I haven’t exactly been “active” over the past year and a half on this blog, why?

1. Job manic

2. First Child

3. Depressed world

But now I have way* more time on my hands- I’ve decided to dust off the blog and start writing about the industry again.

*Not true work is still manic, Finn is still only 11 months old and the world is still a depressing place to be

My friend Ollie has just finished his bike trip form Cairo to Cape Town. The Expedition was a charity cycle for the Millennium Promise. 8 people cycled to raise awareness of the development work the Millennium Villages are undergoing.

www.cairotocapetown2008.co.uk

Its been a while since I’ve posted just for fun, but this is a classic…

The latest from Guinness…

HurlingCubed

Pure Genius

Here is the latest VW advert for Polo featuring a very sweet singing dog - like the CGI on it

So few large corporations, build cutting edge websites. Primarily large corporations/brands tend to be one step behind (Digital Trends) all the time and get quite scared when confronted with the endless possibilities and endless potential that the internet provide.

Very few of their websites are 3D, large corporations like control, so they tend to demand flat non engaging spaces online. The new VW website is different. It not only looks and feels like a 3D space. It is a 3D space.

It’s a space for the VW brand online - go and have a play www.vw.co.uk

Some worrying, some not. Some new, some not. All opinion*

This is not the full article yet - I’m going to piece it together bit by bit…

1. Demise of the ‘craft’ of creativity.

1.1 Feeling the rush.

No longer are young designers/art directors prepared to spend many years listening to others and taking advice, honing, refining and nurturing their talent, skill, trade and craft. In the same breath, senior creative personnel, due to the ‘immediate’ times that we live in, often don’t have the time to give ‘really constructive’ feedback on work. Training is also often overlooked, as there is always so much more work to get through. The old adage ‘A stitch in time, saves nine’ is rather appropriate.

1.2 The rise of the Long Term Freelancer.

A by product of the huge increase in work for digital agencies, is the huge increase in demand for freelancers. As a short term solution freelancers are a great way to ‘fill the gap’. However more and more, agencies are retaining freelancers on a long terms basis - but still paying them at freelance rates. This has a number of negative effects, on not only creativity but also agency life in general.

They sit next to permanent staff, do the same work and socialize together - soon enough permanent staff start to think ‘hang on, that freelancer gets paid 2/3/4 times more than me for the same amount of work - I should do that…’, worse still some freelancers, due to their talent, start to get the juicer briefs leading to antagonism among full time staff.

Secondly, Freelancers stay for 6 months then leave - in many cases freelancers are the source of knowledge on a particular client - the agencies output suffers from the loss and suddenly stable relationships can start to falter.

*based solely on my own observations

I love this video - you need sound though…

Anchorman Ron Burgundy like you have never seen him - in lego

I’m not sure I can even write something about this one - hilarious 5 a side video

Pretty funky street if I’ve ever seen one