happy birthday Dick Bruna

I've just been to see the Happy Birthday Dick Bruna exhibition at the V&A's newly renovated Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. Dick is best know for creating Miffy. It was his earlier work that really stuck out to me though, Bruna stated one of his major influences as being Matisse and then there are definite influences of Bruna in Saul Bass, Mike Mills, Geoff McFetridge, Parra and even Kaws. Oh and Mr Clement.

Have a look at some of his stuff here...

a day in the life of

Spend a day with is a really simple but interesting concept for a blog.

"You see so many people everyday walking through your life. But what are they thinking. Who are they thinking of. Why are they running are they just late? Whats with that awful tattoo."

Ollie & Jimmy have got a plan to give a disposable camera to a complete stranger to document their life and then they'll interview them. Or maybe they interview them before I'm not sure. It would be amaizing to see this on a global scale but London is just as interesting for now.

There's also this collective of blogs at honeyee I've just come across featuring blogs by Kaws, a load of interesting Japanese artists and Eric Clapton? I think there could be a common thread between these 2 things but I'm struggling today. I'll leave it for you to decide.

campaign magazine

I like campaign magazine, it's a good read. I've no idea who it's aimed at (planners/ brand managers/ marketers?). They talk quite alot about digital in campaign. Not in a nuts and bolts way like NMA or other trade mags though, more the social context of stuff.
Which is good.

irrepressible

Another nice widget for Amnesty International's irrepressible campaign by soda.
I still like widgets.

overheard on the underground

Things I've overheard today and liked.

"Cor blimey"

"He's a good egg"

That's all.

a thought about ideas

The 'Think Bubble' project. An idea by Roman Coppola Studio.

Ideas are important. They make creativity entertaining and engaging. Without an idea behind it creative is usually just window dressing.

I found the Roman Coppola Studio site last year and was really taken with the 'concept portfolio' bit (pdf download). So taken in fact that I was inspired to restructure my whole portfolio from 100% client work to around 80% client work 20% ideas/ unused ideas for clients. I think that it is invaluable for creatives to continually document and re-present ideas no matter how unfeasible. In fact the more unfeasible the better, none of the stuff in the Roman Coppola concept portfolio is either realistic or related to any real world project or experience. But if I was to be presented this next to another random 3 agencies books I'd be far more excited by the dumb ideas purely because they show the studio is thinking. They're having ideas. They're having fun. They're having a laugh. And we all know if your enjoying doing something you produce far better results.

as a reward...

Moleskine have this really nice bit on the first page of their note books. There's a line of copy saying 'In case of loss, please return to:' then under that 'As a reward: $'. It's stuff like this that adds a real depth and charm to otherwise charmless objects. There should be alot more of it in my opinion. And I should do a lot more of it myself.

Here's a few nice answers I've found people have filled the blank in with off of a google search..

-my eternal gratitude
-$0.02 per written page
-my endless love
-Arm and/or leg
-Eternal life
-1 pint of Guiness
-$50 and a Hug
-a pat on the back
-Peace of mind

the ethics of ethics

I'm looking forward to the next issue of Creative Review, it's going to be about ethics and is guest editied by mother. There's a preview here.

Ethics are big these days, everyones got them. I don't know whether it's just me but it seemed to be five years ago only howies, innocent and the co-operative bank had ethics (plus charities and a few small hippy companies). Now it's in the main navigation on the PG Tips website. Must be big.

I think at some point there will need to be some kind of measure of what is good ethics though, if you know what I mean. At the minute it seems a bit of a yes/no on/off answer. You've either got ethics in your main nav or corporate literature or not. No one really questions it any further.

For example I saw PG Tips had an ethics bit and thought ah good they're ethical, now I'll group them in with everyone else I thinks ethical. I've no idea how ethical they are in fact however. They could just recycle their waste paper in their London HQ and that's their lot. For further example innocent and howies give 10% of their profit to charity to tick our ethics, someone else could give 0.1% and still get to drop the e word in their text and join the gang.

It's becoming increasingly clear that ethics are going to start influencing peoples spending habits hence economics, hence politics, so it would probably be best that we all knew what the hell is ethical in the first place.

the joy of jazz

It's all getting a bit serious so here's this. Fuck me he could dance that Ian Curtis.

keep it simple

After all the kerfuffle over the new iphone over the last couple of weeks I have just found this slide from Steve's Power Point (he probably doesn't actually use power point does he? that would be wrong). This one slide sums the whole thing up for me, it's an easy sell after this.

I like it when complicted concepts and diagrams can be boiled down to a simple visual statement like this.