Goodbye to a great adman, Paul Arden

Sell! Sell! is deeply saddened to hear of the death of true advertising great Paul Arden. We had the pleasure of being introduced to Paul by the lovely Roger Kennedy and since have taken the opportunity to visit the wonderful gallery he ran with his wife Toni on many occasions. Paul's maverick nature and love of his craft made him a truly inspirational man. His books 'It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be" and "Whatever you think, think the opposite" are required reading for anyone who wants be a better creative. He will be sadly missed by many. Our deepest condolences go to Toni and family. Read more about Paul and leave messages of condolence here on the Creative Review blog.
VIA CRBLOG

3 Books You Should Have Read If You're In Advertising

When I was at art school, I was taking an American Literature course on the side. In the first lecture, the tutor put up on the board a big list: "100 books you should have read by the time you're 21". I hadn't read any of them. I was 23. This brings us neatly to our much shorter version. If you work in advertising, especially if you are a creative, or if you are trying to into advertising, you'll be much better off if you have read these three books. We're not saying they're going to instantly make you into a creative genius or anything - but they'll give you a really good base of knowledge. They are all quite old, especially the Ogilvy one, and people will tell you 'it's all out of date', but the basic principles in these books still hold true - how to talk to people, how to sell, how find something interesting about a product. They're all quite different in their approach eg Ogilvy's is a thoughtful, almost scientific approach, whereas Mr Lois shoots from the hip (and the lip). I don't think it would be helpful to anyone to treat these as serious 'how-to' books and follow them religiously - but having the combined knowledge of these three people in the back of your mind will certainly help. Find them here: Ogilvy Lois Whipple. No, we are not being sponsored by Amazon.

Conrad Ostwald

The charming showreel of animator Conrad Ostwald here.

Words are Pictures

Yes they are. The lovely typographical and illustrational stylings of Craig Ward can be found here.
VIA IT'S NICE THAT

Plastic Bag Animals...

This is a really smart and playful street art idea. The artist, Joshua Allen Harris, makes animals out of discarded plastic bags and then ties them above the ventilation grates above the subway in New Yawk. When the subway train goes past underneath, the air being forced out brings the animals to life. The ones that sort of wave and wiggle are especially funny. Snazzy*.
VIA WOOSTER COLLECTIVE

Greatest April Fool's Day Pranks

It being April Fool's Day, and spotting a couple of hoaxes in the paper on the way in to Sell! Towers this morning, we thought we'd try to find some really good April Fools pranks. This is our favourite so far: "In 1962 there was only one tv channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in black and white. The station's technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news to announce that, thanks to a new technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to display color reception. All they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen. Stensson proceeded to demonstrate the process. Thousands of people were taken in." Excellent. Read the full description of the hoax in all its glory here. And see the top 100 April Fool's Day pranks here. Including the famous Swiss Spaghetti Harvest.

Updating Proverbs #1

"When you only have two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other" goes the Chinese proverb.
Whoever wrote this proverb needs to get themselves a reality check. Realistically if you have two pennies you aren't going to be able to buy bread - even something like asda's own brand bread is going to cost you more than that - and lillies, when was the last time this guy had to buy flowers? And even if you could buy these items for a penny each - why? Ok so you've got yourself some dry bread, that's a good start, some food - what is going to go well with that? A flower? So you're holding a flower, eating dry bread - I don't see a great improvement on where you were before. And bees - surely bees will be attracted to the flower, so now you've gone from having two pennies to eating dry bread whilst being attacked by bees. That doesn't sound very wise. If you've got bread, then surely the other thing you should be buying is some butter. Or soup, or jam. Then you have at least got yourself some semblance of a meal, plus you don't have the hassle of trying to hold a flower while you're eating.
Summing up then, a more useful, updated proverb might be "When you only have two pounds, buy some bread with one and some butter with the other, and if you have any left over get some cheap jam". Job done.