Caffeinated posts from an ACD/Copywriter. I write about advertising, design, astronomy, cooking, and pretty much anything else that strikes my fancy, including random bits of reference info for work purposes. You may also know me as 'that other gal' who helps run Adland.
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Friday, January 21, 2011
[ Meet Penguin Suit Guy ]

+ Yesterday we launched some new work in a video campaign for one of our clients. Check it out.

Penguin Yoga


Penguin Does Cool Tricks On Skis


Client: Dunkin' Donuts
Agency: Studiocom

Labels: digital, Dunkin' Donuts, watch, work

Monday, January 17, 2011
[ John Cleese on Creativity ]

John Cleese talks about creativity and how to find the space and time to be creative at a conference in Belgium.


Cleese's Points:
+ Sleep on it when stuck on a problem
+ Brain works on concept unconsciously, even when you are finished
+ Avoid interruptions (a most dangerous thing)
+ We don't know where we get our ideas from...but we do know we don't get them from our laptops.
+ Need to create a tortoise enclosure for your tortoise mind to come out and play.
+ Create boundaries of space and boundaries of time.
+ To know how good you are at something, requires the same skills it takes to be good at that thing. (Also worded as, "You lack exactly the skills you need to know that you are absolutely hopeless at it.")

Labels: creative, watch, work

Tuesday, January 11, 2011
[ Why A Good Brief Leads To Good Creative ]

+ The brief. It's a creative person's bane, but also their best friend. It's a document that provides creative marching orders. And the better it is, the better the creative. You'll find a variety of briefs used at different agencies. Most times the agencies try to have their briefs fit their business philosophies.

But when it all comes down to it, here's what we need to know:
- What is the goal? (Sell more widgets, introduce a new widget, etc)
- Who are we talking to? (Males, 18-34 into knitting and lacrosse)
- What is the 1 key message? (Widgets improve your life)
- What are the support points? (Widgets make you sexy, Widgets save 90% of lives, etc)
- Timeline (When is it due?)

Anything more than that, like media/budget/mandatory items, are a nice to have. Helpful and useful but not always needed. It also depends on the project; a website redesign will require quite a bit more info than a pure conceptual project.

Where do you go from there? Good creative knows to follow the brief. Great creative takes what's in the brief and spins the key message to make it relevant to audience. It's how we weave our gossamer web of creativity, threading strategy and problem solving into the tapestry of our work. Creatives need facts to start this process. Good creatives get it. Great creatives crave it and can't start working without it.

Labels: adgruntie, advertising, creative, digital

Saturday, January 01, 2011
[ Some things to look at ]

+ Yummy design. The Dieline's Top 100 Package Designs of 2010.

Tee hee hee. Polar Bear Mauls Robotic Spy Camera.

Read about the man behind @GapLogo.

Who would have guessed there's Bad Science in Movies. ;)

Labels: design, fun, links, logo, science

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keep on using that brain.