December 2010

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Contributors in this final issue a big thanks to:

Andy GoodridgeCamilla GreyChris Baréz-BrownDave BedwoodEmma SextonFlo HeissHelen WaltersJamie CoomberMax FraserMichael LitmanMike ReedNick FarnhillNicolas RoopeNille SvenssonRhiannon JamesSimon GillSimon ManchippYates Buckley

Garrwick Webster invited me to create a piece for a beautiful

book called ‘Memories’; a book aimed at telling the stories

from those who’ve suffered directly from cancer or from a

loved one.

For my piece, a response to Garricks moving story about

his own father, I created a 300mm x 400mm canvas.

A video showing the whole process of me making the

canvas can be seen on Vimeo at:

www.vimeo.com/10009333

Dear Reader,First of all a heart-felt thank-you

to everyone who has contributed to this special twenty-four page, colour(!) issue.

When I started Project10 it was to try and make ten projects in ten months in this the year of two thousand and ten. The year that also marks my tenth year of operating as Plan-B Studio. It was not about ‘giving something back’ or even donating my time for free (although I have in all cases). It was about challenging myself again. It was about getting out there and meeting new people, finding collaborations and making the time to do them.

Here in lies the first hurdle: making time. Not finding time. Making it. Carving it from the typically busy schedule that is all our lives. If we’re not in meetings, we arranging them, or in conference calls, brainstorms, new business pitches, looking after existing clients, tweeting, updating our status, replying, deleting, accepting, liking, disliking... The list is as consuming as the content that requires actual focus.

Lots of the contributors asked me in response how my year has been. Those close to me will know that Two Thousand and Ten will go down as probably one of the hardest, most trying, earth shattering, exhausting,

emotionally upsetting, physically draining of my entire life. For personal reasons I won’t bore you with, but suffice to say that I have learnt an awful lot about myself this year.

Beyond the confident slash arrogant creative within I have also learnt that I can cope with some extremely overwhelming situations. I can make tough decisions. I can be extremely organised, committed, and that I care and love my son more than anything else in the world.

Regarding work... I’ve learned that it is time to challenge myself once again. Explore new options. Go out there, seek out and develop new relationships, collaborations. I will read, write and learn more. I will make more time for my R&D projects; namely a fascinating paper on Women in the creative industry and the wider affects and changes that female roles in industry is having on society; there’s a PhD in there somewhere.

I will work on bigger projects with bigger clients, using someone elses money. I will step back from the day-to-day runnings of my own business and concentrate on being creative, perhaps elsewhere.

I will continue to be a committed and loving father, to make those six f lights a month to see and pick-up my son from Norway (until he moves back to London in Jan 2012). I will listen more, speak less and do more hopefully with you.

Yours Sincerely,

Andy Goodridge: @andygoodridgeCamilla Grey: camillastore.comChris Baréz-Brown: uppingyourelvis.comDave Bedwood: leanmeanfightingmachine.comEmma Sexton: emmasexton.comFlo Heiss: thisisdare.comHelen Walters: helenwalters.wordpress.comJamie Coomber: freshenmeup.comMax Fraser: londondesignguide.comMichael Litman: litmanlive.co.ukMike Reed: reedwords.co.ukNick Farnhill: pokelondon.comNicolas Roope: plumen.comNille Svensson: nillesvensson.comRhiannon James: @erj57Simon Gill: @skinnybouffantSimon Manchipp: SomeOneInLondon.comYates Buckley: unit9.com

Would you like to contribute to next months instalment, or perhaps you want to discuss a project, or a feature in your lovely magazine? Use any of the following: email: project10@plan-bstudio.comtwitter: @planbstudiophone: +44 (0)7971 207 276 - Steve Price

Art direction & Design: Steve Price (www.plan-bstudio.com)Editing: Claire Selby

10 years / 10 months / 10 projects

contributors, thank-you:

contribute/contact:

creDits:

produced by:

www.plan-bstudio.com

printed by:

www.newspaperclub.co.uk

application to support their fantastic work. MicroLoan is a charity that helps women across sub-Saharan Africa by giving them loans to start their own businesses. The women repay the loans once their business is turning a profit. The loans are small amounts (the average being £67.00) but they make considerable impact to the lives of these women, their families and their communities. When each loan is repaid it is passed on to another woman who needs help and so on.

The application is called Update and Donate and it allows users to donate 1pence for every status update they make. The application is linked to Pay Pal for the donations to be registered, and polite reminders are sent every 50 updates to ask for a donation to be sent to the charity. For 50 updates 50 pence can be donated to the MicroLoan foundation, which is a considerable amount for the kind of micro finance provided by the charity.

On a different part of the financing spectrum, Halifax asked DLKW, my then employer, for a fun way to promote their Travel Money product. I’ve always been very interested in the way people use social networks to store information – how much can we tell about a person just from the data they’ve accumulated on these sites? So I developed the Holiday Matchmaker, a Facebook application designed to tell you exactly what your perfect holiday would be just from the information you store on Facebook.

By analysing the content from your Facebook profile the Holiday Matchmaker tells you where your perfect holiday would be, and then provides a tailor-made guide to this dream destination, complete with recommended restaurants, bars, activities, weather reports and, of course, a recommendation of where to get your travel money. With over 10,000 downloads in the first six days of being live, it appears that, yes, it is possible to work out your perfect holiday just from your Facebook profile.

With other projects like the Christmas Snow Globe for DLKW (last year’s Guardian Media Agency Christmas card of the year), the ANAGRAM-O-TRONOMATOR, and Space-Face-Invaders, I’d say 2010 has been a busy and fantastic year. I have had the great pleasure of working with some extremely talented, wonderful people and had enormous amounts of fun in the process.

It could be said that the closing chapter of my 2010 is the most exciting and terrifying. After over 10 years of agency life, I’ve left the corporate world behind to set up my own company, Beyond Driven. I’m happy to report that so far I’m being kept very busy and eagerly await 2011 at the end of which, I hope, I’ll be fortunate enough to review some new exhilarating and absorbing projects. I suspect however the contents of the Amazon Christmas Wish Lists will remain strictly within the family style guidelines.

This year I learned that a film which makes your CEO look like a ruthless jerk can only make people love you more. I learned that in an age where we’re obsessed with privacy, we’re actually sharing more than ever. I learned how being on a horse changed advertising forever. I learned that having over a billion hits on YouTube means you don’t have to worry about being in the charts. I learned that touchscreen devices can be beautiful. I learned that augmented reality still has some way to go. I learned that a new logo can divide opinion and that crowdsourcing in a crisis makes you look desperate. I learned it all first on Twitter.

I’ve blogged, tweeted, updated and checked-in. I’ve Googled it, Bing-ed it, Yahoo!-ed it and gone back to Googling. I swiped, pinched, tapped and f licked. Booted up, started up, switched on, signed in, accepted, allowed, downloaded, friended, followed and liked. I forwarded it, I tagged it, I attached keywords and uploaded it. I was always-on, on Skpye, on Twitter, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, online. I declined, ignored and turned off. I was off line and IRL (in real life).

I did 14 hour days, 10 hour f lights, 8 hour jet lags, made four 2 minute films, and wrote seven brand strategy documents. Gave two talks, got 5,000 followers across 3 Twitter accounts and posted over 200 blog entries. I ate my 5 a day, topped up my Oyster, got my Nectar points, paid my council tax, my mortgage, my phone bill, my gas bill, my water bill, my car insurance, my MOT, my parking permit, and waited 2 months to get broadband. I did coffee and lunch and dinner and drinks and networking and schmoozing and catch-ups and crits and conference calls and feedback and sign offs.

I bought clothes and shoes and accessories and apps and magazines and chocolate bars and stuff for my house and ingredients to cook and take-out so I didn’t have to cook. I loved Mad Men and X Factor and 30 Rock and Glee and celebrity gossip and Mexican food. And hated the cold and the dark and the early mornings. I saw my old friends and made new friends and worked with the best and fancied the wrong people.

I have been energetic and excited and hyperactive and inspired and nervous and frustrated and absolutely exhausted… and so this is Christmas and what have I done? I’ve done my best and my hardest and with focus and with passion and I’ve tried and I’ve failed and I’ve tried again and I’ve succeeded. And I’m bloody glad it’s Christmas because I intend only to do two things til January… Eat. And Sleep.

beyonD Driven eat. anD sleep. Sitting down to ref lect on my past year, two thoughts immediately spring to mind: It doesn’t feel that long since I was last pouring over Amazon Christmas Wish Lists, buying the latest questionable pop record or ‘Celebrity’ autobiography for my family; and 12 months can seem a bloody long time when you look back through what has kept you head down and, to varying degrees of success, out of mischief.

At the start of 2010 during a particularly drunken evening, it dawned on me that no one had had the good sense to find out what sound(s) a website could make. A perfectly reasonable notion I thought, and so the CODEORGAN was born. In just over a day or so we (me and some of my colleagues) had the site fully functioning and it was launched with a few tweets. CODEORGAN was an overnight sensation gathering over 200,000 visitors in the first few days and getting coverage around the world – including an interview with CNN and being featured in Wired. Today CODEORGAN is still going strong with over 4 Million URLs being played through its pipes. I always said drinking was good for you.

2010 also saw the release of ‘Let Me In’, Hammer Horror’s first Hollywood feature film since being taken over by Simon Oakes in 2007. I had the great fortune back in 2007 to be asked to re-brand Hammer and to see the work aired on the big screen was a truly wonderful moment. I have loved Hammer Films since I was a boy and to get the opportunity to re–brand them remains one of my favourite assignments to date. It was also a great reminder that design doesn’t exist in a vacuum; that it is just part of a process involving hundreds of talented people, all working to bring an idea to life. It was great to see this released into the world.

Writing and playing music with my three band mates in The Sweet Confusion resulted in the release of our second album Oaths & Promises (available to buy on iTunes and other reputable online stores, he says shamelessly). It was recorded at Fortress in Old Street and mastered by the splendid Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios. Going to Abbey Road was probably the highlight of my entire year. Just being there was an amazing experience, with the history of the place literally crawling up the walls, let alone having our music produced there. My overriding memory was spying a battered upright piano in Studio 2, tucked away in the corner playing host to a bass amp and a mass of old cables. This was, as it turned out, the piano used by Paul McCartney on Penny Lane – anywhere else it would have been in a museum but Abbey Road is thankfully still a working studio and things are there to be used, not treated with misplaced, white gloved reverence.

I was lucky and proud to work with the MicroLoan Foundation this year when I helped create and design a Twitter and Facebook

by camilla Greyby anDy GooDriDGe

“Booted up, started up, switched on, signed in, accepted, allowed, downloaded, friended, followed and liked. I forwarded it, I tagged it, I attached keywords and uploaded it.”

Code Organ: how your site sounds www.codeorgan.com

Camilla Grey is about as switching on, plugged-in as you can be. She is also a very lovely person. By day she works on Marketing/Strategy/Trends for Moving Brands and by night dones a cape and saves small mice and voles from the evil cluthes of owls in Clissold Park. Apparently.

Andy was Director Digital Creative Head at DLKW LOWE before he (as he writes) took the plunge this year and became a Director at Beyond Driven; his new agency. God speed Mr Goodridge, God speed.

This year I have worked on fun gigs, some big some small. One will impact the lives of 600 million teenage girls, another has helped alleviate the suffering and price of our nations back pain (currently costing us 1% of our GDP); one helped sell more fizzy drinks with burgers……

I have bought and sold a house, got fit, then fat, then fit, then tired, then bouncy, then grateful but always happy. Its an incredible time to be. I also wrote a book that’s published by penguin next June, here’s a wee sample..

Live it, don’t think it It’s all too tempting to spend our lives thinking too much, worrying about the future or wishing things could be better.

When it comes to doing new and different things our rational brain more often hinders our movement than helps. Its ability to incapacitate is legendary. It can spiral into a doom-laden scenario with the smallest piece of data.

Instead of imagining it, live it. Do something real and try something out.

The experience is often surprising. Most people find that when they try things out, the reality is so different from what they imagined that it is refreshing and freeing. So if you have plans that seem to have faltered, just carry them out anyway. See what happens and learn. At least then you will have perfect data, real feedback. Whether your plan succeeds or fails, you will at least know.

I once arranged a first-aid course for my team. They are all top-f light facilitators and must be rather intimidating to train as they spend their lives developing the best talent around the world. The trainer we had was unf lustered and taught us not only how to save lives, but to have more impact.

He must have been in his late fifties and was old school in style. His opener was to draw a ship hitting an iceberg on the f lipchart. He then asked what it was. Someone said the Titanic, to which he replied, ‘Yes, breaks the ice, doesn’t it?’ We were struck by his cheesy confidence and bad gags; he started to win us over.

On day two, after explaining how to deal with choking, he asked one of the team to turn on his mobile phone and be ready to call the emergency services in case his demonstration went wrong. He then dipped a tissue into some water and inhaled it, so it became stuck in his throat and made

him choke.He started to turn red, eyes bulging.

Stunned, it took me a second or two to register what was happening. I then jumped into action, doing what he’d just explained that we should.

I slapped him once on the back. Nothing. Next time was harder. Still nothing. I reasoned that he was a big guy, so could take the force of a third and harder slap, and frankly I wasn’t keen on moving to a Heimlich manoeuvre. It worked fabulously and dislodged the tissue. He gasped fresh air once more.

My guess is that he was in control all the way through and his performance was nothing more than great theatre. However, the way I reacted was real – the surge of adrenaline, the feedback that I wasn’t hitting him hard enough. What I will never forget is the power needed to dislodge a tissue from a large man’s throat. It was real and I had learned it for ever.

It also set up his next gag perfectly when he asked for a volunteer. He was carrying a tin of paraffin and a Zippo and announced it was now time to learn how to treat burns. Classic, old school; deeply memorable.

Get Stuck InNext time you find yourself sitting in a meeting debating the pros and cons of different plans and trying to predict the future, remember that you have two choices.

You can carry on this intellectual arm-wrestling contest until every avenue has been explored and all in the room are beautifully aligned in their divination of what the forthcoming years will hold. Alternatively, you can just get stuck in and try things out and know that the feedback you get from those experiments is real. You can adapt those approaches depending upon what you learn.

Many companies avoid experimentation because they believe there’s a risk to their brand. That is fear-induced rubbish. What they are really scared of is getting things wrong and how that would look.

If your brand is so weak that some innovative experimentation will damage it for good, you’d better spend more time on your brand. If the truth is that you hate getting things wrong, you’d better wake up to the twenty-first century, where things happen so fast you don’t have a chance to polish the idea, to test things perfectly, to guarantee that every segment of every demographic is happy with your offer. You need to do it now or you’ll be lost.

If you are clever enough you can always find a reason why things won’t work. If you do it, you can always find ways to make it better.

Go and get your hands dirty; don’t just talk about it, do it.

Buy less crapWe are devoted to accumulating crap. The media is constantly telling us we need new stuff, better stuff, shinier stuff. When we go looking for that stuff and finally buy it, it satisfies a primal urge akin to that of a kill by a hunter. But just like the kill, the purchase is only brief ly satisfying – it can only fill a hole temporarily. We are then driven to buy more.

Many business executives never enjoy what they have because they are forever focusing on what’s next, what’s bigger, what’s brighter. They become trapped in jobs that can never deliver the lifestyle they want.

When people go to work in finance, they often say, ‘I’ll do it for ten years, bank a couple of million, and then do something I truly love.’ Thirty years later when they have made tens of millions they are still f logging their guts out in the City. They’ve been caught on the lifestyle escalator and don’t know how to get off.

Don’t become trapped by the same fate. Appreciate what a wonderful life you have. Know that buying more crap won’t make you happy and that the richer people in the world worry about how to manage all those houses and yachts just as you worry about the weekly shop or saving for your holidays.

Next time you are tempted to buy something that you don’t truly need, stop and think.

If you have decide that you really need to buy crap, buy the best crap available. Get something that is exceptional, something that costs a lot and in which you can take great pleasure for years to come. At least the crap you own will have class and durability. And if you buy the best there is, you can’t be tempted by something better.

And after you’ve bought it, solemnly swear not to buy any more crap for at least a month.

how to be more elvis by chris baréz-brown

‘A Poster for Jack’ As part of Project10 I designed a poster highlighting a potentially common indication of Autism. My aim; to print and sell the posters and donate the proceeds to charity.

I spoke to my good friend, Paul at Generation Press, who kindly offered to donate their time and experience to producing 100 beautifully silk screened prints on GF Smith Colorplan.

All the proceeds will go to helping a six year old boy called Jack Armstrong, a neighbour of Lucy Brown who (last weekend) rode her bike 57 miles to raise money to support Jack’s parents and to help make sure Jack can attend another Intensive Sonrise course to ensure his development continues. Every penny from every purchase will be donated to Jack’s family.

£25 (+P&P)Available to buy from: www.plan-bstudio.com

Chris is an Author (How to Have Kick Ass Ideas), Speaker and Facilitator of More Shine in Business Folk. He’s also a charming and brilliant human being. He has recently founded a new venture (the logo and web site we worked on together), Upping Your Elvis: www.uppingyourelvis.com

1. On January 1st a lot of people started blogging and writing about what digital marketing would be like in 2010. I made this my motto for the year.2. View out of a taxi in Vancouver.3. A little infographic I made about an infographic that got send round. A lot.4. In October I ran a workshop with the Watford advertising students. This is an image from Tony Cullingham’s website.5. My twitter icon with double rainbow.6. Nothing to do with me.7. Based on the fact that infographics seemed to be all the rage in 2010 we made our own moving infographic for Dare’s grad scheme.8. An interview I did. Not in 20109. This is Bill Oddie in a wig. It’s in a book about sketchbooks.10. Me 10 years ago.11. A convolvulus hawk moth I caught in a light trap12. In September my in inbox suffered from a total melt down. The images it produced looked ace.13. Another moth.14. An image from a book about weird squids I bought.15. I spoke at this conference. I don’t think it was in 2010 though.16. An image from a blog post about my obsession to find the perfect sketchbook.17. My only ever real viral I created. Twitter Fire Action. Based on a safety sign in our old office. This image has more views on my Flickr stream than all my other photos put together.18. The very first website I designed. Ever. Part of the “Everyone Starts Somewhere” exhibition at D&AD New Blood.19. New Dare.20. A scan of my favourite book by Mr Eno. The reference is about Belgian people. It’s on my ex Sony Ericsson client’s blog. He’s Belgian.21. This is Simon Veksner aka Scamp. I am in his book.22. See 2.

23. See 19.24. Creative Showcase. Definitely NOT this year.25. The equipment needed to catch the moth from number 11.26. Me. Smaller. B/W.27. Snap from a thing I did at D&AD (Apple a Day).28. See 15.29. Halloween. Oh yes. We go to town on Halloween.30. Much loved and thumbed print out of Stephen Fry’s Fry Chronicles. We did an app for him this year and I went through this manuscript to tag “Fryisms”. I was terrified to lose it on the train before the actual book came out.31. The IA for our allotment.32. We are baking cakes.33. Ashwell in the winter. Playing with the Hipstamatic filters.34. The Gutterbarometre iPhone app. We got it done just in time for Cannes. It’s a mini Four Square for advertising peeps drinking in the Gutterbar in Cannes. Pointless. But fun.35. In March we launched Dare West in Bristol.36. Ben in a pub.37. Lasso. Interesting Magazine. It never got published.38. Illustrations for a little book of Bavarian Café stories.39. See 3740. The meaning of life. Meat and bread on plate. Dimensions variable. January 201041. See 3142. A basket to catch Lobsters. Norfolk.43. Benskeletor44. Ben writes his name for the first time.45. Yawn46. Digital Advertising, Past Present Future. Book I am in. Published by Creative Social.47. Oh dear. I did this for a good cause. No, really. Check “She Says”48. More moth things.49. See 5. Only smaller this time.50. Yeah. It’s enough now.51. I did a talk at BIMA. This chap runs it.

What HAVE I done? Of course being self obsessed and shallow and a digital oldman I asked Google. And this is what Google said: Type “Flo Heiss 2010” into Google image search to get the images to this list (you don’t have to of course).

What have I done? Mainly learnt a big old lesson that if more clients were to ‘do time’ working a stint agency side to understand how they run, and more importantly to realise ‘you only get out what you put in’, we might all start speaking the same language and who knows, something amazing might happen!

I started the year working for Poke; undoubtedly one of the best agencies around, working with such a bright (and utterly lovely) bunch of people. I’d been working for digital agencies for over a decade and was increasingly becoming aware that more briefs might as well simply read “Here’s my pig. Here’s a lipstick. Go nuts!”. Now, of course I’m generalizing, this isn’t all clients. I have worked with some great ones, ironically more towards the end of my agency stint, but I really needed a change and wanted to get further up the food chain of the marketing process where I might be able to make a difference.

I decided to go freelance to see if I could dabble in client side without having to make a long-term commitment. I was lucky enough to get experience both with small start-ups and big corporations and oh my god, being on the other side was a real eye opener.

Now, you might know this already, but the things that are important to an agency, do not even feature within a clients mind. We all know how important the brief is for example, whereas on the ‘other’ side I’ve managed to stop 6 pagers going out stating they want to achieve “this and this and we also need to do this and then there’s that all the time we need to make sure we’re speaking to them, and those people, oh and don’t forget these”. On that particular brief I had no idea whatsoever what they were looking for but have also heard the fallout of a similar brief when the agency “really didn’t deliver what we wanted, so maybe we should pitch”.

I also realized that ‘economies of scale’ is deemed as the biggest success ever. Forget good work or getting more people to love your brand,

if you save money then you’ve fucking nailed it. This is when I was also exposed to little insights such as “We only work with networks so tell me who you want to work with and the network will buy them”. And also “XXXX agency isn’t in our network so buy the idea off them and we’ll give it to our agency to make”. These were statements expressed without a single sense of irony or sarcasm. But, this isn’t all clients and it’s not all entirely a criticism. How can clients be expected to understand the blood, sweat and tears that go into conceiving and producing an awesome campaign if you’ve never done the 8am starts with the 4am finishes whilst living off a stable diet of Deliverance, Haribo and Budweiser? You can’t.

Now this isn’t all about client bashing as I got to work with some very smart people, but likewise I got to see things from their perspective. Being client-side my days were often taken up with meetings, which as an agency person used to give me rage. Being on the other side however, I can see that meetings ARE your job. This is the time when clients make the decisions in order to take things forward. There are often so many people who need to buy into an idea, that actually I’ve realized just how complicated this can be to manage and how diplomatic you have to be in order to make a difference. I honestly believe if clients could each spend a week working within an agency to see how they run, what is needed to get good work out and to generally really get to grips with why they can’t have that deck/idea/report at a fucking moments notice we’ll all be able to do a better job.

So, all in all having started the year at one of the best agencies in town I’m ending it at one of the best clients. I saw that I could really make a difference client side and I am now the first digital person for the new Converse office in the UK. I’m hoping to show that the when great clients and great agencies work together magic happens. It’s been some year but for me the journey has only just begun.

you only Get out

what you put

in

by jamie coomber

Flo Heiss is the brains and brawn (a.k.a.) Executive Creative Director at Dare.

Jamie was the Global Digital Brand Manager for Bacardi after being Digital Strategist at Poke and Head of Innovation and Engagement at Profero. She has just embedded herself at Converse as Digital Manager. And Yes I did get most of this from her Linkedin profile.

It was, let’s be honest, quite a year. Recession roiled, unemployment rose, currencies stuttered and the west continued its steep, inexorable decline into a mire of its own making. In the U.S., Politicians bickered, turned a blind eye to the ravages of a warming world and continued to wage unwinnable war in distant lands even as the nation’s own infrastructure crumbled.

On a personal level, I found myself ensnared in a beleaguered industry filled with bewildered professionals who’d lost their passion and understanding of what they were doing, how they should do it or even why they should try. Journalists struggled, the mainstream media stumbled. Shoulders slumped, brows furrowed and all too often yet more would pack their things and go.

And yet, thank god for 2010.It is said that there are three common

responses to fear. There’s fight or f light, of course. And then there’s freeze. And that was me. For too long, I’d been in a state of suspended animation. Perhaps by keeping perfectly still I would avoid the gaze of the hatchet man making the rounds with the P45s. If I didn’t move a muscle then surely that would guarantee that I’d escape the indignity of screwing up in the worst business environment of a generation.

And yet the situation got so ludicrously intense in 2010 that the ice began to crack. That such deliberate inaction was leading directly to atrophy of the mind finally became undeniable. My fervent unwillingness to do something, anything about a working condition that was clearly untenable finally became a problem I had to deal with. And as we all know, acknowledging you’ve got a problem means you’re on the way to solving it. Accepting that this situation wasn’t going to get any better any time soon finally became an opportunity rather than a terrifying challenge of monumental proportions.

So I quit. I decided enough was enough. Enough of the nonsense. Enough of the pretence. Enough of the madness. It was time to become an active participant in my own life once more. And in July I handed in my notice, packed up my stuff and left the building with my head held high.

So that’s why I now get to tell stories of traveling around Japan, where I headed to clear my mind and where I failed to understand even a fraction of that nation’s bewitching, confusing culture. That’s why I now get to tell stories of being daubed in clown makeup in order to take on a bit part in a Badly Drawn Boy music video. That’s why I now find myself working on books, making my own deadlines and forging my own path. And that, I’m sure, is why I find myself feeling closer than ever before to those who really matter to me.

And that’s why 2010 gets to be thanked. It marked an important moment of no return. No more f loundering. No more waiting for someone else to show the way. No more imagining that surely everything will be alright eventually. It will be, of course, but because I will make it so. I fear it sounds like I swallowed a self-help book, but I’m grateful for being able to recognize that we have one life, so best start living it sharpish. Yes, bills need to be paid and responsibilities have to be faced. But no more of the hamster wheel. The viable economy of all our futures will be built on the passion and talent of individuals. Time to put up and shut up. Bring it, 2011.

Time To puT up and shuT up by helen walters

The ACE ClubWalking away from the last ever V&A fete on a barmy summer’s evening in 2009, me dressed like a World War II parachutist, Badger like a cowboy we got to talk-ing about how the spirit of the V&A Fete could live on. That conversation turned in to many conversations, meetings, plans and more meetings. Over jugs of ale usually. It was the first project that I enrolled in to my Project10 roster and finally it become known to us all as The ACE Club.The logo (above) was the brilliant design realisation of Nicky Gibson (currently doing a sponsored walk across both the North and South islands of New Zealand).It is still in planning phase because like all good things, it comes to those who wait. or in our case, those who can fit it in when they can.All we can say is; think a touring train of caravans, customised to be transformed and at a festival near you.

If you are interested to learn more, want to volunteer to be involved or you fancy sponsoring it email us:

lilchefis@theaceclub.org or badgeris@theaceclub.org

Helen Walters is a writer, editor and researcher. Formerly the Editor, Innovation and Design for Bloomberg Businessweek. She lives in New York and is also a Contributing editor for Creative Review.

So this is Christmas... Which brings with it the delight of the agency Christmas card brief. Last year, we managed to kill five tropical fish. A long story. This year, in an attempt to move away from murder, suggestions have included: GBH, anal rape and terrorising OAPs. We chose, in the end, to hide a short naked fat man inside a snowman. People have to guess which snowman he is hidden in. Then a young teenage hoodlum boots your chosen snowman, thus revealing the answer.Concrete proof, if any were needed, that the quality of work skyrockets, when you’re the client...

And what have you done... We made three things that got on the national news:

Our Dr Pepper idea (pictured above) certainly did very well on Facebook. But then a stupid mistake regrettably landed on a 14yr old girl’s facebook status. From there it made its way to a hysterical mumsnet.It’s final death rattle was witnessed via a six minute piece on Sky News.The Dr Pepper facebook fans didn’t mind; in fact they loved the campaign, but the damage had been done.If only we had a pound for every time someone’s said to us “What’s the worst that can happen”. We all know the answer.

After that bad shit came some good shit: the Domestos Flushtracker. An idea to promote Domestos and its involvement with World Toilet Day; a serious thing, not a joke, which most people think on first hearing it.We allowed people to track their ‘flush’ through google maps; thus highlighting the incredible sewer system in our country. The fact that 2.6 billion people have no sanitation at all, their shit literally goes no where, became that little bit more potent.It did well on twitter, over million page views, and under its own steam got into the papers and a five minute slot on Christian O’Connell’s radio show.

And last, but not least, my rocking chair. I’ve had a rocking chair in the agency for a few months now. Very comfy it is too; thanks for asking.One snowy morning I was working out of the office. By the time I got in, around 2pm, everyone seemed in an unusually pleasant mood. Around 3.30pm, I just missed a call from my wife, but she left a message saying she’d just seen my rocking chair on ITV news. It was being ridden by a creative team down Primrose Hill.

Another year over...Considering the complete armageddon of the first few months, I’m still not glad to see the back of this year. We all know, when it comes to your agencies history; the tough times add to the fabric just as much as the successes. It’s impossible to do great work unless you risk some big mistakes (obviously, I’d rather those mistakes didn’t involve pornography, teenagers and facebook).

And a new one just begun...So what’s in store for 2011? Who really knows; the amount of talk about the future of advertising is nearing insanity levels. It certainly doesn’t need anymore help from me.Come the new year we’ll just try and do the same old thing; write ideas that have something interesting to say, have a bit of wit, sharpness and insight to them. Because, if they don’t have that, no new format, platform, buzzword will ever save them from being completely ignored by those awkward, tricky little bastards we call consumers.

And so this is Christmas...Which reminds me of another Christmas; in 1997. Sam and myself were driving back to University, before leaving for our respective homes over the festive period. We stopped at a petrol station near Marlow; when none other than Chris Rea pulled into the forecourt, in a kit car. We had our picture taken with him, and asked whether he was driving home for Christmas.He grunted a smile, jumped in his kit car, stalled it, then finally wheel spun off. Ah memories...

I hope you have fun...Because if not; you’re not doing it right.

If you don’t like it change it. And that’s what I did. At that’s what I always do. Clothes, friends, jobs, boyfriends…they all need a review. Is this working? Is this helping me become the best version of me? Selfish? Probably. Necessary? Definitely.Changing things throws up new things. Most of which will be really good things. Life is full of really brilliant stuff but only so much of it will come your way if you are just sat there, doing the same thing, with the same people in the same space in the same way, day after day.This year I made a change. I got a new job. So what? Well normally you get a new job because you’re pretty fed up with your old one. But I wasn’t. In fact the role had been one of my career highlights to date. I loved my team and the great work we were making across print and digital. It was all really brilliant and fun and... comfortable.It’s not that comfortable is a bad thing, after all my bed is comfortable, my home is comfortable, my slippers are comfortable. Comfortable doesn’t signal bad, or good, or anything. It is almost devoid of emotion and you don’t even have to think about it. Comfortable is not simulating and inspiring, it is familiar and safe.We all have a ‘comfort zone’. As wikipedia describes it “the comfort zone is a behavioural state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviours to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk (White 2009)”.Have you noticed that as we get older our comfort zone decreases? Remember when you were young and fearless, invincible even? The whole world was waiting to be discovered by you. Then we get older. We get nicer places to live. We get ‘commitments’. We slowly, yet surely, get comfortable. Then that dream of packing your bags and going traveling or working in New York becomes just that, a dream.I am a graphic designer by trade and started out in print design. I spent 14 years learning my craft in the design industry. Back then things evolved rather than radically changed so you could gently get used to the latest software update, people wanting a website designed (which back then was essentially a web ‘presence’). Everything was calm and transitional.

Then suddenly things started to evolve at triple the speed and I felt like a print dinosaur. All the years of learning and developing and now suddenly digital was the new thing and I knew nothing about it. I had to change. There was a big bit of me that didn’t want to change. I liked what I knew and knew what I liked.Digital has become a whirlwind of possibilities and discoveries with new stuff happening every week, maybe even everyday. What is really amazing is that it has put all of us on a level playing field. We all have access to knowledge and to the internet. We can all be ‘digital’. Yet how many people and companies are still struggling with this change? I am sure some of them think that it is still a magical, mystical thing that only someone ‘digital’ can understand. Most people ignore change instead of welcoming it in but ignoring it just makes it a much bigger thing in your head than it ever needed to be.By changing my job I threw many of the familiar things in my life up in the air. Suddenly I didn’t know where I would be in 6 months time. Would it be brilliant? Would it be the worst move I had ever made? To be honest, I didn’t care. I was willing to take the risk knowing that if I wasn’t happy I could change it and I would keep changing it until it felt right again. I embraced the change which is something us humans find really difficult. Six months on and I feel inspired and excited. Things are different but it feels great. I feel uncomfortable again.I am learning, pushing my boundaries and working my brain. Being uncomfortable is much more comfortable for me.As we speed into the new year I want to encourage you to be uncomfortable, to experience the wonder of change, of shaking things up and being uncomfortable and then you will see what a positive difference it has made to you. Life can change before you know it and you will adapt. It’s human nature. We all need to be adaptable. We do not all need to be comfortable.Things change, and 2011 is going to be no different. Get with it.

Loose changeby emma sexton

Dave Bedwood... Where does one start? He’s from Birmingham. We both recently realised that not only did we grow up around the corner from one another, but that we went to the same schools. He’s now Creative Partner of Lean Mean Fighting Machine. The boy done good.

Emma not only has the best surname, she also has the best job title I’ve ever heard of: Head of Expression, for Added Value. Among other past-times that she swore me never to mention she is also one of the crew behind the brilliant She Says organisation.

When you were at school, do you remember how long and drawn out the autumn term seemed? I recall moaning to my mother about it as she increasingly lost her patience with my tardy morning routine. She would often state, “Enjoy it while it lasts. Life only speeds up the older you get.”

Half a lifetime later, by jove was she right. As my instinctual ‘autumn term’ hibernation kicks in and I ref lect on 2010, I feel genuinely bemused as to where the year has actually gone. I don’t sense I’m alone in this feeling. Is that a symptom of my age and my mother’s words in action? Or has 2010 been a year of running around in a haze of hysteria as we busily try to busy ourselves in the stark post-recession light of day?

And so I turn my attention to technology for, as I write this, a number of pings and alerts appear all over my screen. Shall I finish typing this sentence, or attend to the mundane demand of yet another goddamn email? Speaking of mundane, I should probably just update my status quickly on twitter. Ooo, maybe I’ll just click on that youtube link. Ten minutes later, surely I must counter such time-wasting with something more serious, like today’s news on guardian.co.uk. Oh look, facebook tells me it’s that “friend’s” birthday - better just say hi, even though I haven’t seen or spoken to them for five years... Wait, Skype message just coming in that requires my immediate attention.

OK, yes, I’m mocking myself but I suspect you know where I’m coming from. While technology has heightened our ability to communicate, it has also laid our lives bare and created the expectation that everyone is always only one click away. Such a demand is strangling our right to live. By occasionally choosing to remove ourselves from this noise, are we somehow letting the team down? A tweet this morning says it all: “48 hour digital detox over. What did I miss?”

Constant connectivity is proving to be time-consuming, and the anxiety of being disconnected is energy-wasting. The need to be the ‘first to know’ is becoming rather tedious and actually, who really gives a shit? Such distractions have been known to eat up massive chunks of my day to such an extent that I sometimes ditch it all and grab a pen and notebook (the paper kind) and physically take myself somewhere else to think. That is, until the red f lashing light on my Blackberry gets the better of me.

This year, an unforgiving book deadline presented me with a mere 5 weeks to complete the manuscript (I write books about contemporary design by the way). I broke a sweat - how could I possibly achieve this daunting task amidst all the noise and distractions of London? After all, writing requires solitude and long periods of

How many times have you ‘marked all as read’ in your Google Reader because you couldn’t bear to see the unread number rise exponentially by the hour? Right. So you’re with me on this one then. We’ll never read everything there is to know.

We’re swamped with information. It’s a bottomless pint, but you’ll never get drunk. It’s almost a full time job just keeping up to date and in the know. Wait, for some it is a full time job. There’s just too much good stuff. While I admire the creators just the same (let’s not forget, a year ago, I was a rampant creator) something changed.

I sensed an uprising emerging and it was from a different breed, the curators. Those people that find the good stuff, and deliver it to your inbox, willingly. They find that needle in the haystack for you to read, not for money, or indeed love but purely for the enjoyment it brings. The comments, the likes, the retweets, the kudos. I’m talking about the likes of Devour, Swiss Miss, PSFK, Design Milk, Brain Pickings and, well, now, I guess, me too. And you could argue that every blog/publication/whateveryouwanttocallit has an element of curation in finding the good shit to write about, so let’s not see curation (compiling the goodness that’s already out there) as this lazy way out of writing their own stuff. It’s really not.

Riddle me this, I now spend more time curating than I ever did creating. So umm.. there? (makes juvenile rasping noise).

I’ve had my detractors since I stopped blogging in the conventional sense and opening my blog up to the cool shit that everyone else is doing that I want to let you know about and don’t have the chance to always blog about myself. Some think because of that, I’m cheating somehow. I’ve even had an agency MD tell me I have to stop and also withdraw my place in the AdAge Power 150 because it’s not always my stuff anymore. You’d think he’d have bigger fish to fry. Yet I enjoy being a filter of information far more than I ever did endlessly adding to your information pile.

So while I’m sat here writing this in the notes app on iPhone because i’m such a fucking hipster (or in other words because I get distracted by cats, twitter and lols after 2 minutes sat at my Mac) I wondered about that precious commodity, time.

I just leafed through marketing magazine (no, I’ve still got no idea what a digital pluralist is either), whilst checking twitter, whilst watching Match of the Day, (Nasri had a blinder by the way). But now what do I do? What do I most value to do with my free time?

Do I stay up and binge on Google Reader?Do I read Creative Review? Wallpaper? Twitter?Do I get my ass kicked by a 14 year old yank online on FIFA 11?Or do I just go to bed and switch off for a while?

None of the above. After all that, I’m going to write this instead and add to your information pile.

Enjoy.

After that, I’m off back to my happy place. It still says I’ve got a gazillion unread feeds. I thought I’d read them all.

intense concentration. Well, the solution was to take myself off to my family house in the middle-of-nowhere in France for a period of lock-down.

Rather self-indulgently, I was consciously removing myself from the world that is out there. Instead, I had plunged myself into a space of silence. Boy, did I get some solid work done. And whilst I was working hard, I also found that I had created more time for myself to think, to breathe and to assess.

It struck me that the modern day dilemma lies in a certain fear of silence. That somehow, your silence is a public indication of withdrawal from the race - a race no-one ever really knows why they are running. But silence is one of life’s great healers and it helps to thwart careless hurry and blind ambition. Once again, I could hear my mother’s wise words, for time had indeed slowed back down again. Amazingly, I had now achieved this out of personal choice.

Don’t get me wrong, technology has revolutionised the way my business operates. I couldn’t have disappeared off to France without the ability to easily transfer data with my colleagues elsewhere, to efficiently facilitate the project. And for that, I am ironically grateful to a side of technology that allowed me to retreat, albeit temporarily, into a place of calm. I should add that no-one, except those closest to me, noticed my absence.

As we move into a new year, I would encourage you to embrace silence in whichever way is appropriate for you. Find the time to escape the fanfare of 21st Century living and reconnect with that which really matters. As a good friend of mine often reminds me, you need to slow down to gather pace.

As exceptionally good timing would have it, I am not alone in a quest for silence. Moments ago, via my live twitter feed no less, came the Guardian headline: “Cage Against the Machine: pop stars to stage silent X Factor protest. Pete Doherty and Billy Bragg among those teaming up to record John Cage’s silent composition in a bid for Christmas No 1.” Cage Against the Machine is a charity campaign to take John Cage’s infamous 4’33” - a composition of pure silence - to the top of the Yuletide charts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0Ehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y

And topping the carol charts? Silent Night.

silence anD the Distortion of time by max fraser

creation + curation = brilliation by michael litman

“We’re swamped with information. It’s a bottomless pint, but you’ll never get drunk. It’s almost a full time job just keeping up to date and in the know.”

For all the projects he’s involved with Max is a incredibly mild-mannered person. That or he is brilliant at disguising stress. You may well know him as the Editor and Publisher of the London Design Guide. I also know him because we’re working on a project with him called ‘Joy of Living’. More on that soon.

Michael Litman is one of the Tactical Planners at Dare and a member on the IAB Social Media Council. He does digital plannery type things on EA Games, Sony, Premier Inn, BMW, The FA, Nestle and Standard Life. But I’ve known him for many years. I was at his Bahmizvah. You see I used to date his beautiful cousin, Hannah. It’s a small, small world.

I can’t complain. But I doI’m writing this too fast. I’ve done a lot of that this year, and it bothers me. (Although if you commissioned any work from me recently, don’t worry. Your copy was written at just the right speed to maximise quality, punctuality and value for money.)

Let’s start by acknowledging how lucky I am, before I start griping. I’m a freelancer being offered more work than I can handle. There shouldn’t be any room for grumbles in that.

And yet, and yet. Well: I am a man, after all. And an Englishman at that. Grumbling is as fundamental to my identity as my passport and testicles.

Freelance: fantasy and realityWhen I first went freelance, I assumed one of the big bonuses would be ‘setting my own hours’. This is The Freelance Fantasy: you’ll knuckle down to a brief in the morning, then reward yourself with a lunchtime saunter to the pub, to linger over pint, pie and paper.

The reality, of course, is that you’re only ever a week or two ahead of the wolf you imagine slavering just outside the door. So when someone says, ‘Have you got time for...?’ you just say, ‘Yes that’s fine.’ Even if you’ve already said ‘Yes that’s fine’ to ten other people, all of whom had the same deadline. Because the wolf never sleeps, and a fortnight’s grace is no grace at all.

There are few activities left that haven’t been described by some lazy media pundit as ‘more like a marathon than a sprint.’ (Apart from sprinting, obviously.) But freelancing is a rare thing: a marathon that must be run at sprinter’s pace. In fact, it’s a series of connected, often overlapping, sprints in a long, marathon-shaped chain.

Just Say NoI’ve also discovered that you can get a bit addicted to working. Just when you think, ‘Okay, enough. Time to cut down,’ along comes one of your favourite clients, or even a shiny new client, with what sounds like a really interesting job. Potential award-winner, maybe. You hear yourself say, ‘Yes, that’s fine.’

It’s like one of those anti-drug commercials of the 80s. ‘Yeah, I like the odd poster campaign. A brochure here or there. Who doesn’t? It’s not a problem. I can handle it.’

Well, sometimes you have to Just Say No. Not because you’re naturally idle, and it’s all too much like hard work. (Well, not just that.) But because if you don’t, you end up doing a lot more work, a little less well. And that’s kind of depressing.

Like this piece. This piece could be

For the last 7 years every year I have the same new years resolution: I want to be funny. I mean I want to learn to be funny in a well delivered way: like really funny so that people will enjoy what I say and not just stare at me with a blank look. What instead seems to happen is the more I try to be funny the more I either don’t elicit any kind of response at all “blank stare” or the kind of twisted nose expression you get when gaseous essence is release accidentally in a closed space (IE: Familiar Autonomic Response Treatment).

I am not sure how one really goes about learning this; so far I have purchased many DVD’s. They cover a range of comedic styles from the Marx Brothers, to Ali-G, or Bill Cosby, but I don’t think I can cover these roles. I tried learning jokes and delivering them on my own in front of a mirror. When I do this I can hear someone sobbing in the corner of my empty room. It could be the ghost of a past relative: I can only surmise they were not satisfied with my performance.

I studied humor theory: and the need for a good set up - logical thinking that is disrupted in a logical but totally absurd new route. The joke emerges from the strange feeling you get when you read something that makes perfect sense but that is totally ridiculous.

Why bother? The giggle one can pass around is one of the few purely altruistic and socially useful contributions we can make in our life. Most all the other forms of social assistance require a sort of twisted dependence. Every bit of help you give the hungry is help taken away from the disaster victims or cancer research. And when you donate, you can proceed with participation in a system that tends to ignore common basic human rights. The same system engaged with a planetary energetic scam that will pretty much guarantee that you won’t spread your grandchild’s DNA much further than you can shed the hairs on your back.

So I wish I could tell you something funny but I haven’t learned that yet. I can tell you about some of the other things I learned this year that I think are important:

1. If we stopped making anything new today CO2 would rise to levels we would tolerate and weather patterns would only mildly screw things up. Unfortunately we are only 2/5 of world population and we’re not about to stop using energy as intensely as we are. Note that any new technology will not have a chance arrive in time, so expect a rocky road ahead and expect temporary Geo Engineering works whether we like them or not.

2. There are a huge number of nukes hanging around the planet (mostly in the US and in Russia) they will pose a massive problem for the future unless we start dismantling them quickly (the explosive can be diluted and used in power plants).

3. Stop eating meat - sorry but its 7x the waste in energy over equivalent mass of vegetables. I still would love a good steak once in a while but the numbers don’t responsibly add up. Above and beyond that the correlation to heart disease is high enough to consider it a slow suicide like smoking tobacco (do straight nicotine instead, no proven problems there!). The fat you see in the animal, its solid consistency - this is the same in your veins (by the way the only way to stop eating meat is to find some really good vegetables: supermarket stuff tastes awful so try other sources).

4. Become a student, you realize you are still able to learn! I am a student this year and it feels like it is matching precisely with what research has found. If you train yourself to think and learn you become more mentally elastic, new cells are actually created and stress seems to dip down. Especially if combined with intense (lose your breath) exercise and a decent diet there is much for your personal health with going back to Uni to study something.

You can follow this technique to walk while reading the paper. You hold the paper up in your hands in such a way that you can see where your feet are going with peripheral vision while you walk with a good pace. The peripheral vision is sensitive to motion and bright dark contrast so you may not be able to notice a gray shape coming into the visual field representing a street lamp with which you violently collide.

better. (It could certainly be shorter.) But this is as good as it’ll get, because I haven’t given myself time.

It’s been one of those weeks (again). Having said yes once or twice too often, the deadlines have piled up and my evenings have evaporated like the steam rising from my keyboard. And all the while, in the back of my head, a little red light is blinking the words ‘Project 10’ at me. Like one of those warning lamps on the dashboard you don’t quite understand, and which you ignore until something explodes.

The deadline for this piece arrived on Friday, and I duly fired off my email to Steve. But instead of an attachment full of finely crafted words, it carried some rather pathetic apologies and a plea for more time. Which is why it’s now Sunday evening.

But what a lovely thing to be asked to do! To contribute to something like this. Who wouldn’t say yes? So I said yes. Of course I did.

Focus, focus, focusFocus. That’s the thing. If I’ve learnt one thing this year, it’s that serious creative work requires focus. Discipline.

Unfortunately, this is the same thing I learnt last year. (And the one before that, if I recall.)

I’m writing a novel too, you see. I know, I know. But this year it’s true. There are now almost 60,000 words in a folder on my Mac. I’m within sight of the end. It’s tremendously exciting.

And you know what? I haven’t clicked that folder for a month. Okay, longer. Lack of focus, you see. Too much on the plate. Even when the project in question is the one thing I could legitimately call a ‘lifelong ambition’.

I’ve learnt the trick with paying work. Even when there are four of five jobs on at once, you just have to push all of them aside except one, and focus totally on that. I can do that. Something about a deadline, set by people who will pay good money if you deliver (and won’t if you don’t) provides the focus I otherwise lack.

So the paying jobs get done, and the novel languishes. This is kind of the right way round, of course. My children stay fed and clothed, and my wife has yet to get around to divorcing me. This is a good thing.

Self-editing is deathBut Steve asked what I’ve learnt this

year that will inspire me in 2011. And what I’ve really learnt – which is more cheerful than all that humbug about overladen plates – is that I can plough my way through almost 60,000 words of a novel, and get within a final lunge of

The End. I’ve managed to do this, in spite of

my Focus Issues, by not looking back. I’ve managed to write nearly 60,000 words because I’ve only read about 200 of them.

This is my other big lesson: don’t look back until you reach the end.

This began with National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, the online writing challenge. When you sign up to NaNoWriMo, you join an international community of writers, all aiming to complete a book of 50,000 words or more in just one month. (November, as it happens.)

Well, I signed up. And a few days into November 2009, I broke my wrist trying to get fit. (Another lesson learned.) So that was that.

However, once free of the plaster, I decided to carry on anyway, following the key NaNoWriMo principle: never look back. If you want to write anything of any length, write it. For God’s sake don’t read it. You’ll find yourself tinkering obsessively with a paragraph, and writing nothing new. Self-editing is death.

This is the NaNoWriMo pledge: even if you find yourself writing what you know for a fact is utter shit (and you will), you just keep going. Word upon word. Page upon page. It’s about quantity, not quality.

Dig first, shape laterI’ve come to think of it like the process of making pottery. The first thing you have to do, before anything else, is dig your raw material out of the ground. Shovel after shovel, until you have enough of the messy, unrefined stuff to start sifting through it, finding the promising bits, sticking them together and shaping them into something pleasing.

In the past, I’ve teneded to stumble across intriguingly shaped nuggets, and immediately get to work prodding and polishing them. This is how you end up with lots of beautifully crafted, quite unrelated and pretty unsatisfying bits and pieces.

Much better, I’ve realised, to take that first nugget as a promising sign that there’s more to be found. Put it in your pocket, save it for later, and start digging.

So this is what I’ve learnt, and what will inspire me in 2011. (1) If you try to do too many things, you don’t do any of them well enough. Do less, better. And (2) Don’t even think about the pot until you’ve got the clay.

Right. A couple more little jobs to do, then I can go to bed. And look: only five to midnight. Maybe I’m learning my lessons after all.

do Less, beTTer. lessons from 2010

funny manby yates buckley

by mike reeD

Yates is Founding Partner and Technical Director of Unit9. He is, contrary to what he’s written here, a very funny man whose wit and humour is only over-shadowed by his intellect and patience whilst having to tolerate and suffer my comapny.

Mike is Copywriter and Creative Director for his company Reed Words. A brillliant wordsmith working with many of the UK’s leading design consultancies including Hat-trick, Johnson Banks, The Chase, 300million, The Partners and Landor.

OK, another year zips by in the blink of eye. Poke is one year older, turning nine and entering a new decade on December 6th 2010. It genuinely feels like a handful of days ago that the original six of us were sitting in a Smithfields café debating whether ‘Poke’ was a good name or not and what we would actually be doing.

Well, part of that argument still remains – I’ll leave it to you to guess which part! However, the fact is that in reality, that was a VERY long time ago and although it may sometimes feel like the daily grind and that I’d rather be riding horses in much warmer climes (which will probably only make sense to a few of you), several things have happened this year that have served as a welcome reminder not to get caught in the rut and that the ‘grind’ can be avoided.

The rut is a result of repetition, an arduous road to nowhere, well ultimate retirement perhaps, but not an enjoyable path to be treading. The rut is simply a road to regret. It’s a route that only serves to sadly bypass the many opportunities that exist around you and can be spotted if you make the effort to take the time out to do other stuff.

But the rut isn’t necessarily bad – it’s probably the thing you do everyday - the thing that pays the bills and keeps your mind intellectually and creatively exercised, but it needn’t be a solo effort. It’s repetition that’s the devil. Exploring new things that you enjoy or want to learn more about will result in meeting new people, creating new ideas, give you more stuff to talk about and challenge you not to repeat, repeat, repeat…whether that’s in the day job, or elsewhere.

It’s a cliché, but very true, variety is definitely the spice of life. It adds f lavour and opens up the chance to try something different, breaking you out of your comfortable way of doing things.

Just looking up now and scanning around the Poke studio, it’s amazing how many people have extra-curricular ‘hobbies’ and interests that keep them off the streets at night or, as in many instances, are cash earners. And every one of them is inspiring.

Nik Roope just launched the Plumen (http://plumen.com/) - the world’s first designer energy saving light bulb. Peter Gaaston is about to publish his first book – The Book of CSS3 (http://amzn.to/f4sTT4) and Katy Theakston is in a similar situation with a book about how to encourage woman to put some creativity back into their lives. Ben Tomlinson built a meat smoker recently and the truly legendary Fox

Twins™ are devising new ways to top this years epic Fangoria (http://www.boingboing.net/2010/09/07/steampunk-horror-sho.html).

And it doesn’t just stop here, over the pond, Poke NY’s Tegu project encourages creativity, innovation and problem-solving through play (http://live.tegu.com/).

It’s not up to Poke to veto or approve whether these projects can occur, but it’s in the interests of the team to encourage and support them where we can. They are passions; creative channels beyond the day-to-day, which not only serve as an additional release, they keep everyone else keenly interested and intrigued. I think almost every Poker has ‘experienced’ Fangoria, eaten smoked cheese from Ben’s smoker and is lighting a room or two with one of Dr. Roope’s bulbs.

Me? Well I’ve a few things on the go. The first is Internet Week. Perhaps not as clearly divisible from Poke as building a meat smoker, but separate from the day-to-day and was a massive challenge. Starting as a late night chat in a bar and finishing twelve weeks later as a festival of 130+ web related events across London. November was packed with meeting new people. People that I’d never normally get the opportunity to hook up with and be inspired by - it’s amazing to see how many great things are going on, literally on the doorstep. I’d like to name check everyone here who helped, but the list would go on and on, but you know who you are – thank you.

The second is something that’s a product of Internet Week – OpenShop. This is now a not-for profit organisation established to introduce students to the creative businesses that they could be shaping in the future. The first OpenShop during Internet Week was a surprise success and 200 students spent a very cold day visiting a host of agencies who kindly opened their doors for the day.

There’s one final project in the making, involving a certain Mr.Singh and Mr.Roope and the very action of mentioning it here will mean it has to start! I’ve talked too much about it and now need to do it – hopefully more on this next year.

So don’t repeat and get caught in a rut. Finish this year happily and start the next with a plan in mind to try something new along side the day job. Step out of your comfort zone, learn something, meet new people and get excited about stuff. It’s only wet, cold and dark out in January – what else will you be doing?

by nick farnhill

comfort Reaching for a metaphor I find one with a Christmassy bent, a lovely gummy, sticky Stilton cheese. Remember that conversation as a child when your mum had told you

how it was bad to eat the mould collecting on old bread, fruit and that which collects on the underside of the toilet rim, only then to pronounce blue cheeses as containing “good mould.” How fucking confusing is that? “MUM, is mould good or bad!?“

As I got older, maturity gave me the capacity to tackle ambivalence. Yes, mould could be good AND bad. So my 2010 was a bit like that realisation all over again, starting with some difficult tectonic plate shifts in the business, causing a few volcanoes to spring up here and there and piss hot lava over our picnic. When you’re caught in a shower of lava and your umberella has just melted, try

to remember that at some point the huge billowing bastard is going to run out of steam and hey, if you lucky, you might find you’re standing on a tasty new land-mass formed freshly out of the sea, hey, you could even be standing on Iceland! (not to be confused with Bejam).

And to the themes of the 2010, this was the year of boast-post digital. Who was the most post-dig? Whose sense of internet “place” had dwindled the most in the emphatic embrace of the big f luffy cloud. Every cloud is supposed to have a silver lining isn’t it? Well I think that’s bollocks.

Boast-post-digit is blue cheese with loo mould on it instead of the good stuff. If we’re brilliant at one thing in our business it’s getting really carried away chasing mirages. And when a collective mirage has formed over the bare, hot desert f loor we’ve all got to play along somehow, we’ve all got to acknowledge it like with that emperor blokes clothes that he’s clearly not wearing. Finally, as the crowd made their final steps towards the glistening pool and watched it

dry up before their eyes, I felt a sigh of relief. Maybe now we can just tell a straight story again, one that just accepts and works around dry deserts and pasty, naked emperors.

So what did 2010’s little rollercoaster teach me as it charged around the wiggly track that was clearly designed by nervous psychopaths? If you can count an ‘affirmation’ as a ‘lesson’ then I was firmly reminded this year how despite the rampantly changing landscape, creativity is

key. And not just any key, the kind of mythical key my dad told me about when I was a kid that could literally open any damn lock you stuck it in. And why is this news? Back to our industry tendencies again for one moment, in addition to our gift for inventing not-very-useful paradigms to riff off, we’re also pretty good at getting sucked into technology’s inherent complexities. And when you get sucked

in deep you quickly lose your sense of humour. Do you reckon a trapped potholer can crack a joke down there or is he too focused on his likely peril deep in some naturally occurring

undergound network of tiny caves and passages? Trapped pot-holers aren’t creative because they’ve got other things on their minds. Creativity would send a trained rat down the hole with a webcam on it so we could all see how the underground matrix fits together on a laptop whilst sitting by the camp fire, drinking whisky and telling dirty jokes.

As it’s all slowly occurred to us that the social media bubble isn’t actually full of air but gold (some weird invisible gold), I’ve sensed a kind of panic in the air. And as usual answers and theories start spring up like mole hills in the garden. But unlike the blind moles, we rarely trust our sense of smell enough to take the right direction. And here again, creativity as a raw tool for unravelling confusion has triumphed. Creativity, when angled correctly, is like an x-ray machine, revealing the true stories underneath, so you can see whether something’s actually broken or you’ve just got a difficult wingey patient. Making stuff grounds things immensely. And this year has certainly been the year of making stuff. A seduction competition in chatroulette, the most tagged photo of all time, making art-to-order in five corners of the planet and a re-run of a certain balloon race have all taught us well. Making stuff teaches you just like Robin Williams teaches his class in Dead Poets Society. If someone told me otherwise I’d climb up on my desk and start stamping on it, god damn it!

2010 was also the year I got the world’s first designer energy saving light bulb to market. Lots of faces are left blank when I explain how I’m a creative director doing a lot of internet stuff and a light bulb and telephone industrialist and inventor. It’s seems entirely plausible to me, after all, understanding how the web is just a mass of conversations these days and doing something physical that simply lives off that insight makes total sense to me. How could so many people have read Unleashing the Ideavirus and still not got that?

The launch of the Plumen bulb after three years of struggle and uncertainly rounded off the year very nicely. There I was suddenly sitting in a tall winged chair, to one side a little plate of scrummy oat cakes, sweet chutney and f lakey wedges of pongey stilton cheese and to the front, the fire of accomplishment crackling and glowing with warmth. It’s good to have remembered what was important and to have clung on to it so tightly.

hat as 2010? by nicolas roope

Nick Farnhill is one of the founders and partners of Poke, an agency that needs no introduction. He is also Co-Chariman and the brains behind the hugely successful ‘Internet Week Europe’. He is also (now) one of the enlisted Elders of Meatclub; being a former President and all.

Nicolas Roope is also one of the founders of Poke, an agency that still needs no introduction. He is also the man behind the Hulgar phone (www.hulger.com) and his newest creation, The Plumen Bulb - energy saving never looked this good before: www.plumen.com

It was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, it was a pretty good year. At least until about halfway through it, when the person I trusted the most betrayed me in a cowardly, hurtful way, leaving me with all these thoughts of anger, guilt and self pity that just keeps spinning in my head, around and around, putting a definite halt to my creative endeavours. Which is a pity because apart from that I now realize that actually, It was a pretty good year!

by nille svensson

Left, a piece taken from Nille’s current collection ‘Fake China’: www.fake-china.com

So, this is the final brief of the year. And possibly the scariest? The little voice says that this is about me. What do I really think I’ve achieved? Errr. Nothing? Nada? Zilch? Which means I have no starting point. But certainly an end. Then a second voice reminds me there’s maybe a tie in to music…a song reference? And I can find a song reference almost anywhere. So maybe this won’t be so impossible after all…..

This year, I have mainly been busy. Done a lot. Like cancelled New Blood, our graduating creatives showcase. Then after massive reaction, reinstated it. And pulled off an amazing show in half the time, but with five times as many events to help launch new creatives into our changing industry. And that’s something that’s not just about me.

I have also learnt a lot about creating sustainable business models. Something that I had blindly chosen to ignore. That’s the numbers stuff. It’s something that other people have to worry about. I do the ’important/creative/inspirational’ stuff…

...and that’s the funny thing about education work. It’s something that everyone agrees is a good thing to do, but given the choice, is the first thing that people feel can be cut out of budgets. Yes, investing in talent is all very important – but actually, when the lines are drawn, am I going to invest in it? What do I get from it? Are we all essentially selfish?

The concern however is that this attempt not to invest now; because there is a recession, or because the company is small, or perhaps because we need to just wait and see another 6

months, is ultimately short sighted. Four years from now, where will be the creative thinkers of the future be? Still looking for work because no-one will offer them a placement?

But this is the message we’re receiving from the Government. That education is important enough not to cut, but not so important we can’t actually trim it, or make you find you own way to pay for it. The money is still there, it’s just that it gets redirected somewhere else first. Or that we need to invest in science and technology, not art.

And then we get something amazing like the Arcade Fire’s Wilderness Downtown. A unique combination of art, music, design and technology and science but also something that could be personalised. It’s this feeling of personalisation that has seen a band that has never had a hit single go on to headline the Reading Festival. Where they were awesome.

It’s also been a sign that something that’s easily dismissible as ‘arty’ can have mass appeal. And also that ‘arty’ can be fun. That’s the beauty of digital media, and why our industry is so good at it. It’s just that sometimes you need to be reminded how many people appreciate the good things, when we’re told that society is dumbing down – it’s not all about X-Factor! What would happen if the Arcade Fire went through our education system in the UK now? Who will be their equivalent in ten years time?

So I thought it was about me – actually it’s about you. What can you do? Well, in the spirit of looking forward, the resolution has to be change our behaviour. Get involved. Give people and new ways of working a chance.

geT invoLved by rhiannon james

So I thought it was about me – actually it’s about you. What can you do? Well, in the spirit of looking forward, the resolution has to be change our behaviour. Get involved. Give people and new ways of working a chance.

Nille Svensson is a brilliant mind. Formerly one of the founders of Sweden Graphics he is now firmly rooted in his new venture under his own name: Studio Nille Svensson (www.nillesvensson.com)

Senior Manager, Education & Professional Development at D&AD. She also met Dave Grohl once.

Two thousand and ten has been what I’d consider a success. We’ve been working hard at the things creative agencies do, especially pitching ideas. We had many successes this year but a few got away. I’d like to share some of them.

The first relates to a tough energy related sporting challenge that required a quick turnaround. I took pleasure in telling the Paris based conglomerate that the best way to galvanise support in this moaning, whingeing, divided island - is to develop a red top style campaign that unites the British against – yes you guessed it the French. And of course the Belgians, Dutch Germans, Spanish and Italians... ‘Doing it for the team’ activities included: trampolining in your new light bulbs, throwing items into the recycling bin and most amusingly urinating on the vegetable patch. All were practise exercises for an Internet TV ‘It’s a Knockout’ style energy European challenge. Bringing pure entertainment to an increasingly overly worthy topic.

Then there was the Marine Core challenge, which focussed on finding potential Royal Marine’s out in the wild. It took a very

involved approach to recruitment, unlocking information by actively involving you in the actual process. The better you perform, the more you learn and the closer you get to making a successful application. Observing the process others are undertaking lets you the merely interested learn more about this venerable regiment. Routed in the physical environment it would play out across a multitude of digital devices, in an ARG way.

In a related pitch, we threw in lots of semantic web technology and blurred the idea of what a web site is and the boundaries that define it. It didn’t come off then but this approach has appeared in other projects later in the year.

Back when the sun was shining and before we realised we have very few world-class footballers, we almost managed to get a twitter-based football game up and running for the start of the World Cup. But you get no points for not delivering. The idea still stands, but like England needs more skill applied to improve it’s passing.

With only a few minutes to spare we cooked up some mad housing ideas that involved a helicopter, a muddy festival, a show home and cool new bands. Could have been potentially damaging or just a lot of fun. Too rushed for this year, we hope it will happen in 2011. Fingers crossed.

There was the European Institute for Better Planning, designed to help sell more smart phones and improve their usage amongst laggards and undecideds. Featuring an intriguing comic character, Professor Gustav and his sidekick Doctor Sylvia, who would prescribe a series of easy to follow tutorials that worked with your personality to bring you a ‘better life’. It scored highly in the creativity stakes but failed to tip the balance with those pesky user experience people who did an about turn and opted for the security of the familiar. As a result I’m not expecting an upsurge in smart phone sales any time soon (iPhone excepted). Hopefully this won’t be the last we see of Gustav & Co.

In another energy related sporting task we planned to create

a human sized pinball machine, in which you the viewer would score an ‘energy fit’ goal. Designed for maximum viewing pleasure this Heath Robinsonesque contraption proved too expensive to pull off. However elements of it did live on in what you know see as the FA Cup Ticket competition.

As the year was coming to a close it had one cruel twist to play in the idea rejection stakes. Working on a tricky charity brief about child sponsorship we pulled out the interactive video stops to promote unforgettable moments. You would simply work through the short animated videos until you found a moment worth sharing. It had the right mix of emotion, interaction and message but we were told it was too ambitious… Shame, but I hope the core idea lives to see another day.

I think it was Dan Draper (with the help of several great scriptwriters) that said “there is little difference between a good and bad idea, it’s just good ideas always win out”. I hope they do.

This might not be everyone’s way to remember an annum, but rejection and failure is what makes you stronger and your work better. It would be easy to blame the client for these rejections but we needed to better sell and develop the ideas too. It takes bags of effort to be successful, so never ever give up.

neverGiveup

Without change, I’d be out of a job, and there has been a huge amount of it this year. At SomeOne we’ve launched, relaunched or managed around 100 new brands, products, services and organisations worldwide — and been asked to create many more. It’s been a record year for us, taking on more creative minds and more demanding projects that are taking our skills to a global stage.

I’ve personally had a fascinating year after announcing the Logo dead — first on Twitter then in the Design press and finally in the newspapers and magazines around the world. It’s stimulated lots of thinking, letters and conversation which has led to me giving a lecture around it at D&AD at this years PechaKucha and being invited to hold a public session on it next May. It’s proved again to me that it’s ideas, not aesthetics that get people really excited.

Announcing the death of anything is a tricky issue, and it’s lead me to look at a variety of issues that are surrounding design and how the death of some ideas are leading to new thoughts emerging elsewhere. I thought I’d use this article to have a look at a new death in the family... .

The Death of MinimalismWhile we were creating the new visual brand for Eurostar (which

launches early 2011) there were many debates in the studio about the kind of approach we should take. A phrase often heard from co-founder Gary Holt is ‘The problem is complex, so the solution should be simple.’ I’ve always loved this and have recited it myself many a time in meetings and clients always seem to enjoy the sentiment. However, when looking at what we’ve created for Eurostar nothing could be further from the truth.

The new branding for Eurostar includes many different ideas, applications and materials, from brushed steel to oak, grass to speckled duck eggs. There’s ornate bespoke typefaces. A different secondary set of visual brand identities for each class of service of which there are three. Individual design work for the many initiatives Eurostar runs, from it’s Tread Lightly ecological program to it’s Culture Connect system that opens Europe’s cultural institutions to the traveller. There’s commissioned photography, film work, animations and colour schemes. We created a custom set of onboard signage, symbols and pictograms. Then there is the transmedia applications, websites, apps, blogs and advertising on a global scale, coming from three countries of origin.

It’s a deep re-brand, that intends to ref lect the international train companies push to create new levels of customer service — to be always moving forward in all that it does. All of the things customers and staff see and use will now carry branding that connects together in a visually coherent way, yet all these branded surfaces are crafted and created with that particular medium, message and purpose in mind.

But no one could call it simple. In fact it’s one of the richest, deepest re-brands I’ve seen for years. Which led us to realise that if we had taken a minimalist approach we would have missed a huge raft of communication opportunities. I know some large traditional design companies (and many small so-called-cool ones too) that have a blanket ban on using anything other than a core set of 2—3 typefaces. Bespoke typefaces are out of the question there — which is a terrible shame, a custom cut font can brand things without the need for a logo, and be actually useful to boot.

The approach of simply badging everything is minimal. Minimal in it’s thought, craft and care to what the end user, the customer — people — will get out of it. We’re currently re-branding what aims to be the UK’s finest Country House & Estate. It’s a listed building of such charm and beauty that even the plasterwork is listed.

They have to restore around the delicate curls and crests that adorn the walls and ceilings. And it’s beautiful. It’s preserved for a reason, because it’s ornate, maximalist approach deeply resonates with people, they love looking at the ornate decoration — it has no real purpose, it just feels good.

Or does it? Perhaps there is a purpose here — perhaps Maximalist thinking has lots to offer us in an ever changing, less personal, digital world. In fact if you look at places that are apparently chaotic, like the Dharavi Slum in Mumbai, India the people are largely very inspired and happy. The richness of the environment outweighs their financial poverty (even though there are clusters of millionaires who live there) — We humans get tired of looking at blank walls, more than tired, it frustrates us, causes us pain — we use those blank walls as punishment when we send people to solitary confinement. (and is there anything worse than a minimalist Christmas?)

My wife, the brilliant designer, Amelia Noble is currently designing a book on Baroque Art. I was looking through some of the early layouts with her and was set thinking, are future generations going to look back at so called minimalists and gasp in awe at their ability to clear a room or employ large swathes of white space in place of beautifully crafted ideas? Baroque was used in churches with the intention to make people fall to their knees and surrender their soul to God. I just don’t see minimalism doing this to contemporary consumers.

Pseudo Minimalism is different to the real deal. The real thing contains a balance of maximalist context. Japanese Zen Gardens are extraordinarily complex in the construction. The thought the goes behind the placement of each element is as maximalist as it gets, crafted over hundreds of years these gardens appear minimal, but this is balanced with the complexities of nature, weather, wildlife and plants as microscopic as moss. Compare this with a big yellow square and poorly kerned Helvetica headline and they are poles apart.

Its easy to look at past triumphs widely seen to be classics and to use them as counterpoint to contemporary attempts at new thinking — and of course to dismiss these new attempts as paltry second-bests. I’m not saying that minimalist thinking and applications have no place in modern-day life at all.

John Pawson’s bridge at Kew Gardens is a eloquent example of how well crafted, carefully considered and balanced minimalism can work in a maximalist environment. Chanel No.5, Givenchy, B&O all have well crafted branding that operates in contextually ostentatious sectors via minimalistic application.

My argument here is that aesthetic simplicity is increasingly seen as a smart choice — even when the thinking, craft and strategy behind the results is poor. I think it’s time those commissioning creative responses for marketing look behind the reams of white sold by the Pseuds and discover if they are getting a beautifully made and effective result — or if they are the victim of yet another ‘simple’ creation from simpletons more interested in an easy life and tidy margins.

is it minimal? or just Dull? by simon manchipp

by simon Gill

Simon Gill is a brilliant person. He may be from the north but he’s a true gent. The kind that when he asks how you are he actually listens to the response and cares. He’s also Executive Creative Director at LBi, as well as the finest Presidenté of Meatclub we’ve ever had. No pressure given that this meaty mantel has been handed on to myself and Matt Wells.

Simon Manchipp... If ever there were a person to make me feel like a midget it is Simon. He is very tall. Which perhaps aids and adds volume to his views on all things branding and design. Simon is the founder of the highly coverted branding agency SomeOne: www.someoneinlondon.com

A small selection of some of the other projects I have been involved with over the past twelve months. Most of which, I am glad to say, are on-going.

1-3. Logo, creative and design direction consultancy for ‘Hvitbryggen’ (The White Wharf) an architecture redevelopment project in the North Norwegian Arctic Circle.

4. ‘NO’ A collaborative project still in pre-production coming to an app store near you soon.

5. Over the past twelve months I’ve written several articles for the D&AD’s Educational web site.

6. She Says - a brilliant organisation to help, advise and promote female talent in the creative industry. I’ve happily volunteered to help at portfolio evenings. It’s a hard life but someone has to do it.

7. MoFoBros - a logo for my Movember Team. which consisted of me and my dad. But we raised over £250! 8. Pecha Kucha. Prior to my decision to leave Bergen I applied and was successful in been given the rights and permission to host the Pecha Kucha nights in Bergen.

9. A series of logo ideas for a project called ‘Love Triangle’. Still in development.

10. LCRN - a 16 page newspaper designed for the London Community Resource Network.

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