It depends how you look at

I saw this picture which reminded me when I was a junior art director, I remember I was sitting on a couch in the creative department and a brief came in were the project manager said there's a brief for Woolworths, the problem was, it was a small space ad and even smaller budget.

I remember the look of horror on one of the 'star award winning' creative’s who responded: 'You have to be F'king joking I can't do anything with that, the budget's crap and anyway they'll be doing a TV spot soon, so I'll work on that'

Now this was a turning point for me as I could have thought the same way, but at that stage of my career it wasn't really an option so I put my hand up and said I'll work on it, lots of glares from all the other creative’s followed. (I think I broke the creative code at that time which was don't be too keen. So hear I was, this eager grinning kid with his hand up offering to work on it.

I wasn't trying to impress, I just looked at it in a completely different way than the 'pros' at the time. To me this was a challenge, like a test to see if I could work in a more constrained environment.

The ad was produced and the following year I got my first creative circle award for a print ad for ‘best use of small space’ The idea was for blank cassette tapes(yes it was that long ago) and the idea? The ad was completely blank with a tiny headline that read: Blank tapes at Woolworths only 4.99.

Some things that I learned from this:
1: Always treat every job as an opportunity.
2: Never become complacent and keep the creative fire in your belly.
3: Learn the rules and then break them.
4: You can win awards with bugger all time and budget.

Sexy Social Media Stats

Seen this and it looks beautiful wonderful design it was done by this mob not sure these figures are global but still pretty informative.

Social Media Counts

Long live The Revolution

There’s been a revolution happening and it has been going on for sometime – it started off quietly but over the last two year's has gained a lot of momentum.

The revolution? Many companies are looking a lot closely on how they are perceived and the effects their products are having on the environment. Much of this has been driven by 'people power' with many online groups setting up fan pages or as I like to call them ‘ban pages’ and what a powerful force these communities have become.

Many companies have for sometime had polices in place but much of this was only really highlighted internally and never really pushed outside their own environmentally green walls. In Australia Westpac I can recall was one company who pushed that they're more than just a bank with an obligation to their customers but to the environment as well.

More recently I received via a follower on Twitter that Puma have announced they've redesigned the good old shoebox to save on the environment. The story is told via a video presentation on how Puma will make less impact (excuse the pun) on the environment because as we all know the shoe box once home goes straight into the bin or in my case saved for the kid’s next school project.

Yes I know many of you will be cynically towards many companies who in the past have had a bit of a checkered history when it comes to our environment and are now on the green bandwagon, but in reality who cares? We all know it’s a good thing, if they were forced, so what, the point is they've changed and if it makes the world a much nicer place to live in while wearing our Pumas, then as a man once said let it be as ultimately everyone wins.

Happy Easter

As it's Easter and a time when the good fella rose and handed out lots of chocolate eggs and turned KFC drumsticks into chickens I thought I would post some ads with rabbits in it, sod the chickens - I've seen that ad for Chicken Tonight.



Great Honda and yes we love rabbits



and yes we love big rabbits especially with a track by the Stones




We also like kinky rabbits



Lucky bloody rabbit

Running Story

As you know I love running, I also love great ideas, well this little puppy has both, I watched this video on the history of ASICS and it is an amazing piece of story telling it's so well done in execution and writing after viewing you'll know why as a runner I only run in ASICS, Brilliant work Mabona Origami

Origami In the Pursuit of Perfection from MABONA ORIGAMI on Vimeo.

Blackmores new site is live

Blackmores new site has finally gone live and with the help of a lot of talented boy's and girl's over at Bullseye Digital the vision to build a website that will be Australia's No:1 health and wellbeing site has began, but where did it all start? Well the site itself took 12 months to design and build but prior to that it took a further 6 months to workout the wireframe and designs. We had a vision to build Australia's No:1 health and wellbeing site and we knew what we wanted the site to become so we worked very closely with Blackmores to bring it to life. This was a massive project but what's interesting is the original scamps I did haven't really been lost in the final design, we still have embracing online communities with one to one interactions with relevant content.

Much of this is down to the client and the team at Blackmores yes we guided and advised as we went along, but they had ideas too, it was a really good collaborative. This all makes for a much better working relationship and the end result is something we should be all proud of, the hard work that has been done I'm sure will pay off.