Think Lemon

Squashed Lemon!

2010-04-01T11:35:00.003+01:00

So you may have noticed it's been a bit quiet on the old lemon front.

This is mainly due to the fact that Mark and I are splitting as a creative team. He has decided to pursue other ventures so I am a lonely Lemon. It's a shame as we have done quite well, but it's exciting to see where I'll end up next.

We are staying as a team at Wunderman for the time being, but I am on the hunt for a new partner.

Although I'm a copywriter here, I feel as though I'm an art director at heart. My ideal job would be to do both, but that doesn't seem to really happen.

So if you know anyone, or fancy teaming up yourself, please get in touch at hello@laurajdavies.com

Follow my new blog here or stalk me on twitter here

Thanks to all our followers over the past year :)

Shellsuit Zombie VS Night

2010-02-19T13:43:00.001Z

Last Tuesday night I attended this little number - Industry VS Graduates, organised by Shellsuit Zombie. The venue - Old Blue Last was pretty cool and the small room was packed, with coloured badges everywhere - distinguishing industry from graduate. I thought this was a really good idea as with similar events I've been to, it's hard to tell who's who. I found myself somewhere in the middle.

It was a good night, with a great atmosphere. The loud music however, gave it more of a club feel, rather than a networking one. But I met some really interesting people from different creative backgrounds. The idea of 'VS' is that anyone could challenge anyone to anything. The main talking point of the night ended up being the challenge of the 'most imaginatively drawn willy'.

And now HelloYouCreatives is doing a meet up too, so I might go and see what that's all about.
You can find their upcoming event on Facebook. Maybe I'll see you there.

Happy Accidents

2010-02-15T17:15:00.001Z

Recently I saw this set of great photographs by Matt Stuart, entitled 'happy accidents'. A glimpse of funny moments in life you would rarely catch with your own eyes. These are my favourite images but you can see more of his work at http://www.mattstuart.com/

There's also this ad for Twix with a similar style:

Not sure whether the two are linked, but I really like the concept. It is, perhaps more effective through photography as you really get the feeling that you miss these kind of moments all the time.Anyway, they made me smile : )

Land Rover Banners

2010-02-12T14:51:00.000Z

It's an exciting day as our first online ads are up for Land Rover.
They tie in with the Winter Olympics and can be found on the Times and Yahoo.

Check them out at http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/

Puma Hardchorus

2010-02-12T11:28:00.001Z

" They want to be in your arms. You want to be in the stands. What do you do when Valentines Day falls on game day?"

You may have seen this already. A great tactical ad for Puma football for the upcoming game/valentines weekend. A group of hard-faced looking men chanting Savage Gardens 'Truly, Madly, Deeply' to their other halves to apologise for spending Valentines with their beloved football team instead of them. Genius. Another winner from Droga5.

Andes Beer: Teletransporter Stunt

2010-02-04T09:39:00.001Z

A nice PR stunt from Saatchi & Saatchi for beer brand Andes. At first I thought the idea was a but of a cliché, but when you see the guys using it, it's brilliant. A great way to reach their target audience. I would have loved to try one out.

First post of the year

2010-01-20T14:10:00.005Z

It's been almost a month since our last post. It's a bit late for the Happy New Year/ New Years Resolutions post so here's something to make you smile.

Our inspiration for the year ahead, I present, Mr Croissant.

This little guy has caused a fair bit of discussion at work, like why isn't he called monsieur croissant? why does he speak English? and why is he being tricked into being someones breakfast?

Poor Mr Croissant

A collection of December treats

2009-12-21T15:33:00.001Z

What a month December has turned out to be, great agency Christmas greetings such as this one from Rebel Viral's and really bad ones like this (sorry Publicis). There are lots more to see on the Creative Review blog here. Carrying on with the month we have the Rage Against the Machine xmas no1 battle against x-factor. When i first heard about the campaign i thought there was a slim chance that it could beat Joe Someone but i thought the sales would be too strong for him. However it seems that i underestimated the power of Facebook and Twitter with Rage winning by 50,000. This truly shows what can be achieved within social media and if the public want something, they can make it happen. Watch out Gordon Brown!

Now my final xmas treat that i have found is this browser pong game. Essentialy you play the classic game Pong with your browser windows. Enjoy and have a Merry Christmas.

Ps: Laura has just found the parody of the Publicis video, great fun. Watch here

Mark

Wunderman Christmas Card

2009-12-14T09:06:00.005Z

It's less than two weeks away, our desks are filled with decorations and the agency Christmas card is out.

You can see it, personalise it and send it at http://www.winterwunderland.co.uk

Haven't seen too many as of yet, anyone found any winners?

Spoken Word

2009-12-10T11:40:00.001Z

This is a post about my new favourite thing - Spoken Word, which I have discovered since moving to London. I first heard of it through Scroobius Pip's work after liking his music with Dan le Sac.

It's performance poetry and watching it live is a really great experience.

Last night I went to Pure Groove to Kate Tempest's album launch and saw her and some other artists perform - including Scroobius Pip, David J and Polar Bear who all have their own styles.

It's always great to find new creative avenues and thought I'd share it with you. Next I want to go to a Poetry Slam - 8 mile style!

Hope you enjoy and if you do check out the other guys I mentioned

Monster Christmas Party

2009-12-02T09:42:00.003Z

Tomorrow night we are going to the Church of London's Christmas party, thanks to Little White Lies, an independent film magazine here in London.

It should be a good night and we're really excited about it. Lately, the magazine have featured a lot of monsters due to the Where the Wild Things are film release - and the invitations were no exception. On the back of them, you are encouraged to create your own monster, for an art show on the night.

You make your monster with other people, folding the paper into four and each of you drawing a part of the body without seeing the rest. I remember doing this when I was little and it brought a smile to my face. So here's our creation - we think he looks pretty good!

Champion

2009-11-30T09:20:00.002Z

We won our blog battle! We're now voted best creative blog at battle of the blogs. A big thank you to everyone who voted for us and enter your own blog here.

Sophie Lancaster Video

2009-11-27T11:50:00.005Z

Back in May we entered the DMA GRT Awards. The brief was a toughie, to change perceptions of young people to become more tolerant of one another - for the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. Sophie Lancaster was a victim of hate crime - she was kicked to death by a gang of boys because she looked different. So the topic was very emotional.

We were shortlisted for the award and on the day we had a series of one to one feedback with the judges. It seemed that our work was not emotive enough and that we should have made more of Sophie's story - which was true.

And today on Creative Review I see the video Propaganda have made for the organisation, which will be played on MTV.

It's made beautifully, the music is perfect and it's a great cause with a great message, but is that enough?

For a story so horrendous, the scene where the couple are attacked is such a minor part. With using animation especially, it seems they could have made more of it.

The task is so huge, will it really make the MTV audience stop and think?

Return to the Doghouse

2009-11-26T14:59:00.005Z

Possibly the best Christmas campaign I've ever seen, Saatchi & Saatchi's JC Penney ad is back for another year - Return to the Dog House.

From the insight of men not knowing what to by the women in their life at Christmas time, JC Penney brings you the answer - jewelery. Other wise you'll be in the doghouse. Simple and funny.

I'm sure last year there was a section on the website of people in the doghouse with photos of themselves but can't see it as of yet. Check out the Doghouse here

Works. Doesn't work.

2009-11-24T14:06:00.000Z

Just came across the new Aol logo created by Wolff Ollins New York. At first i didn't really see anything special about it, seemed a bit of generic logo for a brand wanting to recreate there look. But then i came across the video idents. The way the logo just appears from the white is a simple technique but yet adds some kind of warmth to the brand. Any video footage could be used across this format which is what makes it so exciting and also fits the brief perfectly. Aol wanted to be seen as having a breadth of content which can be easily adapted using this format.

Although it works perfectly for the idents i am not so sure about the static logo, it almost seems like its from the stock photo library. Dull and generic. It will be interesting to see what this looks like when it is released. Time to order a free aol cd and pretend i'm interested in using them.

See the videos here
See the logo here

Battle of the Blogs

2009-11-23T16:54:00.003Z

By the way, this week we are in battle of the blogs so please vote for us if you like our style: http://www.thebattleoftheblogs.com/

Tis the season to be jolly

2009-11-23T16:39:00.000Z

It seems like the Christmas work keeps coming thick and fast in adland, saw these fantastic, simple lynx ads by BBH earlier today and they made me smile instantly. There is three that i have seen with the one above my pick of the bunch, i just like the bum cheek prints so much in that one. Another thing to note is the simple use of putting a Christmas glove on the hand of the model and also the way the type just wraps around the glove. Very nice, very nice indeed! view the rest here

Another that caught my eye is the Christmas McDonalds advert by Leo Burnett, check it out here. It looks like myself and Laura are looking forward to Christmas as there seems to be a lot of festive posting going, all this festive goodness surely secures Santa coming down my chimney.

On another note Charles Saatchi's version of the x-factor for artists is on tonight, BBC2 9pm. Will post thoughts tommorow.

Channel 4 1d week

2009-11-20T11:21:00.000Z

So it was channel 4 3d week this week, where images would literally pop out of the screen at you and make you feel as if you could touch the queen (careful!) Unfortunately that didn't quite happen, the whole house suddenly found out we could see the footage better without the stupid glasses on.

After the wonderfully dull Queen in 3d programme came Derren Brown's magic show, something which everyone thought would embrace the world of 3d and take advantage of it. Or not. The one bit that even caught my attention was the card trick were the cards literally flew at you and you were told to choose a card, it was really neat but unfortuately it was already on the advert. Basically the whole show was a best of magic from around the world with 'so called' 3d imagery. To put it in advertising terms. 'Polishing a turd'

I have nothing against 3d but to label your week 3d week and show programmes that would be better in 2d makes no sense whatsover. None of the two mentioned above utilised 3d at all to it's full advantage. If utilised correctly the feature could be brilliant but obviously not right now.

Schweppes Christmas Idents

2009-11-19T12:28:00.003Z

Another Christmas post I know, but these idents for Schweppes by Mother are great. Glowsticks is the winner for me but there's a whole bunch that are all quite funny (http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/bulletin/creativebulletin/article/966941/?DCMP=EMC-19November2009)

Nice to see a brand doing something different for their Christmas advertising and loving the style.

Agency Christmas Cards

2009-11-17T13:33:00.001Z

Christmas is less than six weeks away and the agency christmas card is well on it's way. The brief got us talking about other agency christmas cards.

AKQA's microwave jingle bells video seems to be a favourite. Here if you haven't seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgBUqJzgvBo

But for me, this is one of the best things I've seen. They were launched by Wieden and Kennedy a while ago but seem to be returning again this year. It's a different approach to a christmas card but they certainly make people smile.

Little White Lies

2009-11-10T16:45:00.004Z

Just thought we'd let you know about a magazine we've recently subscribed to. It's an independent film magazine run in London, called Little White Lies. (http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/)
It's beautifully crafted and features some great writing and design. They've also started running creative competitions on the website which are great to get involved in. Some of the back issue covers are great and I wish I'd found it sooner. Anyone interested in film or design will appreciate this little gem. And their blog also features a lot of interesting stuff, so check them out.

Turning viewers into users

2009-11-04T14:21:00.002Z

We watched this video in the session we attended yesterday and found it really interesting. It is part of the larger discussion about the way people watch TV. These days, people watch TV whilst doing other things, particularly whilst being on the internet.

So areacode created The Sopranos A&E Connection, a sync-to-broadcast game that makes watching the repeated series more engaging.

"When the episode of The Sopranos premieres on A&E, the players' online gameboards come to life and animate synchronously to the TV signal. As the characters, settings and objects of the Sopranos appear on TV, the corresponding pieces animate and score points. This represents the first time a game was ever designed wholly for synchronous two-screen entertainment." (http://www.areacodeinc.com/work/sopranos/)

We were told by a famous adman not so long ago that the way we watch television is about to change. With this idea of turning viewers into users, it definitely seems something to be excited about.

Baby Made on Board

2009-11-03T15:03:00.002Z

In this weeks lunchtime training session we were joined by Patrick Collister, CEO of Creative Matters and ex Executive Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather for 'Hot New Creative Work'. The session was really inspiring and featured a load of great work, some I'd seen before and some I hadn't. This 'Baby Made on Board' campaign by Proximity for Dodge in Belgium was one of the highlights for me.

The Dodge is positioned as the ultimate family car, spacious enough to make a baby in. Can't imagine pitching it but I think it's great.

Not so sure about the add-on bit aimed at men who don't want to make a baby as it kind of loses the whole idea. It's really just two people having sex in a car.

And to think, now there are (at least) 72 little people walking around thanks to this campaign!

Pop Life and Pornography

2009-11-02T13:52:00.000Z

So this weekend i visited the Tate Modern to view the Pop Life exhibition and i have to say it is well worth the £12 entry fee. The exhibition includes pieces from Warhol all the way to Hirst showcasing some really nice pieces as well as a dead horse that's been impaled by a protest sign (a personal highlight). You have a room dedicated to Japanese pop art and a nice music video with Kirsten Dunst involved, my favourite part has to be the diamante pieces of everyday objects. A pepsi can, johnson's shower gel and a condom packet were all featured and made out of the wonderful, shiny diamantes. A lot of the exhibiton was fuelled by images of a sexual act something which i also found within the rest of the tate.

I can never hold my self back when i see a sign that reads: 'Contains images of an explicit nature which may be seen as offensive' So through the doors i go to be greeted with a giant canvas of a bum hole with penis. Penises were everywhere i turned along with a giant sculpture of two people making love. I do have an open mind when viewing these things but it was a bit full on and i think it was the number of old people around me that unnerved me, needles to say i was out of the room pretty quickly.

Oh and one final note, BEWARE when leaving the pop art exhibition for vomit landing on your head!

Mark

Orange Film Club

2009-10-29T10:28:00.004Z

Orange are, I think, my favourite brand.

I like most of their advertising, the 241 cinema spots, endless site and of course balloon race. I even like that their tariffs have animal names. And of course I like Orange Wednesdays.

I've recently discovered their film club http://www.facebook.com/orangefilmclub which has a lot of free film-related giveaways. I have got tickets for their 'Fright Night' on Friday for Halloween. And it's pretty scary sounding:

A screening of The Exorcist in Tower Hamlets Cemetery. The audience will be given state of the art wireless headphones for a cinema experience like no other. Special 4D effects during the screening to really bring the film to life. With an introduction by Empire magazine’s horror expert, Kim Newman.

I'm not really sure what 4D means but I hope it's good!

What I wasn't so impressed with though, was how they decided to give away tickets for the night.
At first, they posted long, confusing horror riddles on the fan page, with the first person answering correctly winning tickets. This went on for a few days. Next, you had to register to say you were going to pick up your tickets at a secret location in London between a certain time frame on a certain day. Bit of a mission on a Saturday morning.

I assume not many people could be arsed with all that as a few days later Orange said all you had to do was email them to get tickets. And this is where I came in.

Might still be tickets left if you have a look on the Facebook page. If you think you can handle it!

Calling All Creatives

2009-10-26T10:01:00.004Z

We're starting a little project and we need other creatives to help us get it off the ground.

A few months a go when we started at Wunderman we made this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tjav1JFqi0

Now we want to start a new blog - a big collection of advice inside different agencies to help other creative grads/students trying to get placements and jobs.

So we need all you creatives out there to start making videos of your experiences to share with the online world. It can be a straight forward collection of advice or an agency slice of life.

We already have a few other teams on board but it would be great to get loads of people involved. It's also a nice bit of self-promo.

And you might even have fun!

Please get it touch if you have any questions/suggestions.

Lemonheads

Video Painting

2009-10-23T12:36:00.003+01:00

SWEATSHOPPE, 4spots, the landing extras from SWEATSHOPPE on Vimeo.

Amazing new technology from Sweatshoppe, don't have a clue how it works but check it out.

Lemon in ≠Twitterpicture

2009-10-19T16:08:00.002+01:00

Illustrator Johanna Basford has been doing an interesting project on twitter recently - ≠Twitterpicture. Anyone on twitter could get involved by tweeting what they would like to see in the picture.

The result was a mad combination of contributions, including our 'all-singing. all-dancing lemon' (circled so you don't miss it). It was a really cool idea, which I'm sure will inspire more social network creativity projects.

You can buy one of the 100 silk screen prints of the artwork on her site http://www.johannabasford.com/blog-article/168 (£150 though).

Great way to be inspired

2009-10-14T13:14:00.003+01:00

Stack magazine is a great concept for magazine subscription. They offer a great selection of independent magazines from around the globe and send you one randomly each month. What i like about this, is that as creatives we never know where our inspiration may come from so the thought of randomly having a different magazine each month seems like a great way of helping our thinking.

It's my birthday coming up so a subscription is on the way for me and i can't wait to see what surprise magazine i will get. I suggest everyone get's clicking on to this bit of linkage and starts subscribing.

http://www.stackmagazines.com/

Free Muffin Day

2009-10-13T11:20:00.005+01:00

Yesterday Starbucks held 'Free Muffin Day' across the UK. It was entirely promoted on Facebook and to get your free muffin you had to download your voucher on the Facebook event page. http://www.facebook.com/thinklemon?ref=profile#/event.php?eid=145280424069&ref=mf
You had to buy a coffee to receive a free muffin. I tentatively printed off a voucher thinking that the free muffins would be smaller, not so delicious versions on their normal muffins. We pass a Starbucks on the way to work anyway so on Monday morning in we went to check it out. No promotion of the muffin day anyway in store but we asked and it was true. And with normal-sized muffins!

Anyway it wasn't so much the idea that impressed me, (although I enjoyed the lemon and poppyseed), but the way they did it. Through facebook they knew exactly how many people had said they were attending, who they were and where they were from, which they can now compare with how many people actually went in and got their free muffin.

And cakes make people happy. Especially when they feel like they're free.

Brick Lane

2009-10-12T17:41:00.007+01:00

I went to Brick Lane on Sunday for the first time. The market was a little disappointing and a little scary at times, although 'dirty perkins' was an amusing find on the clothes stalls.

Made a few arty discoveries though:

The first being a cool little shop called Shelf - http://www.helpyourshelf.co.uk/ which is full of handmade things and works of illustrators.

The second being this: http://www.bigantidote.com/ an on-going screen printed comic, created from a selection of different illustrators and story tellers. The work that was displayed was really good, with a few different styles going on. Check out the website if you want to get involved in the project.

I'm seeing screen prints everywhere at the moment, but I wish they weren't so expensive to buy!

Birmingham B-Hive Competition

2009-10-08T12:27:00.008+01:00

It's that time of year again; the Birmingham B-hive competition is back!

We entered last year and bagged ourselves 2 paid placements in the Midlands, gaining a lot of experience and some good contacts. It was it's first year last year and didn't get that much support from universities, but I'm sure it will be bigger this year. They've got a new website, more briefs and more agencies involved, so if your a design, advertising or PR student/grad I strongly recommend you enter! It's a lot of fun and a great way to get your foot in the door. I also have a nice little guest appearance on the site.

http://www.bhive-creative.com/

D&AD 30 day challenge

2009-10-06T14:08:00.002+01:00

Came across this today: http://dandad.typepad.com/dandad/2009/09/30day-challenge-for-student-winners.html

D&AD are running a competition for 2009 student yellow pencil winners to encourage students and tutors to enter this years student awards. The idea is to create the biggest buzz, with the winner getting a paid placement at AMV.

It's a great idea to use last years winners to promote the awards to this years students, but I haven't been able to find much buzz so far.

Will be interesting to see what they do with it.

Long copy is alive!!!!!

2009-10-05T13:10:00.006+01:00

Back at the end of July Rory Sutherland posted up an article titled 'The day the copy died'. He goes on to explain that long copy adverts seemed to be a thing of the past and that it is a struggle to get the concept through clients. Well, to my surprise in the underground yesterday there were 3 long copy ads side by side (you can see 2 on pic the other is just before the dixons ad). It appears to have become more popular since VW launched their long copy ones a few months back, very good ads they were i might ad.

So is long copy dead? certainly not by the looks of it.

Do you love anyone enough?

2009-09-22T16:00:00.003+01:00

Was thinking today about the 'My last Rolo' campaign and how cute it was.
Then I found this website: http://www.mylastrolo.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/2

You can even buy your loved one an engraved gold rolo!

Nice idea but I think it was more romantic when it was just a chocolate.
Glad to see the message is still out there though.

I hope someone will give me their last rolo one day...

Birds on The Wires

2009-09-17T13:20:00.001+01:00

Fantastic piece of film by Brazilian director Jarbas Agnelli. Inspired by a newspaper photo featuring birds on wires. The music is made by taking the real bird locations.

Creative Review question of the week

2009-09-15T17:43:00.004+01:00

This week we want to flood the Creative Review blog with our admiration for John Lowe, our tutor at BCU.

The CR blog question of the week is, 'who do you admire most?' a perfect way to show our thanks to John.

We have already got a few people involved, but if you feel the same, show some love at:

http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/september/question-of-the-week-150909

Writing adverts for Apple is easy.

2009-09-11T15:11:00.002+01:00

Enough said.

Employment

2009-09-03T15:42:00.001+01:00

On a lighter note, we signed our contracts today,
We'll be working at Wunderman until Christmas eve.
Woop!

A is for Letdown

2009-09-03T14:57:00.002+01:00

Last night we went to the YCN awards at the Village Underground in Shoreditch.

We got there a bit later than the invite said, as we were at work and thought it wouldn't kick off for a while. And we were right. In fact, it didn't kick off at all. No speech, no introduction, no sign of anyone working for YCN and no work up.

The venue itself was pretty cool, but felt more like a club. There was a video playing on the wall which was kind of showcasing the commended work. People were trying to capture their 3 seconds of fame as their tiny piece of work flashed up on the wall. It was a shame there was no actually celebration for the people who won. Instead, the trophies that have been made are being sent home. And this is the first year there's been a physical award, so it should have been quite a big deal. Especially the way the night was being promoted on the YCN website. Unless of course, something big happened after we left?

All in all, disappointed, hungry and soaked. But thanks for the beers.

Words of Wisdom: advice for young creatives

2009-08-24T14:10:00.002+01:00

At the start of our placement at Wunderman they encouraged us to do something in the agency to get ourselves noticed. We went through a few crappy ideas but in the end decided it would be pretty fun to make a video. So we bribed people (with a selection of cakes) in the agency to take part and give us their best bit of advice for a young creative in advertising. This is the result and we quite like it. We hope it encourages other creatives on placements to record their own experiences and get involved.

Crazy Disney Tracker

2009-08-21T17:56:00.003+01:00

Disney has revealed the details of a new scientific research lab that aims to determine what type of ads are the most effective at getting our attention online.

They're using eye tracking, heart monitors, skin temperature readings and facial probes to measure physical reaction to different types of ads.
(Sourced from Contagious News Article)

Sounds mad!
Check out the original article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/technology/27disney.html?_r=4

Alan

2009-08-21T12:15:00.001+01:00

A program I didn't know about until today, Walk on the Wild Side. What a great idea!

Birmingham City University Advert

2009-08-18T12:48:00.002+01:00

The advert we worked on at Unsuitable, both behind and in front of the camera is now playing on ITV central and E4. There's also a making of video on YouTube. Mark is loving being the star of the ad with his cheesy grin. Ha!

Sold!

2009-08-14T17:34:00.004+01:00

Fantastic news for Lemon today - we sold our first idea!
The design process begins next week which means we get to see the whole thing through. It's also a great thing to add to our ever growing book of ideas.

Our first week here at Wunderman has been wunderful (ha) Great people, great brief and really great atmosphere. Oh and free beer on Thursdays and Fridays and also ice-cream and sweets today!

Anyway, onto the next brief we go, a tough one, but then again what brief is easy? Life is treating us well here in Camden and later tonight we will check out some of the delightful delicacy available to us and get even fatter!

Happy Lemon

Help yourselves to lemon

2009-08-05T13:23:00.002+01:00

Just had to put this up, found it in WAA's rec room today.

Lemon Love

Full Speed Ahead!

2009-08-05T12:54:00.007+01:00

Yesterday was a good day for Lemon.

We had a day off from WAA to drive down to Bristol to meet 'digital guru' and creative director of Mason Zimbler, David Sloly. We had a great meeting with him and it was refreshing to see a different approach to the industry and an all-round nice guy. The agency had a cool atmosphere with strange objects and ideas covering the creative offices. We are very excited to be working with David and Mason Zimbler in the upcoming weeks as it's a really great opportunity and we're sure we're gonna have a lot of fun too. I really feel like we could fit in there which I don't think we've been feeling at agencies we've been too so far, so we're very optimistic, hope we do some good work for them! Then to top off our lovely day, soon as I get in the door, have a phone call from J Lowe saying we have a placement at Team Saatchi!

It all seems too good to be true...

Better late than never.

2009-07-30T11:26:00.005+01:00

Here are some pics from an advert shoot we were on several weeks ago, all in all a very interesting day. It was good to see an advert actually being made and the challenges you can come across during the day (most notably the rain). We were also treated to a lovely Wagamamas at lunch!! Fortunately for us we also got to see what it is like from the other side of the camera as we were asked to be extras in the advert. The effort that is made by the whole team to get things right is exceptional and Ika the director (seen on the right of the pic) was brilliant guy, good luck to him in the future.

Advert will be shown on E4 and ITV central soon. You can check out the rest of the pics on flicker: http://www.flickr.com/photos/unsuitable/sets/72157621568215840/

Baby Break Dance

2009-07-20T20:04:00.001+01:00

great little viral from evian, the whole roller babies campaign is quite funny, check it out

One Black Bear

2009-07-06T14:23:00.003+01:00

Today is the first day of our placement at One Black Bear/Unsuitable in Birmingham. So far so good, working on an interesting brief, the place itself is cool, pretty chilled out vibe. They also have their own mugs which I want to take home with me! They are shooting a TV ad for BCU next week which hopefully we can go be a part of. Should be a fun few weeks!

Kind of how we felt at the awards.

2009-07-05T12:51:00.001+01:00

And the winners are......

2009-07-05T12:32:00.003+01:00

After a few crits before the event we finally arrived to the D&AD student awards venue, greeted with wine and some great little burger nibbles we were impressed. After an hour the award ceremony began, during which we witnessed some great entries from all categories. When it finally came to our category there were 5 commended and 1 winner, after an agonising wait our name was finally read out (the last of the commended). They then proceeded to announce the winner and this is where it all begins to make no sense, the panel awarded a second to the winners meaning there was no first. Now I'm not a competition expert but how can you have a competition with no winner?

Anyway after overcoming the weird end to our category we went upstairs to meet our judges and talk to them about why we were only commended. One problem, the judges had been taken away by some sort of U.F.O and didn't show meaning we were left to drink wine more wine and more wine. Oh and something to eat as well including slippery fish pie!

After all this disappointment we quickly escaped like Batman & Robin with our cheque, caught the train and then went home happily ever after, NOT! The train had to stop because of a fatality, leaving us stranded in Rugby and delaying our much needed sleep time.

Museum of Brands

2009-06-28T21:02:00.004+01:00

Thought I'd put a few images up from when we went to the Museum of brands, packaging and advertising in Notting Hill. It was pretty cool walking through the different ages of brands and getting a feel for the era. Some of these 3D ads for Smarties and Polo also seemed well ahead of their time, as did some of the Cadbury's Roses boxes. Anyway it's a cool little place to visit and they have an exhibition on at the moment about sustainable packaging sponsored by Tesco.

I'm scared, but I want an ice cream

2009-06-22T12:33:00.003+01:00

I love the adverts for Alan Carrs new show. A bit creepy at first but so funny! Shame the show isn't as good though.

Lemon's First Award

2009-06-17T16:47:00.004+01:00

Saturday was our opening night for our final show at uni and also the night of the first annual Trevor Awards. This is us having just won one, meaning we get a placement at BMB which is great news. It was a really good night and would be great to carry on every year at BCU. The 181 show is on until Saturday 19th at BIAD, Gosta Green in Birmingham so check it out!

Lewis Hamilton, 104

2009-06-10T22:26:00.003+01:00

I couldn't resist but take a picture of this crazy old man and his beloved scooter, bless him. I genuinely believe he felt he was Lewis Hamilton on the final straight of Silverstone. I was dying for some traffic to arrive but it didn't happen unfortunately, although at one point he completely defied the rules of driving and cut the corner sadistically heading into oncoming traffic. The sad thing is i followed him for at least 10 minutes hoping he would irate people, i guess this shows i have an obsession for drama and peoples wrongdoings.

Coffee Art

2009-06-09T23:01:00.003+01:00

The other day I went to a Gloria Jeans Coffee place instead of a Starbucks. They do this really cool thing where they draw pictures on your drink with the sauce. I almost didn't want to drink it to preserve it. This chocolate macadamia latte is nothing on the Starbucks gingerbread one though, even if you can only get it in winter.

Obama in Birmingham

2009-06-05T12:40:00.004+01:00

The other day we went to see the Obama's People exhibition at BMAG, a series of photographs by Nadav Kander. Each portrait showed a different personality, some very serious and what you would expect and some more revealing. The photo's were so detailed some of them were actually quite scary. Definitely worth a look though, especially for free.

lemony

2009-05-30T00:35:00.004+01:00

Our final hand in is done.

We await the results of our degree.

As do we await the results of the trevor awards.

Exciting times...

My new favourite video on YouTube

2009-05-26T23:01:00.003+01:00

Our first ad

2009-05-21T22:41:00.004+01:00

After a long few weeks, we finally have our first advert shot. Believe us when we say there were times where we thought it wasn't to be but it is finally here and we are pleased with the results. It started from a brief we got at D&AD workshops to get kids to wash their hands and we took a fun route with it. Anyway, enjoy the vid.

The sky's the limit

2009-05-14T10:55:00.006+01:00

Last night we were lucky enough to meet Trevor Beattie. He is an inspiration for any student, or for that matter anyone.
He spoke about his ambitions and seemed genuinely excited about what he does, including the film Moon he has just produced which we think looks pretty cool.
We are also lucky enough to be taught by John Lowe, the same man that tutored Trevor, who is also a bit of a legend. Trevor was nice enough to come meet us later on in the pub for a cheeky one.
So we really feel like the sky's the limit at the moment!

The First Ever Post

2009-05-11T14:42:00.001+01:00

Hello!

We are Laura and Mark.
We are a creative team currently living in Birmingham and we've decided to set up this blog to start keeping track of what we're doing and what we're thinking.
As well as share the things that inspire us, interest us or just make us laugh.

Lets hope the journey's a good one!

Think Lemon