trees are people too

not a very long time ago I read a rather entertaining book by a charming young man called joshua ferris called then we came to the end.

A rather biting satire about the self importance of the advertising industry and its inhabitants, the book tracks the employees of a chicago ad agency who struggle with the burden of saving the world daily through careful choice of prose and font and the irresistible addition of 10% lactic acid to any product in order to boost sales. The book turned out to be a fortuitous introduction to what was in store for me in my new career.

I was fondly reminded of the book when I more recently stumbled upon the glorious business guys on business trips. Luckily my new work place is nothing like this, but it brings back vivid memories of those that have been. Something for everyone, I am sure.

It’s taken me a little while to learn, but the beauty of an ending means that it always precedes a new beginning. I’m endeavoring to approach all endings with this attitude from now on. Good luck to me.

After an epic cycling adventure on the weekend (with epic = horribly unfit and adventure = getting lost), on Sunday I came down with a lovely case of something nasty. As a result, I have spent some time on the internet looking for self-help remedies. I am all for self diagnosis (aided by the internet, thank you very much), except that to my dismay I discovered that my symptoms meant I had contracted strep throat, pneumonia, depression and TB, not to mention swine flu and bipolar. I am sure to die. But  in my quest for the antidote, I stumbled upon some help – and these beautiful pieces.

Beautiful design combined with minimal bullshit and pretense is what I love best, and so this made me feel slightly better. These guys have it all. A crisp and ergonomic website, appealing ethics and ideology, and gorgeous, tactile packaging that makes me wish that advertising was more integrated with the appearance of the final product. Simply browsing the website improved my health no end. Yes, the content may be a little cad (witty, dry product banter is getting hard to sustain). And yes, it probably won’t change the world like some other things I have seen this week. But it made me feel happy, even for just a moment.

After all, sometimes even superman loses his super, and needs a little help.

Oh ever so busy. Busy at work, busy at play, busy on bikes and busy drinking booze. Yes, some things never change. But winter is so fabulously frantic that it is nearly half over, and soon it will be spring again and time for parks, sun, wine, cheese and grassy rashes.

Work has been absorbing and exhausting, not just because they threw us an end of year party (aka we-found-some-left-over-funds-at-the-end-of-the-financial-year party) complete with kegs of cocktails, but also because of the buzz that is the Cannes Lions, the importance of which would have eluded me just over a year ago, but now has some significant relevance (or so I’m told) due to my new choice of career. While the majority seems to be industry-indulging bollocks, occasional gems are worth their weight in…uh…gold lions. Such as this spot from Tribal DDB Amsterdam.

(much better quality here).

Winning awards seems to be quite important to our agency, despite some views to the contrary and our seeming inability to do so (this year, at least). But it also serves as a valid excuse to take the time to seek out and peruse the most innovative and fabulous work from around the world. Images that disarm you, media placement to delight you and innovation that leaves you breathless (not to mention petrified).

But in the end, it is still far away from the commercial and capitalist world that the most wonderful art is occurring; incredible music, magical imagery (below, and courtesy of Mark Sartain), and fabulously pertinent writing.

It is digital expeditions that make discovery all of these treasures possible, not TV or press or radio. I am enchanted without being sold ideas, persuaded without being told what I need. And sometimes, just by chance, you stumble upon something that is all sorts of wonderful.

Following on from the theme of Advertising 101, another humorous analogy of what is now my everyday life. :sigh:

With thanks to a fine new blog I have discovered, Insights and Ideas which is written by a young man named Tim who lives locally and whom I hope to meet some day.

Perhaps everything would be alright if I just had one of these:

Although it seems to be missing the actual time display, which brings its functionality into question. I guess it wouldn’t really matter. You’d be so busy transforming you would lose all sense of time anyway. Courtesy of the ever inspiring Toxel.

The japanese are the best purveyors of quirkiness. And frustration. I bought a birthday present for madcaow, but it wasn’t until we got it home that we realised you had to assemble it yourself… And thus, our friday night was made. Felt rav tbh. I think we did ok, for a first attempt. (No bloggers were harmed in the making of this series).

The production line had it all – disgruntled and embattled workers, harsh employment conditions and even some bloodshed. I am surprised there wasn’t calls for a union to be formed (must have been the ready supply of wine), but to our astonishment the final product somewhat resembled that which appeared on the box. It was a short moment of great pride. And then we found this:

Yes. It is true. Thank you for raising the bar, little brown bird’s dreams. I bow down to your felty goodness. (In our defense, she is from Singapore, which is closer to Japan than here). I feel there may be more inspired felty treats to come…

I have struggled a little this week, and so I went trawling the internet for some inspiration. Unfortunately I found some…

An inspiring place to work…

An inspiring piece of work… (although not unlike a hallucinogenic experience I had once, which makes it also somewhat alarming)

An inspiring diatribe on why you must keep creating….

And an inspirational artform (thankyou to the beautiful Sophie)…

I am trying to keep these in mind, and my inspiration alive, in this first week of dreary winter in melbourne… more to come.

Not particularly long ago very dear friends of mine bought me a book called Face Food, Christopher D Salyers book on child-like naivete. My favourite type of naivete.

The book documents the visual creativity of Japanese bento boxes, beautifully crafted artistic masterpieces composed of rice, nori, bread, vegetables… absolutely anything edible, really. While the artistry is certainly outstanding, what touched me most about these bentos was the stories behind them. Mothers arising at 4.30am in order to prepare these boxes for their children. Children who could not eat their food were it not shaped into their favourite anime character. And the desperate yearning I felt for the sort of joy that one might get receiving your lunch packed liked this, carefully assembled with the sticky glue of affection and devotion. I have since endeavored to pack my lunches in this fashion, but have miserably failed. It truly is a form of art. So beautiful.

Also looks alarmingly appetising. nom. I miss you :(

In an earlier life when I still believed in the magic of words, I wanted to be Carol Ann Duffy, I just didn’t know who she was yet. Years later I was introduced to her via her poem Valentine, and I am yet to find anyone else who quite compares to her. Well known in the UK, she is something of a celebrity over there, and I despair of not having the opportunity to savour her work in school when I was far more innocent and thus receptive to the power of lyricism. Still, her poetry brought back dizzying memories of why writing and words mean so much to me.

This week Duffy has been confirmed as the next poet laureate, the first ever woman to hold this position. But I like to think if it as less a celebration of women than a celebration of her incredible talents. Let’s hope such stardom doesn’t go to her head and aleviate any inspirational agony.

Nowhere near as exciting, but I too wrote something more than an sms this week. Australia’s highest circulating marketing and advertising magazine B&T (pfft) recruited my services as AFA graduate and rookie reporter to contribute an analysis on current ads.

The objective was to apply my own ‘critical opinion’ to different ads, stating why I liked or disliked different campaigns, backed up with ‘sound reasoning’. And this is where it started to fall down. See, opinion sounds a bit like onion and reasoning sounds like seasoning, and before I knew it I was completely distracted by the thought of food and couldn’t concentrate at all on the ads. Needless to say, I submitted my article this morning and eagerly await their feedback (aka brutal editing or complete failure to include). We’ll see. Perhaps they will be forgiving. I am just a novice after all. I shall post scans here when published, but don’t get too excited.

And now for something nicer. This is new math. Much better than old math.

Created by Craig Damrauer. This one is dedicated to nicholas.

This is where I work now.

Unfortunately I imagine that this is poignantly relevant to all creative organisations. All aboard the train to the CCO. Via Fubiz. Thank you for brightening my day despite speaking french.

For easter we went on a magical tour of tasmania, where we ate and drank like kings. I’ll post some pics soon, and I send many many loves to our hosts. It was beautiful and oh so decadent. And coming back to work was oh so hard.

But then I found these. It’s just packaging, but I am hoping a handbag might be the natural progression. How wonderfully fruity and fabulous. Please, I want. I would be the finest fruit in all the land.

Via the insatiable nicefuckinggraphics, and (of course) originating in japan.

(More fab coming soon. Sorry about the silence, very busy at work fighting off the GFC and saving the world :sigh:)