depthy analysis every time someone asks me about a breaking campaign. I don't even have to be passionate - for all the hype on the Cadbury's Gorilla, I can just stay put at "quite good, nicely executed".

So it's rare that I get really really excited about a bit of marketing, but I can honestly say this is the most interesting thing I've seen for a while. Forget RadioHead (who let you download their whole album for any price you choose), Soulja Boy is where it's at.


Link to the YouTube video here

The product, the person and marketing are so intertwined that you feel like think the whole thing is campaign for something else completely.

Every single trick that you've ever heard in a marketing brainstorm, he's done.

His album is titled as a URL - souljaboytellem.com .

His URL is an entire social networking site.

He leaves nothing to chance with what he wants people to do - his music video shows teens watching his music video on their mobile phones, and then imitating the dance.

On his YouTube channel - (which has over 100 videos of various content, all with 5, 6, and 7 figure view counts) - he highlights related content on YouTube, like the Barney Remix, or a comedian spoofing his lyrics.

There are more imitations and remixes of anything I've ever seen including Lion King, Sponge Bob, and loads of earnest dance videos. Lots of these remixes have millions of views. I kind of wish Asi would pull some YouTube stats on this guy, as I am pretty sure Soulja Boy now rules YouTube.

I watched one of his interviews - before he was signed, he would upload his demo tracks to file sharing networks, and misleadingly title them as the newest 50 Cent track he knew everyone would be looking for. Evil genius.

He's also got shedloads of merchandise - the music videos all feature distinctive branded gear that you buy from the website, and he has any number of bits of mobile content you can buy.

As you'd expect, he's on every social network, with shedloads of authentic content on each one, and he even has all gear, and the dance, at Meez (avatar site for teens). Here's me doing the dance.



Plus, the greatest meme of all - he writes his name on the outside of his shades, using Tipp-Ex.

I won a somewhat hollow blog award

Today I found out that my blog is the 12th on the list of Advertising Young Minds Ranking List. It's a global ranking for blogs about advertising for people under 27.

It's been put together by Daniel at AdStructure. It's nice that people I'd consider friends are also on the list, and it is a good way of bringing together like-minded people. I also commend Daniel on actually putting this all together, as he's clearly a smart guy and this took time and effort.

With all respect to everyone involved though, I find it to be a bit silly, and it represents the side of blogging that I find distasteful.

If you want to bring people together I would much rather see it done:

- over something they enjoy like BeerSphere
- for a worthy cause, like AllDayBuffet

My problem with a rank parade is that it doesn't add any additional value, other than to inflate egos and cause resentment.

We don't need more standardized ranking and testing for 7 year olds at school, we don't need too much pre-testing and ranking of ad scamps, and we don't need more ranking parades of bloggers. No offence intended to anyone, I just find this all a bit gross. I think cultural differences between the UK and US are probably significant here.

The SPA Way

I'm currently working at a media-focussed PR agency called The SPA Way, where my role is to set up their digital offering.

One of my favourite co-workers so far is Nelly, the agency dog, shown here pooching out by my desk.



Here's an excerpt from the website bio:

As Director of Security, she is responsible for the safety of the staff. She has an intuitive grasp of where danger lies and is swift to deal with any difficult situation. Very early on she identified that the greatest threat came from the large post bags used for collecting the mail. In the last two years she has destroyed countless numbers of these insurgents.

gourmet san, bethnal green road

I have been here a few times now since it opened, and it's definitely the most authentically Chinese experience around East London. It serves Chinese, as in mainland China food, as opposed to the more Hong Kong kind of stuff that we're more used to around Chinatown. About 98% of the crowd are Mandarin speaking, and there is often a big queue of people outside, jabbering and jostling in a very un-English way. It's situated about 5 minutes walk down (away from Shoreditch) Bethnal Green Road, and the food is brilliant. It's oily, salty, sometimes too hot and very very tasty.

The staff speak hardly any English and don't really do service, and the English menu is not very descriptive, so unless you know the dishes, it's a bit of a lottery. Prices without booze, about 10 quid a head. Highly recommended.



Gourmet San, 261 Bethnal Green Road, E2

Lounge Lizard

Yes Way, originally uploaded by manmadepants.

I've been busy recently, and really enjoying the stuff I've been working on. I just had to quickly post this that I saw on Reddit today. Here's the text from Flickr:

"I swear on my life this is 100% real. I was walking down the street looking for stuff to photograph and this guy is just sitting outside a coffee shop with this 80 year old woman and he is taking these little sofa things out of a bag. Then he opens another compartment in the bag and there are about five lizards like this guy. Then he would pose them and they would just sit there like this. Don't really know why."

hollering at all planners (job opportunity)

I've just been working at this place Holler, and really enjoyed it. They're a talented bunch of people with a good set up, and some clients which will let them do some interesting work.

The nature of planning work I did there was quite broad - they don't use creative teams in the sense that ad-agencies do, so planners need to be unafraid to be a bit creative sometimes.

My highlight was planning and selling in educational content for teens, by wrapping it up in a big transmedia, ARG-esque story, but with less emphasis on puzzle solving, and more emphasis on interactive ways of telling a really good story. Hopefully I'll be able to tell you more about it soon.

Anyway they're on the look out for good planners - people with a good grasp of the traditional account planning skillset, but who are capable of using new media in a creative way too.

If you're interested, get in touch with James at holler co uk. Or you can email me for more info if you like.

my next bit of work: Oh Baby London

I'm currently working for this brilliant independent baby clothing label on Brick Lane (halfway down, opposite Rokit Vintage), called Oh Baby London.

They've just launched a brand new website, and they need someone to plan and implement all their online marketing - initially to drive short term sales, and then also to do more of an organic online brand-building job. After a day there, I'm really excited - it's totally hands-on and I genuinely think the product's great. My favourites are the baby hoodies.

Hannah, the label's founder also has a blog here. On a personal, slightly silly note, I really enjoy working above a shop - it reminds of when I was little and my dad had a video rental store. Drop in and say hi!

jellyfish costume

Edit: 12 Sept 2007 - I got featured on the today's front page of Instructables.com! Neat!



Last year at Bestival, I built a big fortune telling machine costume to wear. I only just found this picture and blog post just now of what ended up happening to it after I left it at Bestival.

This year, I thought I'd get a bit more high-tech and try using some electronics in a costume. So, inspired by this book I bought, The Deep, I tried to replicate a deep sea bioluminscent jellyfish.



It's made from:
1 x washing up tub - £2.99, pound store
22 x kids LED light up necklaces @ £1 each - Internet wholesalers
1 x cheap sports helmet - £9.99, Decathlon
Hot glue gun
cable ties - any hardware store
battery pack, wires, switch and box - Maplin Electronics

Here it is, by day:

view from underneath - your head goes in the helmet bit

and here it is, at night:


and a video:

Direct link to YouTube

It was definitely the most fun I've ever had building anything - the materials were my favourite blend of ordinary objects, technology and loads of glue and cable ties. I spent about 8 hours over 2 days building it, and if I could somehow do this all the time for a living, I would.

The visual impact at night was amazing - from far away it really did look unearthly - but it wasn't as fun to be in as last year's Zoltar outfit. Mainly because it only works at night, by which time everyone is too far gone to really make the most of it. People's reactions are limited to staring, getting all their mates and dancing around you, having a fit, or asking very slow unintelligent questions about it. Best quote of the night:

"Jelly head man, in the rave tent you were freaking me out big time."

I plan to use it at bonfires and firework shows this winter to entice children towards me, where I will try sell them the leftover LED rope necklaces (I had to buy a wholesale batch of 72, so have 50 left). If you would like to buy or borrow this jellyfish head suit, let me know.

If you are interested in the technical details of how to build it, you can go to Flickr, or there is a full Instructable here.

bestival 2007 planning

We're camping here - top left hand corner of Green Campsite no 3:


and I'm going to deploy this flag, up a 5 meter flagpole, to mark our camp:


On Saturday, we're going to dress as bees and meet at 2:45 at the big top, to swarm somewhere. The more bees, the better. The rest of the time, I'll be dressed as an illuminated jellyfish, so please come say hi.

Afterthought - are there any other communications planners/marketing strategists going to this festival? There's already Faris, Asi and I'm also going in a car with 2 other planners...

why ad agencies are rubbish at HR and talent

apparently one of the worst jobs ever

This is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, as I've just left a really good job in a great agency to try going freelance.

Iain's written a nice post about how it's hard to get and retain motivated, creative, multi-skilled people, because, put simply, if they're that good, they'll go do their own thing.

I then read this awfully arrogant article, by a freelance computer programmer, on Reddit:


Working a real job is a win if you're lazy, greedy, or unmotivated. If you're average, you fit right in. And if you're above average, the basic terms of employment and premise of the arrangement is against your interests.


So in the face of this attitude (which I don't agree with), how can you retain smart, entrepreneurial people?


This is a prime example of how advertising agencies totally fail to walk their own talk.


You get the best people by making your work environment so unbelievably, jaw-droppingly cool, that it's legendary to work there.


You get the best financial and care packages for your staff - healthcare, profit shares, all that kind of normal stuff. You also need the best working processes that give your staff freedom to work effectively on interesting stuff.

Those are hygiene factors - all your competitors will start to offer the same anyway.


Then, the real work starts. You have to now make sure that your workplace is the arguably coolest place to work in the whole world. You have to add little flashes of cool to every single touchpoint with your employees - you know, the kind of the thing we tell our client brands to do to their consumers.

Ad agencies are still totally stuck in the 80s when it comes to all this stuff. Think of all the agencies you've been to with massive plush meeting rooms, but with their creatives sat 9-6 in call centre conditions just upstairs. All the while we're telling clients that consumers have all the power now, and it's about real values and authenticity.

The sad thing is that business knows this already - Google's market is the most creative and talent-driven business in the world today, and their office is a total geek's dream.


link to video of Google offices on YouTube

It really annoys me when top creative agencies do things like rewarding employees with iPods to keep them motivated - how unimaginative is that? Would you dare suggest such a mundane promotion for your clients?

Photo from Monky

"You're very creative. Have an iPod."

Some numbered points:

1. People will do irrational things if they're in love. You tell your clients this is true for consumers of their FMCG brands, so believe it's true for your employees and your agency. People will pay £3 quid for fruit in a bottle, and they'll stay in jobs where they could be paid a few more grand elsewhere.

2. It's hard work, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution - building a GooglePlex wouldn't be right for keeping talent at JWT. You need to understand your agency brand, understand your staff and have creative ideas which resonate deeply within both.

3. It's not going to be cheap, but it will work out in the long run, and being creative can achieve better results than unimaginative spending.

4. People follow other people - especially the active ones who create the agency culture. So you have to put extravagant effort into keeping these people. For example, when a very "on-culture" person has leaves an agency, the sense of loss is huge compared to the job-importance of that person. I remember feeling like this when Cookie left my old agency, and I didn't even know him that well then.

If you look at that list - it's all painfully obvious stuff that we present to clients again and again, but somehow we think it doesn't apply to the people we employ.

This would be a good time to name drop Work Club, where my friend Charlotte has just joined. They also believe that agency HR practices are in need of a shake up, and have a number of neat innovations, like planner-creative teams, and giving people a lot of freedom and flexibility in the way they work.

Anyone else seen any good workplace HR innovations?

sex, marriage and death on facebook

You know that game sex-marriage-death, where someone names 3 people you know, and you have to choose which of the above you’d do to them?

My friend Simeon’s agency, Hyperhappen, have made a Facebook application where you can play this online with your Facebook friends, and it shows on your profile how much you’ve sexed, wedded or killed.

Link to the Shag-Marry-Kill app.

It’s to promote the new movie, Knocked Up, which is kind of about sex and marriage life choices.

Definitely the best (in fact probably the only good one) branded application I've yet seen.

piss controlled gaming

I don't normally just post ads and things here, but this is so dope. Saw it on my friend Vincent's blog - it's anti drink-driving game controlled by sensors in a urinal.

I'm not totally sure about the execution, but the idea of using the media this way is spot on.



Link to YouTube

been on hols

I went to the Isle of Wight for a weekend and hung around, generally having a nice time on the beach, and getting soaked.


seaweed that looks like a dog


On the way back, I was greatly entertained by these Ikea tube panel ads. I really like them - nice idea, cute executions, products at the centre of it all. There's also one with a sheepdog rounding up some white Ikea chairs.


Great Indoors - person cowering from Ikea crocodile