A couple of ambiguous spy shots from a shoot we did yesterday with Mark, Sean and the crew at Coy!
This is exactly how a project is meant to be done. The client (remaining anonymous for the time being) is smart and believes in the idea, and has the confidence in the people they have involved in making it to let them do their thing. For our part, we know that we're working with talented people who know exactly what to do to make it as good as it can be, so we gave them the space to do it. All in all, a collection of people who want to go about things in the right way, in order to get the best results.
A big thanks goes to [the client] and to Mark, Sean, Sara and the gang at Coy! for making the impossible possible (and for being pretty fucking good at what they do).
This is what happens when companies with exclamation marks get together.
These fun, no-nonsense labels really tell it like it is. In case it's not clear the middle jar contains peas. Yes peas. That's right, peas. Got it?
Created way back in the 60's before the rise of the generic own brand, these lovely fictional label designs featured in a series of print ads for Champion Papers, to promote their new paper range. Although the designs are over 40 years old their vibrancy and timeless simplicity still make them look fresh (same can't be said for for the contents, I'd definitely steer clear of those peas), and more appealing than a lot of the 'real' products that vie for your attention on the supermarket shelves of today.
The print ad itself is nicely put together too, under designer James Miho's creative direction. Out of the countless print related brochures and catalogue thingys that regularly land on the Sell! Towers welcome mat, it would be refreshing to see something like this print ad. Something you actually want to look at and read. Something that might make you think twice before popping it in the bin, ahem recycling bin.
You can find out a little more about the designs and ads here.
“At the heart of an effective creative philosophy is the belief that nothing is so powerful as insight into human nature, what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action even though his language so often camouflages what really motivates him.”
What do you get if you expertly craft together a bit of classic Sergio Leone & Arcade Fire? A thing of beauty that's what.
Talented Chicago based designer, J Tyler Helms recut some footage of Once Upon A Time In The West and used it as an unofficial promo for Arcade Fire's My Body Is A Cage. Nicely done. If you haven't watched the film, I suggest you do that first though.
I follow a lot of blogs through Google Reader, and over the weekend the backlog of unread posts builds up. Monday morning inevitably means there's a couple of hundred posts waiting to be read. Trying to give each a quick glance is time consuming but fear of missing out on something lovely is worse.
But today was one of those days where something really good popped up and the slog was worth it. American artist Tauba Auerbach has produced these paper based Gouache prints. They're a couple of years old but tasty morsels of typography none-the-less.
We popped over to the D&AD president's lecture last night.
The blurb: "Tony Brignull, Sir Frank Lowe, Sir Alan Parker, John Salmon and Alan Waldie answer your questions on one of the most important UK advertising agencies of the twentieth century. Chaired by Anthony Simonds-Gooding, D&AD Chairman and one-time client of CDP"
Following-up from our post the other day about selling, It was heartening for us to hear these genuine ad legends, who are revered by today's creative heavy-hitters, say that they were in the business of persuasion, of trying to get people to buy the products they were selling.
The tendency is for creatives today to look at the work CDP produced in a misty-eyed way, as some kind of creative ideal world where crazy ideas and elaborate production were celebrated.
But the reality is that they set out to simply find the best ways of selling the products they were advertising, not to just create interesting entertainment or creative stuff in their own right.
I can't help thinking that if more of todays creative people started with that aim more firmly in mind, we would see better and more interesting advertising.
There seems to be a general feeling that selling is at the opposite end of the scale as creativity, that you do either one or the other. But I firmly believe that the opposite is true.
The work we see winning advertising awards these days mostly isn't really advertising at all. It's just vaguely-related entertainment with a product shoe-horned in at the end in the least obtrusive way possible. And whether we like it or not, by awarding this work, we're showing it as an example of the best of our industry and encouraging the new generation to work in this way too. If we teach young creatives that creative awards are important, and then show them that this is the way to get awards, then who can blame them for continuing the cycle?
When I meet young creatives these days, often they make no connection between what they do and the sales or success of the product.
It seems bananas that a whole generation of ad people don't really get why the business actually exists in the first place.
That the only point of creativity in advertising is to help make the client's advertising more effective.
Or more persuasive, as the gents from CDP might put it.
Anyway here's an old Heineken ad. It refreshes the parts other beers can't reach donchaknow?
