Our thoughts

Creatives are occasionally – no, often – given a brief that is accompanied by the giver (sometimes a suit, sometimes a creative director) uttering the phrase, “We want something award-winning.” It’s a sentence that’s intended to inspire and motivate. It makes me want to curl up in a ball under my desk. Perhaps it works…

The terrible events in Paris last week saw a wave of fraternité sweep the world and so social media. The single image that spoke to so many in their declaration of kinship with the French nation was London-based French illustrator Jean Jullien’s Peace for Paris (link: http://www.jeanjullien.com text: sketch). As an indication of its great reach,…

Someone brought Halloween cakes into the office this week. I didn’t know that cakes for Halloween was a thing, but I like confectionaries, so didn’t question it with any real fervour. I liked the Mr Kipling Witches Hat Fancies the most (although, should that not be Witch’s Hat?). Among the others in creative, Spooky Mini…

In the mid-seventies, Brian Eno, in collaboration with his friend the artist Peter Schmidt (no, me neither) published a set of cards called Oblique Strategies. Each card was printed with a question or an instruction intended to help when a producer or a band at work in the studio has wound up in a creative…

Having worked in the creative agency circle for quite a while now, I’ve seen a lot of print and production managers come and go, both working for me and with me in a team. I’ve seen the suits with short trousers and expensive briefcases crunch numbers, and make printers do work for nothing. I’ve seen…

There is a story about a creative director who was presenting a couple of options for a campaign to a client. He finished his presentation. There was a moment’s silence and then the client asked if it was possible that elements of concept A be integrated with concept B, to make a new concept, C.…