The Arsehole Effect

Kind of a random one, but interesting nonetheless, this is something I read about a few weeks back, it is a post by Olivier Blanchard called the Brand management: The asshole effect, it is the effect on the perception (and therefore the custom) of your business based on any arseholes you may have in your company. People judge your business by your people.

Top 5 ways of asshole-proofing your company:
1. Don’t hire assholes. They are bad for business, and they breed inside organizations like weeds.
2. Don’t promote assholes. The only thing worse than an asshole is an asshole with authority (including the authority to hire and promote assholes when you aren’t paying attention.
3. Give your current assholes the “opportunity” to go work for your fiercest competitor. Do this immediately. Make sure the door doesn’t hit them in the ass on their way out.
4. Once removed, replace your former assholes with nice, smart friendly people. (They’re out there and they want to work for you, but your assholes probably already turned them down. Go find them and invite them back.)
5. Reward all of your employees for NOT being assholes.

Bonakdar Cleary

On Wednesday Seamus and Tara from Bonakdar Cleary popped in to show us some of their amazing talent on offer. It was great to see some new work from Levon Biss (Swimmer, below) and also some work from the brilliant Peter Funch, this shot he set up the camera on a street corner and all these people holding the yellow envelope came at different times (un-planned) and he composed the images with the individual frames.

Vue

The lovely ladies from Vue came into us a few weeks ago, I have been a little busy to find time to post about it.

They had some great new work and some old work, but it was great to meet all of them and spend some time looking through the books and hearing the stories behind the images; probably something I find the most interesting about agent visits, I always want to know how it was done.

I particularly loved Charlie Cranes work (below) especially this striking image of the woman all dressed in pink, almost Chanel suit, holding a rifle. Brilliant.

Thanks for coming in!

Soon after I entered Vue's Easter competition where they hid several Easter eggs in the images on their site and if you found them all you could enter to win an iPad. I won. Stoked!

Jonathan Knowles

This morning Emma and Zoe came in to see us here at Albion from Jonathan Knowles studio, he has some great new work in his updated portfolio, both commissioned and personal projects, including these great coloured sand images. And the brilliant 'broken Britain' image for the Guardian which was commissioned by Wieden & Kennedy London.

Stitch That

This morning Diane organised for the boys (Martyn, Tim & Bob) from Stitch That to come in to show us some of their work. I did feel really old when they referred to something as 'old school' when it was only 10 years ago!
They did this amazing stop-frame film for Bulmers pretty much freestyle with one artist. Amazing. 

Disqo

Petrina here at Albion organised for Ben Leyland & Dominic Bunjevac from Disqo (part of Golden Square Post) to come in and present their reel to us last week. Sorry just got around to posting about it. They were really top blokes and as I am new to this TV production stuff it was great to hear them talk about their company with such excitement.

Here’s a bit about the set up and I have also embeddedd their reel:

http://www.goldensq.com/disqo

Lucid

Last week we had Hat from Lucid come in and show us some books. There was some great work from Alistair Hood, Con Poulos and Mark Harrison among others. Really nice stuff. Unfortunately with PC's not being able to take screenshots (well) I can't show you my favorites of theirs, but here is a great shot by Robyn Vickers who is also represented by Luid.

Converse special builds in Berlin

Invisible car ad from Mercedes in Germany

Poster that responds when you look at it

thanks to The Poke

Musical Posters

A band called Dry The River have these cool posters which are up in East London, they are on the back of the 3D Horse posters (below) done for the band last year. You can listen to a track through the tin can phones.
They are up from today.
Thanks to it's nice that.

Carole Lambert

Bruce from Carole Lambert came in to see us here at Albion with some interesting books for the creatives and producers to have a look through.
Always great to see Jean Yves Lemoigne's book, lovely work for Axe (BBH London):

Also always good to see work from Korner Union:

Happy New Year!

Sorry I have been a bit slack at posting the last couple of months. I'll do better this year.

Beyond the Atrium - Guest post by Tony Dell

Today I stood in front of one of the most famous illustrations in the world.  A meeting of western perspective and Japanese tradition.  I talk of The Wave that wonderful coloured woodcut by Hokusai which was drawnig about 1830 and which has captured the imagination of east and west. The British Museum has made a great deal of fuss about The Wave and has built a small exhibition around this one picture and it is absorbing.   

There is also an exhibition of Japanese manga which is their word for comics.  There are drawings by Hushimo Yakinoku for the comic character Professor Mujnakata and the edition of his mystery solving in The  British Museum.  A Japanese equivalent of Hercule Poirot!  The Professor is a very popular character in Japan and has appeared in a number of comics.  A book of the drawings is on sale at the Museum.

So much attention is paid to Grayhson Perry’s alter ego, the young girl with teddy bear, that it is possible to lose sight of the work for which he justifyably acclaimed in the creation of ceramics. While you are admiring The Wave you could visit the Grayson Perry ehibition of the pottery of unknown potters throughout time.

It is typical that he is exhibiting his collection of the work of othes and not his own. I don’t know if you saw it, but there was a brilliant documentary about Grayson the other night and his motorcycle ride acfoss Europe to a town in Germany which is paired with his home town. His observations belie the image he derliberately creates and explain why he has been a winner of The Turner Prize.

Here are some of his pots.

And the changing face of Grayson Perry.

Initially when he is dressed as a little girl with his friend Alan the teddy bear it is disconcerting but his lack of embaassment changes the situation and when you hear hs explanation for his cross dresssing it is clear that he is right to act as he does.  The acceptance by his wife makes it all seem perfectly natural.

Tony Dell, the oldest man in Advertising in London*

I have the great honor of sitting next to Tony Dell, He is the oldest man working in Advertising here in London. My first week here back in September we celebrated his 91st birthday with cakes and tea.

Every week, sometimes several times a week, Tony sends us an email about his artistic adventures (he is Head of Visual Inspiration here at DLKW Lowe) which are always interesting because as you can imagine, he knows a hell of a lot about art.

Tony has always been an artbuyer since the 1950's, he still sits within the creative services department here inspiring the whole agency. I think this is prertty damn amazing.
Here is a piece he wrote on why the future of advertising looks colourful.

With his permission I may add a few of his emails as posts to this blog.

* Don't know if this claim is true, but I like to think so.

New & Old

Last week Matt Barlow and Jessie came in from Germaine Walker to show us some books and a new signing. It was just before lunch and they were showing us some of Matt's gorgeous food shots which we were salivating over. Here's one of Matt's shots, chip butty...hmmmmm

New Audi ad

Saw this Audi Q3 in GQ on the weekend while my wife was in Coast looking at dresses for her sisters wedding (amazingly Coast have a 'bored husband/boyfriend chair' AND magazines!)
I am not sure who did the type for this, but if you know, let me know.

Update: Philippe Wilson tells me it was Alison Carmichael

Ginger Joe massive moustache in Hoxton

This massive moustache in Hoxton is a special build for Ginger Joe alcoholic ginger beer, and do I love ginger beer! You can go to https://www.facebook.com/gingerjoeukand upload a pic of yourself with a big fat ginger moustache.

Higher Pitch

Last night I was invited by a friend of mine who works at Society46 to go to the Higher Pitch exhibition.
It is an exhibition of work created by people who work in Advertising around the world. Initially this was a women in advertising event but this year they opened it up to everyone. There was some really interesting stuff there, I particularly liked the 'Meh Cat' by Tim Cordell.I wanted to buy it but am low on funds this month. Sponsored by Absolut, there were three cocktails to choose from, unfortunately I had to ride my vespa as I had to get from west London to east, so I could not drink.

New Castle Brown Ale - Shadow billboard

Really very cool. This was placed in San Diego's night life hub, the Gaslamp district.
Ellis Gallagher and Pablo Power created this.

Propaganda Posters

I just found these propaganda posters by Justonescarf.

Doggelganger

This great site from Colenso BBDO in New Zealand, its been around for a few months I think. Upload an image of yourself (or take one with your webcam) and the Doggelganger site will scan the database of abandoned dogs and based on your facial features, and comes back with a match. Goes with the old saying that dogs look like their owners. Client: Pedigree.

Dutch Football Federation T-shirts

Now this is COOL. A simple why-did-I-not-think-of-that idea.
Dutch Football Federation - 2010 FIFA World Cup T-shirt.
Advertising School: Willem de Kooning Academie, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Creatives: Bas van de Poel, Daan van Dam
Seen at thecoolhunter.co.uk

Web Design Basics

I thought I would do a post on the course I did last week at the University of Middlesex Summer School.

As we all do, I wanted to learn more about digital, and not just the social media stuff but the actual foundations of what is online. Way back when I was a spring chicken and first starting out I decided that the best way to understand and manage artwork was to learn how to do it, so I put myself on a Quark, Illustrator and Photoshop course. Now, my skills are very basic but at least I understand what needs to be done and how, makes my job easier. I figured it was the same for web.

On this course I learned how to code HTML and how CSS works. The course was just what I needed, the room was 50/50 split with young kids (twentysomethings) and older - the oldest bloke looked like he was in his sixties, good for him I thought!

The first two and a half days was pure HTML, headings, breaks, links etc, then we got onto CSS - all the while actually doing things, practicing. The last 2 days was spent learning more things - rollover banners, animated gifs, colours (or colors as the code was done by Americans), and buiding our websites. I am pleased to say I am still working on mine, I am not changing careers but I may well do it as a hobby, something to do on a rainy day to keep up my knowledge.

It is only run once a year and there is only one class so look out for next years, sign up.

USA Facebook/Passport figures

Interesting post on The Wall about hte number of Americans on Facebook compared with those with passports. Like the Jennifer Whitehead, I had heard the passport figure was around 5%. the figures are interesting.