Confessions of an industry pariah.

Cool illustrations...

2008-11-17T03:51:00.000-08:00

Steve found this...

Check out more of the same here.

Curly hair and Tashes.

2008-11-03T02:56:00.000-08:00

The Liverpool Design Symposium 2008? Why the hell not!

Working on the edges of the design industry affords us the luxury of getting to occasionally speed away from the office a few hours early and hit up cool events like these, the last one being a talk by Adrian Shaughnessy in Newcastle organised by the Design Event bods.

I was hoping we could get across in time for a talk by a chap called Dalton Maag, a Massive typography geek who works in London selling fonts to people, but this talk was sold out, so looked like we were all about the Everything...

Universal Everything that is! The main talker of the event [as selected by D+AD President Garrick Hamm] was Matt Pyke of aforementioned agency..but i'm getting ahead of myself - first the beers!

We went across early to see if we could blag into any earlier talks and struck lucky with a short film showing a selection of this years D+AD winners followed by a Q+A session with one of the judges, but as this was a good 30 minutes away the boss treated myself + Msr. Parkinson to a sly shandy at a nearby public house - Doctor Duncan's! When in the'pool you could do a lot worse than drink here, 2 thumbs up from the Character Creative alco's.

The events were all being held in possibly the grandest room I've occupied in my life - the auditorium was circled with about twenty 8-foot statues of writhing women against pillars, the ceiling dominated by a fantastic chandelier and gold gilding across the entirety of the intricate hall decor.
After a quick introduction by one of the event organisers and D+AD judge Stuart Price [of the Manchester agency Thoughtful..pretty certain that was his name] we were away - D+AD 2008 Winners Showcase.
I remember when i was a kid my Mum telling me about an early date with my Dad where he took her to see All Creatures Great + Small in the cinema. She'd been a big fan of the books growing up, and found herself laughing at all of the funny scenes before they got funny for the sake of remembering them from the books..this was me! In particular, these three :

Touch - TBWA

Wind - Nordpol + Hamburg

Viral Train - DDB Oslo

From what I'd not seen before [sorry, another advert!] this was another cool one..kinda rips on Honda's classic Cog advert, but wtf, it works!

Effortless - WCRS

and if you don't smile uncontrollably at the end of this one, then i'm sorry, you're not human!!

Tan Hong Ming - Leo Burnett

The showing started a tad late, so we ducked out during the Q+A to ensure foods were got before Pykes headline act!

Pizza and Peroni later we were back in The Land That Economic Downturn Forgot aka gold-gilded grand hall, and after a brief intro we were being gently guided around Matt Pykes version of reality. Unassuming and modest, young designers could do a lot worse than take heed of his approach and attitude. Although the subject of ethics in design wasn't really touched upon, I got the strong impression that it's a very definite central tenant of his work.

In bringing us up-to-date with what he's got going on at the moment, we first of all went way back to his early college-level artistic endeavours of water-colours and non-Mac technical drawing. Though seemingly incidental in their inclusion, his early understandings of form in design were tied to these and as such it gave a nice insight into the origins of a Designer.
Cutting to the chase [wow, long blog or what?!], after education, some freelance work and an 8 year stint at Designers Republic in Sheffield [loved the story of how he got this job!] he now works from his home, or more accurately a "shed" at the bottom of his garden.
With incredible briefs secured, he then outsources to freelancers across the world to give light to his concepts.
OK, this is most likely over-simplifying his method, but that's the crux. Brilliant!
You've got a website project and an amazing idea for some crazy spiralling and morphing 3D jet of liquid that just Needs to be involved somehow, but you just don't have the rendering skillz. Well then, hire the best 3D guy you can find for the project and Lets Do This!
And that's how he rolls.
After a selection of projects Universal Everything have done in the past and a look at their ADHD-esque website we were treated to a first viewing of a music video he'd directed - directed from his shed in Sheffield via the wonder of the internets whilst the action played out in LA!
I told you that's how he rolls!
I could gush more, an amazingly simple concept for a digital arts festival featuring 20,000 unique creatures on postcards [Love Bytes], contorting the Olympics 2012 concept into something akin to cool [sorry, still traumatised by its initial introduction!], the wind-tunnel + colour explosion of an Audi viral, but think maybe i can cut it short here.

We left the place on a really inspired high and the drive back to Leeds was filled with excited debate between the 3 of us, dissecting each others thoughts and ideals on design practice and the industry.
From the tale-end that we caught, an amazing event, though a shame we weren't able to check out the earlier happenings.
We'll most definitely be back next year, which is already being hyped to shadow this years, and you never know, Character may just throw our hat into the Events arena again after the fun we had with Stopping The Buck - watch this space!

Julie's first blog entry...

2008-04-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

Hi there! To you big fans of great design let me introduce myself: my name is Julie! I'm the frog on the Character's board with Captain Darren and his skipper Steve for three months. Only three days that I arrived and come on I already swear in French handling my PR job! But it is actually only a way to express how much I'm glad to work for and with Character Creative.

For sure get into a team with passionate people by their job such as Darren and Steve, change your way of going to work every morning… which is pretty cool!

Time flies when you're having fun!

Steve's first blog entry...

2008-04-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

Only a day into my Character experience and we’ve had an office move, enough networking issues to get a geek light-headed, paper-quality debates, endured an electricity supplier cold-call assault and I’ve already been left in control of this mighty vessel whilst Captain Scotland went on a supplies skirmish.

It seems the administrative necessities of the good ship Character were merely a rouse to tempt me aboard, and now we’ve set sail I’ve found a whole host of new and exciting possible projects for me to get my teeth into…more on that later I’d imagine, but for now I’m more than busy whipping the company into shape, administratively speaking.

Steve

Plain English web thingies

2008-03-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

For those of us that are still confused by such things as, RSS, wiki’s, social bookmarking, blogs etc I’ve just found a great video blog series that explains all of them and more in plain English (albeit in an american accent!).

Check them out here: http://www.commoncraft.com/shows/plainenglish

Darren

Character's new office

2008-03-27T18:32:00.000-07:00

This week saw Character Creative take a brave step out of my (Darren) back bedroom into a fully blown office right bang in the centre of the North’s most exciting city, Leeds!

The move had been a long time in coming but now it’s here we’re really pleased with the space and after a Easter weekend filled with flat pack fun we’ve got the place looking half decent too.

We’re still after a few things to put up on walls etc so all you illustrators and designers out there with pieces for sale (or free donations to give away!) give ME (Darren) a yell and let’s see if we can get the place looking even better.

There are a few pics up on our profile and for those that are in the area, pop in a see us sometime.

Darren

New website

2008-02-04T09:17:00.000-08:00

After a sleepless weekend we've managed to give our site a much needed facelift.

Using a programme call Inexhibit we think we've created a great space so get yourselves over there and tell us what you think.

www.charactercreative.co.uk

One year and counting

2008-01-08T13:58:00.000-08:00

As 2008 arrives I thought I'd take to opportunity to wish you all a very happy New Year and wax lyrical about some of Character's acheivments in 2007.

After a year of highs and lows we're still here to tell the tale and whats more we have ourselves an enviable list clients, candiates and of course MySpace friends!

We've worked with world famous design house like, Attik and Elmwood as well smaller outfits like my mate Al at Obsessive Productions!

We're relishing what might happen in 2008 and plans are afoot for our first office move and the hiring of extra staff.

Keep your eyes peeled on the blog and as alway if you think we might be able to help you out drop us a line or give us a call anytime.

Speak to you soon.

Darren

Cut & Paste

2007-10-24T14:34:00.000-07:00

It'd had been our first night out in a while so no surprises that we didn't roll back to the hotel till near on 4:30am after Cut&Paste's first ever event in London!

As the brief description revealed on the home page, Cut&Paste is kind of like Pop Idol for designers, with 8 contestants, all from different backgrounds, battling it out for the crown.

Brick Lane's Truman Gallery provided an excellent (although a little cold!) venue and, given the fact the rugby was on, about 700 people meant a pretty good turn out too.

The comp kicked off at about 21:00 with the theme being currency. After two rounds of 4 contestants the judges kicked out half and we were left with 4 semi-finalists.

 Their theme was the Olympic rings - and what they mean for London and some controversial responses ensued!

We were then left with two finalists battling it out with "poking fun" as the subject with Tom Judd eventually being crowned champion.

You can view all the work at the Cut&paste website, here and if you fancy having go yourself there's still time to enter the online comp.

A great night for design and fingers crossed we see a few more events like this in the future.

Darren

Designers are wankers

2007-08-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

No I haven't decided to turn on all those that keep us in business - Designers are Wankers is a book written by a chap called Lee McCormick, a product designer whom I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of week back. Lee, like many of us, is frustrated by how ill prepared design graduates are for the real working world and, unlike many of us, he's trying to help do something about it.

I attended a debate on the subject with Lee at Manchester's The Cirlce Club along side Dinosaur's CD Mark Beaumont and a fella from Salford Uni.

The debate raised some interesting points but best of all encouraged a wide variety of people to start a dialogue about the issue and hopefully this will plant a few important seeds.

Designers are Wankers now have a website that you can visit too www.designersarewankers.com . It's full of interesting people who are willing to offer genuinely insightful advice. If you've just graduated or are still struggling to find your path in the the design world, visit it. All the answers you need are on there - you just have to ask the right questions.

PS I might be involved in setting up a simular debate in Leeds over the coming months so keep your eyes peeled for info and drop me a line if you're interested in being involved.

Darren

Bloody students

2007-07-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

Since we're now well into, what I and I'm sure countless others in my profession refer to as, the "student season" I thought it might be nice to explain our predicament and perhaps offer some (seemingly) much needed advice.

As soon as I get into my office I hit send and receive and look forward to seeing what lands in the Character inbox. Most of the time I'm excited about what we're about to receive but over the last few weeks, and doubtlessly into the summer months, we're hit with tens of applications from people who (if they read the copy we put together) know that they are not the right candidate for the job - and most of the time it is the recently graduated students that are the cuprites.

Now I can't blame them - after all you don't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket. The frustrating thing is though is ninety nine times out of a hundred I am never shown anything that makes me want to give them a chance.

You see we are a business and as such need to make some money (obviously). We do this by charging a fee to our clients once we successfully find them the right candidate for their role. We're not cheap either so our clients come to us to help them find very specific people – not the sort of people that would get in touch everyday. And there's the problem. Most top Creative agencies get more than their fair share of graduate CV's emailed directly to them so the chances of them wanting to pay Character (or any other agent for that matter) an additional fee for hiring are slim to none.

"But all your positions require experience so how am I supposed to get experience if no one will offer me a chance?"

A question we hear all the time and you're right, it isn't fair. But then again neither are a whole heap of other things.

The fact is that you have just spent the last 3 - 4 years at a university learning how to be a designer. Fortunately though, once you get a job, you'll learn more in 1 week than you did in the whole of that time – that's a whole other issue entirely though and not necessarily your fault either.

You've got to come to terms with this, you have no commercial experience but you should have (if you're going to make it) massive hunger, enthusiasm and a vivid imagination. This will go some way to make up for it.

Writing in your CV that you're young and enthusiastic isn't enough to persuade me though I'm afraid and neither is a couple of your "arty photos", abstract art work or the business cards you did for your mate's mum's mobile hairdressers.

Wake up and realise that you're trying to enter into an industry that is more heavily over-subscripted than any other I can think of and start thinking about what you're doing on a higher level.

This business is fundamentally about communicating. You've got to work on delivering a more insightful and better crafted message than any of your peers.

There are some fantastic resources out there for those of you that try to find it. Sign up for a student membership with D&AD, read Creative Review, Design Week, Campaign and The Drum (Vox pop in this week's issue asks, "Are graduates ready for agency life?" ) religiously. Make sure you know what's hot on theFWA.com and newstoday.com

Work harder over the next six months than you ever did during your schooling. Read reviews, make phones calls, form you're own opinions on peoples work and work harder at your own.

If you send us something that genuinely excites and shows real promise, I'll guarantee to bend over backwards to help you get onto the ladder.

Before you do send me another email though, at least find out my name first!

Good luck to all of you.

Darren

D&AD Awards 2007

2007-06-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

A week has past since our industries biggest awards night, The D&AD's. If you haven't caught up with the runners a riders then read on my friends and see what we made of it all.

Unfortunately we didn't make it to the night itself (new business, money bla bla bla) but all the results are up and available to view at the D&AD website, www.dandad.org

First up in the integrated category it's worth mentioning the runlondon campaign where Nike attempted to settle the age old battle of North vs South through the medium of running. Being a runner myself I liked it and pulling together a campaign rolled out over so many platforms can't be easy. It's nice to see that recognised – shame about the result though!

The TV categories featured familiar names. One stand out for me was the Leo Burnett Italy spot "underwater world". I've seen this on British screens and thought it was stunning. It's beautifully art directed a great sound track. Fallon and Sony featured again, this time with "paint" the follow up to balls but couldn't bag a pencil this time round. A great concept with massive visual impact but unlike "underwater world" I've always thought the soundtrack lets the piece down, a criticism I've heard levelled at it in the past. Worth mentioning Ogilvy and Mather's "transvestite" which was only shown in the US, this had me, to coin a phrase, laughing out loud!

The much loved Marmite "love it or hate it campaign" was again nominated, this time presented as Dermot Flynn illustrations of famous people/places we either love or hate – personally I can't stand the stuff but I think, despite being one of the longest running campaigns, these ads show it still has legs.

At quirky little ad for Lego (a twist on the famous builders poster) and an arresting series of posters for Amnesty International were others worth a mention.

Scottish agency GRP who triumphed as the Grand prix winners at this year's Roses awards got their mitts on a pencil with their work for NHS Glasgow and partners. I must say I wasn't sure about this on the night of the Roses but having now seen the work close hand I am completely sold. The attention to detail and the authenticity of the execution is truly exceptional and I think it will serve well in getting the intended message across.

Onto one of only 2 black pencil winners on the night and it's for best use of illustration for German agency Kolle Rebbe Werbeagentur GmBH with Eva Salzmann's as the illustrator and their work for War Orphans. It's a highly emotive piece and I think the sort of thing to really provoke a reaction. I showed my girlfriend it and she said it was horrible! Is that what they are looking for? Probably so I would suggest.

Another piece I thought stood out over the summer was Nick Georghiou's shot for the "St Wayne" poster which picked up a nomination in the best photography category.

Viral

Viral is now and a bigger shortlist than ever before. Sky One's "come home to the Simpsons" piece I saw a while ago and I must say it still brings a smile.

The first to make a deeper impact though was the Abbott Mead Vickers piece for breast cancer awareness. The impact of the closing seconds is huge and really brings home the message, "anyone" and I think communicates fantastically well to both male and female. "A little bit rude" by Publisis is cute enough, I remember the girls in the office going nuts over Ogilvy and Mathers' work for Dove when that was doing the rounds last year, "fingerskilz" will be something most football fans will get a kick out of (sorry!) and "web 2.0" is an another interesting use of the current trend for stop motion animation, although I must say I think I've seen about enough of it now.

Brand

I wanted to mention the identity for (RED) delivered by Wolf Olins. I've grown fond of this over the last 6 months or so and off the back of a tricky brief (how do you create an all encompassing brand that allows other brands to retain their own identity within it?) it only seems to grow stronger.

Digital

The second black pencil winner appears as a website for Nike+. The site is good looking enough but it's the way in which the user is invited and participates in this new virtual world that is really clever. The product itself is quite amazing (A chip in your trainer communicates with your iPod telling you how fast and how far you have run etc) and the site really builds on this unique technology by pulling users together and enabling them to compete against each other as individuals, teams and even countries. You can track your own and others routes, times and performances over time and get tips from Nike endorsed athletes on training regimes and even what their own "power songs" are.

A tribute to how successfully the site works is me; I actually went out the day after and bought the bloody thing!

There's plenty of stuff that I haven't commented on so if anyone has an opinion post a reply, it would be great to hear what you all think.

To see the full list of winners visit: www.dandad.org

Until next time.

Darren

The Roses advertising awards

2007-04-30T19:18:00.000-07:00

I know this is a bit late, since the Roses were back on the 20th, but I thought it would be worth sharing my opinion on the night and the work on show.

Admittedly I wasn't around to see it all as I slipped away into the night at around 11:15pm and I don't think they finished dishing them out until gone mid-night (again!). Anyway, on the night I have to that there was very little work that stuck in my mind but I agreed with the theory that the significant increase in entries means that the industry isn't in that bad a shape at the moment.

The bulk of the silverware (and gold and bronze ware) was carted up to Scotland as usual and The Leith Agency's never ending work with Iron Brew was once again heavily featured - perhaps this sticks better than most because the campaign featured my name sake Jason Scotland?

BDH..TBWA's press work for Wickes was in there for the second year running (which I think is great campaign and is bang on the money for the target market), I still can't believe its only appearance has been in press with never so much as a sniff in the TV categories.

Another big winner was the McCann Erickson poster for Addias. Simple idea but really communicates straight to the target audience - those poor sods in Manchester that are perennially rained upon!

A glimpse through this weeks "The Drum" or a visit to their site www.thedrum.co.uk will detail more winners so take a look.

Thanks to Lisa at The Drum for her hospitality (Can't believe I made the top table!). It was a new experience being sober at one of these events but a good one never the less.

If you were at the event and have an opinion on the good the bad and the ugly then post a comment!

Darren

Big news

2007-03-30T15:02:00.000-07:00

The end of our third month and the news we've all been hoping landed this week; Character's first permenent job offer.

Keep your eyes on our blog for further details and perhaps a short interview with the lucky lady.

We've got other high level candidates interviewing at the moment as well so we're hoping for even more good news shortly.

Fingers and toes and eyes are all crossed.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Darren

More progress

2007-03-06T16:25:00.000-08:00

Here we are, just over two months old and we're at the point of no return! Having spend the last two months "brand buliding" etc we need to get down to the serious stuff and start generating some Mu honey.

I've invested some time in joining a few myspace groups today and the ads we've got running on creativepool, design week, krop and FWA are yielding some decent response so hopefully the top draw candidates will be flying throught the door.

In the meantime keep your eyes peeled for our first placement which (fingers crossed) will be happening very soon!

If anyone reads this and has a good idea who the next David Carson or Trevor Beattie is then please get them to give me a call!!!!!!!

Speak soon

Progress

2007-01-12T13:56:00.000-08:00

Well we are now making some progress! Business cards, letterheads and website are all here and the telephone has even started to ring - good god! Next week will be a big week for the business and by the end of it we should be able to see much better where we might be heading. For those friends of mine, I should have the business account set up by the end of the week, meaning I can finally get paid and finally get out for a couple of beers! Cabin fever anyone?

Blast off !

2007-01-08T16:59:00.000-08:00

Character Creative has now been trading for little over 1 week and those of you that don't know, Character is my (Darren Scotland) first leap into the world of business. We're a recruitment agency for the creative industries by the way.
A friend of mine suggested sticking something up on myspace so here we are. I've played around with lines of code all afternoon to to see if I could get the place looking more inviting but something tells me it might be an on-going process.
So anyway, those of you that are interested/bored enough to spend any of your time checking this out please do pop back in from time to time. Hopefully this space can become useful for all of us and I'll try and keep regular updates for those that are interested in my success or failure!!

See you soon I hope.

Darren