HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY.

Over the weekend me and Tony worked up some posters for Holocaust Memorial Day.

It was a stream of emails back and forth until we got to this conclusion. (images below)

The insight is that history is repeating itself.

Anti-semitism has increased across Europe.

And Holocaust Memorial Day is the perfect time to remind everyone to learn from the past.

And not become it.

MIX IT UP LIKE JOSHUA

Last night Anthony Joshua beat Andy Ruiz JR by unanimous decision to reclaim his titles.

Everyone expected the fight not to go the distance.

Either Ruiz would have Joshua's number and TKO him again.

Or Joshua would train like a man possessed and KO Ruiz in revenge.

It was so easy to predict because everyone had seen their fights in the past.

Everyone knew what type of fighters they were.

Joshua would always use his power to win the fight aiming to KO his opponent.

He was a fighter that came forward, never fighting off the back foot.

He would try to box but naturally was a brawler.

While Ruiz had the fastest hands in the division, catching his opponent out of nowhere with a fury of punches Mexican style.

Ruiz didn't have great footwork but he made up for it with his speed and granite chin.

And it proved successful beating Joshua via TKO in Madison Square Garden, making it the biggest shock in the modern era of boxing.

But the rematch was a completely different affair.

While Ruiz was the same fighter like before, Joshua was completely different.

Instead of coming forward he fought off the back foot, making space between him and Ruiz.

Instead of going in with heavy punches he utilised his jab picking his punches.

Every time Ruiz tried to land a punch on the inside Joshua would dodge and clinch him, smothering his attack.

Joshua made himself awkward, made himself hard to hit, used his size and reach.

The sweet science of boxing is to hit and not get hit, and Joshua did just that for 12 rounds.

But it wasn't his fighting style that was different, it was even his physique.

Instead of being heavy with muscle and having a bodybuilder physique, Joshua came in much lighter with less muscle, making himself slimmer.

This made him quicker in the ring to avoid Ruiz's fast hands, and also made him less prone to getting tired because he wasn't carrying so much weight.

Even his appearance was different.

Joshua wasn't clean cut, instead he had a unkept beard and his hair was growing out.

It just showed he only had eyes for this fight, nothing else.

It felt like I was looking at Joshua's smaller scuffer twin, but with a purpose.

Joshua had changed everything about himself to win.

While Ruiz didn't change anything, just gained more weight.

The gulf in quality was there to see.

The one dimensional fighter vs the fighter that can mix things up.

The lose was a blessing in disguise because it forced Joshua to be a better fighter.

To expand his skill set.

To show he can do more then throw heavy punches and win by KO.

But that can be clever, outbox his opponent for 12 straight rounds.

Discipline himself, pick when to attack and when to defend.

And stick to the plan.

The best people in their profession can change like a chameleon, shake up their style for the win.

Thats why when I am practicing I don't try and do one style of thinking, I spread myself out.

I'll make sure my traditional advertising is up to scratch with my untraditional advertising, so that I can switch between them when trying to crack a brief.

So that I have a plan B, C, D, E and F.

This fight was an inspiring example.

Never limit yourself, mix it up like Joshua.

THE 10 BOOK COMMANDMENTS

Just a week ago I was at the pub having a drink with this year's Watford, one the members of the class asked me how they should go about laying out their book, they told me there wasn't a written rule concerning preparing your book, so I felt I would answer that with a post of all the knowledge/experience I gathered over the years organising my book and going to critics.

I hope this serves everyone well now and into the future when they come to the task of organising their first book for this cut throat industry known as advertising, so in no particular order THE 10 BOOK COMMANDMENTS!

1. Thou shall be clinical - Have no more then 5-7 big campaign ideas in your book, but don't force yourself to make it 7, less is more, and great advertising has always been built around the art of simplicity.

Plus just having one shit campaign idea can make your whole book crumble, because thats what your potential employers will remember and talk about after the critic, about how shit that campaign idea in your book was, and how that other book they saw before you was soo much better, they couldn't pick out a bad idea!

And coming from a potential employer's perceptive; 5 of your strongest campaign ideas also make for a more clinical book, it shows you can judge your own work making the creative director's life easier.

2. Thou shall have well known brands - Well known brands speak volumes for your thinking if you crack them, and not a lot of these well known brands have good advertising, most of the time it's shocking, it's bad, which gives you the chance as a young up and coming creative to show you can do better then whats coming out.

One of the troubles of having brands not well known in your book is the idea will be lost, if you don't know the brand you won't really get the idea, which makes the magic of your thinking none existent.

3. Thou shall have some work other then advertising - The term creative doesn't just mean advertising, and that should be embodied in your book, don't just have advertising have other creative work.

Me and my creative partner are currently writing/designing potential publications (we are looking for a literacy agent at this moment in time), before that we designed and made a t-shirt to support breastfeeding in public, we went out our way to get it professionally printed by a t-shirt company. (Wieden + Kennedy London is a client)

What this tells potential employers is that I got someone who is creative 24/7, outside of advertising. (outside the job)

This is exactly what Tony means when he talks about being a modern renaissance man/woman, Leonardo Da Vinci wasn't just a painter, he was a inventor, sculpture, architect, musician, writer, the list goes on.

I am not saying you should be anything and everything, but its good you have other creative outlets, to show your skill set goes beyond commercial work.

4. Thou shall self promote thyself - Get yourself across social media, the creative community knew about me before I went though the doors of Watford, I was known as Creative Brummie on twitter, and built a reputation of being prolific with my One Minute Brief entries. (it earned me an award)

Branding/self promotion shows confidence in yourself, and sets you apart from the crowd, yes your work should speaks for itself but I feel self-branding is the cherry on the cake.

It could be a really cool logo for you or your team (we have one of those), or you have a cool name for your team, in my old team we called ourselves 'PotterScotch' combining our last names to sound like a tasty sweet, from there we could of turned our website into a sweet shop.

You see how branding yourself opens doors to giving your book a creative skin.

It could be something more disruptive then a skin, it could be a stunt or a video.

There was a team once offered a free taxi ride for a book critic in return, it got in all the major advertising publications, all the major players in advertising where reading it and even ending up in the taxi, this eventually lead to the team getting loads of placements.

I think the best way to summarise this all is imagine you are your own agency, what is your image, your culture, what makes you different from the rest of the competition.

4. Thou shall show thy can be serious and funny - A book shows how you speak as a creative, and if you can only provide one tone of voice, you come across one dimensional.

The best creatives can be a serious and funny, but always different.

This comes down to the brands you tackle, from a disposable like a sweet, to a more financially  demanding brand like a bank or car.

With bigger brands you have to be serious because your audience is making a financially serious decision on what they buy into, for example cars aren't disposable so you can't make a ridiculous insight that won't have a major benefit, which won't effect that major decision in their life.

While a sweet isn't a financially serious decision, its not a life and death situation, your only spending 50p, a quid tops, so a funny observational truth doesn't need a major benefit.

Also the audience you tackle can affect the tone of voice of your book, and mould and shape it anyway you like. The easy way out for a lot of student books is targeting a young audience like themselves, but the true art is targeting people that are a complete opposite to you're age/life style.

Imagine you're a method actor and you have to embody your role (audience), whether it be a single mum, or a pensioner, this comes down to understanding them, catching a insight in their life, turning that into an idea, which will eventually be executed through a tone of voice that can communicate to them perosnally.

Tell me, would you rather be Daniel Day Lewis or Jason Statham? (talking about overall ability, not action sequences)

5. Thou shall try to have different brands in thy book - I have already mentioned this in having funny and serious in your book, about having range of brands to create a perfect tone of voice, but if I was to say anything else about picking brands is to pick brands in different categories; food, tourism, car etc.

This will make sure you have a range of brands that aren't remotely similar, for example having Pukka Pies in your book but then having McVitie's is too similar, both snacks and both in the food category.

The golden merit in a book is to cover the big six (this fits under the bracket of having well known brands in your book), the big six as Tony (former tutor) would put it are the biggest/hardest brands to crack for your book, and these are the brands that bring in the big bucks for the agencies, so if you can prove you can crack them then you have potential to be a valuable asset to the company.

- Bank/Insurance
- Airline
- Beer
- Car
- Supermarket
- Tourism

In the modern age I feel phone networks/broadband should be added to this list.

6. Thou shall write less - This comes down to how simple your ideas are, if your ideas are simple, it won't require much writing to explain them, or no writing. Explaining your idea before you even show them almost insults the clarity of your thinking (the line is suppose to explain your idea), but if you have to it might not be a good idea for your book.

It is understandable if its a untraditional idea where you have to explain the mechanic, but even then you need to keep the writing down to a minimum.

The reason this is important is creatives/creative directors don't have time to read though your ideas, they'll skim through your book like a magazine, just seeing a block of writing before the idea will put them off, I know it does for me because I got the attention span of a toddler and that isn't a rare trait in the industry.

I think you need to imagine your seeing your book as an average joe walking down the road, he isn't going to stand there and read though it, he needs to get it in seconds, thats why working in poster is invaluable exercise because it teaches you to be quick with your ideas.

7. Thou shalt not just have a website but a physical book as well - This might be a unpopular rule with physical books becoming redundant, because websites are easier to share plus everyone holding a smart phone or carrying around a laptop nowadays, so why do you need a physical book?

Presentation. Talking directly to art directors here, you're sweat and tears in visually laying out and communicating your work will only really be appreciated if it was presented in it's grandeur like it would be in the Tate Modern, showing it on a tiny laptop screen won't bring it justice, this goes especially for print.

You want your audience to be immersed in the work, and that only achievable if doesn't require squinting at it on a screen, plus you want to present it 'in the real' like you where seeing it for the first time on a billboard, or bus shelter.

Which goes on to my next point, if you do go out and get a physical book make sure its A3, you'll be wasting your time getting it A4, you might as well show it on the laptop.

I feel lot of agencies that will appreciate this, especially the really hands on ones like Wieden and Kennedy who really love craft.

And a final point, with the saturation of books on laptops you will stand out.

8. Thou shalt not have brands in thy book that already have good advertising - There is no point tackling a brand when it already has great advertising, you're work will only be compared to it during critic, lowering the standards of your book.

However what said earlier about having well known brands in your book, there are plenty of big/well known brands that have terrible advertising, that if you crack will position you above the competition, so its a reverse effect if you pick the right brands.

But if you ever wanted to tackle the Nike's, Burger King's and Guinness's of this world you need to find a problem thats relevant and in the now for these brands, something they haven't acknowledged themselves, that can't be compared to past work, this will show great strategic thinking and awareness of the market.

Brands will always have problems, the challenge is spotting them.

9. Thou shall always start strong and finish strong - This is straight forward and comes down to the decision making of the campaign ideas you pick for your book, and how you organise them throughout.

During the the critic you want them to straight away have a good impression of you and your book with a nice simple campaign idea, and to leave with a good impression of you with your strongest idea at the end of the book.

Of course the work in between has to be at a high standard, but organising it also important, your book should be a like a story, it hooks you in at the start and grows until the finale blows you away.

10. Thou shall not have topical ideas that go out of date, unless they get publicity - You will see alot of books where people cover topical material that won't be relevant after month or even just a couple of days, do you remember Obama Care, do you remember Kony 2012?

How long will it be until Brexit becomes a distance memory, and we all get on with our normal lives, unless they extend it again!

It almost makes your ideas out of date doesn't it.

Other stuff could be using a individual to create a campaign idea, like using Donald Trump's attitude, how he effects the product or just using him literally appearing on every execution, again traditional campaign ideas need longevity, the famous ones like 'IKEA - The wonderful everyday' and 'Snickers - You're not you when you're hungry' can go on for years, and if you have big strategies like this it almost makes your thinking immortal. 

Donald Trump won't be in office for the next 10 years, unless he overrides the government and becomes a dictator.

However if you can make something topical and get it out there on the day/or following day when people are talking about it, that will get media attention, which will show merit that you can get work on the news and talked about amongst the public, something most advertising agencies waste millions, almost billions on and get nothing, not an ounce of attention. (FCK is an exception where a simple press idea gain media attention and awards)

And then you come along, doing it all on your own with pen, paper and some macing magic on photoshop. Great creative wit doesn't cost a arm and a leg, and the agencies will be thinking just imagine what they would do with some money behind them.

HUMANS SPEAK IN STORY

It's been a very very long while since I did a post, but its about time I make this a regular habit, so stay tune.

Recently I have been helping my former tutor Tony with this year's intake, coming in on Friday and reviewing the work to crown campaign of the week.

But coming out of the class I myself am still learning, and thats the wonderful thing about teaching, you as a creative improve as well, its a sharing progress.

And what I learnt from critiquing the work of the students is from the copy side, about being more emotional with what you write.

This is beneficial for me as an art director, because its kind of an advantage to be on both sides of the fence as a creative, knowing the tricks of the trade of a copywriter while drawing your pretty pictures, you don't need to rely on people so much, and it takes pressure off your partner.

I also sometimes think its extremely valuable especially when your writer is sick or on holiday.

Now I have always been disconnected about the emotional tone of voice of advertising, being such a literal individual in language (autism) I would ask what do you mean emotional and how would tackle that in a medium?

Emotional can be anything that talks about human interaction/feeling of a product/service, but also it can be how humanity tells stories about their experiences, and storytelling is a way to tackle emotion in advertising, because as humans we listen to stories and learn and grow through stories.

This makes it the most powerful form of copywriting because humanity is our audience, but people seem to forget that.

A lot of copy can be vague, robotic, filled with facts and figures we don't understand or give two shits about, but telling it though story we can progress that information, like we progress the moral lesson of a fable, or in our case the audience progresses the message of the product/service we are selling.

And to conclude this post quickly before I waffle on, I believe that storytelling is the secret to speaking to humans and not suits, speak story, because HUMANS SPEAK IN STORY.

I'll leave you with some classic examples that can better explains this, so you can hone your craft to storytelling whatever you sell.

WATFORD IS TWEETING

This entry is simply to raise awareness that Watford is officially on Twitter, so if you want to apply for the course or just want to know why I keep on yapping on about it, click on the link below and give this account a follow.

https://twitter.com/watfordcourse

There will be regular posts of great work you will most likely know done by watford alumni, and updates on available places and interview times.

Watford is now trending on social media!

TONY I WANT IN!

Over seven years ago I was sitting at the back of an empty studio space minding my own business, trying to rough out the perfect logo for one of many design modules, but I wasn't on my own for long.

In came a large class of the year above me, followed by an older student who had just came back from work experience, ready to finish his final year.

Everyone sat down as he began to talk about his interests that incidentally lead to his work experience.

I wasn't paying much attention to the talk as it was never intended for me, but as I was not getting anywhere with this perfect logo, I decided to take a break and listen in from the back.

The older student's name was Jolyon and he'd just finished work experience with an advertising agency based in London called VCCP.

I always found advertising a dirty word, a word that meant capitalism, money, suits in high rising skyscrapers and the cold calculated nature of making people buy shit they didn't really need.

But the more I listened in, the more it drove me away from that cynical concept.

Jolyon preached about ideas, ideas not just for commercial work, but ideas in general that make up all sorts of weird and wonderful things.

Thats what pulled me in ideas, not advertising but ideas, because thats the purist form of creativity, thats the starting point of most creative work, whether it be music, film, theatre, design, they all start with an idea, that intrigued me!

And then he said there was a course he was trying to break into, where this guy called Tony would teach you how to master this art, and get you a career doing it for a living.

But what sealed the deal was the challenge, Tony only wanted the best, the fastest thinkers, people with energy and passion, not talent, but energy and passion.

I have always been the impatient type I want to get things down on paper, made, and out the door, I couldn't keep sitting in front of a screen for hours deciding what was the right pantone colour for this particular logo, my best moments in the creative process was when I was coming up with the idea, and here was a course that centred around that, a course to test me whether I was actually good or if it was just all in my head, and if I succeeded I was guaranteed a placement and eventually a job in top agency in London.

After that I gave graphic design another crack, but Watford kept on ringing in my ears, I would keep looking at the site once every few days, it started to become an obsession, and eventually one day I dropped what I was doing in design and said 'I want to be a creative, Tony I want in!'.

If you feel the same click this link >

https://watfordadschool.blogspot.com/2019/05/watford-applications-for-seprtember.html

CONTEXT & BEYOND

After being hired at AMVBBDO last year, I have gradually settled into the agency,

and during that time I have been taking part in social activities like Pub Club.

Every Thursday the agency nominates a pub for everyone go to after work, this is announced through the traditional means of a poster, emailed across everyone's feed.

The guys in control of this are co founders of Pub Club; Scott & Ben.

Usually the posters they do for Pub Club are topical, whether it be something thats happened in the agency that week or general news, but usually its just a poster advertising the pub.

However one week something happened that completely changed the idea of Pub Club.

During Tuesday/Wednesday (can't remember what day), the whole agency was alerted by something naughty happening opposite our building.

A couple was having sex in a hotel room in broad daylight with the curtains open at a CitizenM hotel!

It was the main event of the week, the talk of the agency, well until Thursday.

On the day of Pub Club something happened again opposite the agency building.

The room where the couple had sex before was occupied, but with a message sticked to the window that simply read "PUB CLUB, ROOM 519".

Scott & Ben had 'literally' turned what happened a few days earlier into not just a advertisement for Pub Club, but Pub Club itself!

In the evening CitizenM became a hotel invasion, groups of people from the agency coming every 30 mins, filling up room 519, beers where shared, music was baring.

The night was very memorable, and everyone the following day was talking about how crazy it was.

But it wasn't just the impact of the event, it was how they did it that inspired me.

They didn't look at it as another poster, they went beyond that, they saw a bigger opportunity, a bigger idea, a bigger impact through the context.

At Watford we were always told to get our idea right on print first, that would tell us how simple/clear our idea was.

But when you get that right, ask yourself, how can we make this bigger, how can we make this more then a poster, how can we go beyond with the context of the idea.

Everyone knows what a poster is, we see them everyday, they have been going for over 100 years or more, but its what you do with the context of it that makes it different amongst the rest.

After that Pub Club, the posters got more different, for Valentines Day they put up a dating profile for the pub on Tinder, so people at the agency could match with it.

Then did a Brexit idea where you could vote between two pubs, remain (The Old Thameside Inn) or leave (Exit Bar).

Every Thursday now is a pocket of inspiration, making me think how far can I go with the context of my idea.