i've got brand CONVICTion
Getting ready to submit my application for the British Council Realise Your Dream Award. This thing is due on Sunday - YIKES. Anyway, thought what would be truly convincing would be to tell my story and how all I have ever wanted is to be an Art Director in advertising. That it has been a long and windy road, that started in fine art and has always followed a consumer agenda. I have revisited a work created in 2nd year drawing at RMIT - the logo alphabet. I decided to create a pattern that I will screenprint on to fabric and sew a little convict outfit from. You know, that Antipodean ancestral connection some of us thugly types have? Anyway, so I redrew all of the logos by hand and spliced them with some gaol arrows. Stay tuned for my interview in said outfit through the bars of the old Melbourne gaol. how hilarious!
the philosophy of andy warhol
Wow, I am reading the Philosophy of Andy Warhol at the moment, and I feel as if it would be beneficial to re-read the book 3 times over. He writes to-and-fro contradictions and metaphors simple objects with intriguing human conditions. As turning the pages, you wonder what he would have to say about the state of media and technology today - because he just seemed to "get it" so well 40 years ago. In 1968 he anticipated that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." So now with reality TV shows, facebook and twitter, what would he predict for the next generation. Did Andy Warhol somehow create a philosophy of fame for the 21st century? Definitely. And I am telling you, old and young, conservative or radical - you should all go out and read this book. Here are some treasures I have selected for you, and I hope that at least some point today, you experience your 15 minutes of fame.
"Sometimes you're invited to a big ball and for months you think about how glamorous and exciting it's going to be. Then you fly to Europe and you go to the ball and when you think back on it a couple of months later what you remember is maybe the car ride to the ball, you can't remember the ball at all. Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life. I should have been dreaming for months about the car ride to the ball and getting dressed for the car ride, and buying my ticket to Europe so I could take the car ride. Then, who knows, maybe I could have remembered the ball."
"What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it."
"They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."
advertising word of the month
De-Scope
Well this must be brutal! Is what you are saying is that we need to reposition ourselves somewhere between a colonoscopy and an abortion? Or that all chances of scope have turned to dust?
Just let me de-scope my particle ray-gun, shoot from the hip and come up with a new idea.
I think that's what you mean...
ideas & simplicity
Forgive me for I have sinned… 2 months since the last post?! AWARD school has been hectic. The format is as follows: Monday night Lecture, Wednesday night Tute group where we receive a new “fake” brief. Each week we have an industry leader inspire our embryonic advertising minds with a “brief” relevant lecture. Thus far the highlight for me has been John Mescall – Executive Creative Director at McCann. His lecture titled “Ideas & Simplicity” provided a mantra to return to. I don’t want to paraphrase a lecture you didn’t attend (how boring). But here are some key one liners he pulled out. See if you can apply them to your creative life when problem solving:
“The Truth is Funny!”
“Make your work a vision of the Truth, beautifully executed”
“I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one”-Mark Twain.
“There is no substitute for Effort”
“What is an Idea? A mind picture...”
“A good idea is inherently interesting and thought provoking”
“A good idea leaves a gap for the audience to fill in”
“Simple is Hard”
“We are not inventors, we are discoverers – we find what was there all along”
“Ideas come when you are interested and interesting, when you actually have a life”
“An Idea should be a simple observation, expressed in an disarming way”
“Give yourself permission to be dumb, it might lead to something smart”
“When reviewing your work, see what is right not wrong”
“Trends aren’t timeless”
“Break your influences regularly, it will keep your mind fresh”
“Whatever inspires you to think is what you should be seeking out”
So as you can gather, an earth shattering lecture. Here are some of the rad ads he showed:
on the eve of AWARD school...
AWARD School applicants shall be notified tomorrow of their success or failure. I hope to get in. I thought as a an ode to the occasion I would post some attempts that didn't make the cut. These were in relation to Question 3 - Find a bad Print ad and do a better job. Of course no computer layouts are allowed, but the trick is to mock up in photoshop, then print out, then trace. Much easier! Everything is crossed, my fingers, my toes, my legs, my elbows, my eyes. Let's see if I can CONQUER & DESTROY....
rubberobics
To celebrate the launch of Ginger Melbourne's randy but handy iPhone app, I thought I'd make a brief post about it. It's called "rubberobics" and basically it's a calorie counter for sex. That's great, so did you now know, according to this app, we can legitimately classify doing the bad thing on the good foot (Austin Powers Quote) as sexercise. Okay, but also, the real reason I am posting about this new fan-dongled app - is because I came up with the product name: RUBBEROBICS. Another proud moment in Helen Neville Ads.
Get it here
Get it here
