Manchester is famous for its football.

Manchester is also famous for its music.

This isn’t something that has gone unnoticed by the good people at Umbro, so in celebration of Manchester’s great cultural heritage, they are promoting Manchester City’s new kit using record sleeve visuals across the internet and across town. You’ve got the chance to design some of these sleeves. Here are a few examples of what we’re talking about…

The competition is open for anyone to enter and whilst there are no runner-up prizes, there will up to 10 winners who will have their artwork reproduced onto sleeves, posters and flyers.

They will also receive tickets to ‘Live For City’ at the City of Manchester Stadium on the 17th of July. If you’re sat there in your shiny red shirt thinking “That sounds rubbish”, you’d be wrong as it’s actually an exclusive gig with sets from the Doves, DJ Mike Pickering, The Twisted Wheel, Kid British and The Answering Machine. And you don’t even have to like City to appreciate that kind of line up. More details here and here.

Artwork should be “square” (according to one helpful designer here) and sent to hello@lovecreative.com before midnight on Sunday 12th July. A panel from Umbro, Anomaly and LOVE will be judging the designs, and winners will be announced on Monday 13th July. Sorry for the lack of time. Any questions, feel free to ask.

It’s music.

It’s football.

It’s a competition.

What’s not to like?

He ruined the world’s playlists. Now the world has begun its brutal revenge in the form  of a totally pointless website.

Only two questions remain:

Does anyone know what Jonathan from Spotify looks like?

Does Jonathan from Spotify know what baby pigeons look like?

If you are Jonathan from Spotify, perhaps you could let us know.

In case you were wondering, this is what baby pigeons look like:

If you already knew what baby pigeons look like, why did you not share this information with the rest of us?

Everyone’s struggling a little today. The world is a little blurry. In fact it’s taken me until a quarter to five to even think about blogging about last night’s Big Chip Awards. So let’s not waste any more time.

Much to our surprise (and delight) we won three Awards:

1) Best Use of Visual Design for the LOVE website.

The judges said:

“This winning site is wonderfully simple, clear, understated and totally irreverent.  The agency responsible has managed to transform a format often littered with text, clipart and turgid ill considered messages into a sublime piece of visual communication. This site says everything the agency needs to say about their ability to deliver world class graphic design and precise communication. The judging panel liked it so much, they watched it three times”

Which was really rather nice of them.

2) Best Digital Marketing Campaign for Doctor Martens

and, for the second year in a row: Best New Media Agency. Judges said:

“There are a lot of ways to evaluate an agency’s success, but in the end it all comes down to the work. The winner in this category impressed the judges with its innovation, imagination and execution, while the results they’ve achieved for their clients speak for themselves.”

Which again, was very kind.

Mr Matt Booth picked Best Freelancer for the second year in a row (partly due to his “breathless, playful yet professional copy on his home page”) and Mr Ian Hogg and ahd imaging won The Tony Wilson Award and Best Use of Animation. Code’s excellent work for Original Source won the Tasty Award and for once the Grand Prix didn’t go to the Neighbourhood - it was won by New Concept Gaming Limited for their jOG device for the Nintendo Wii. Congratulations to all the other winners on the night, and thank you to all the organisers at the Big Chip Awards. Finally, here’s a little film we made for the night.

Excellent work from Tom Myers and voice of Jon Rand.

Just in case you’ve forgotten it’s Father’s Day on Sunday, feel free to print out our simple card. Of course, if you’ve already got one, you can save it for Mother’s Day next year, which is the 14th March.

New business is essential in this day and age.

You need to make the right impression from the word go.

And your Business card is the key to success.

Listen and learn from the master.

Thanks to Ben & James for pointing that out.

We’re now taking applicants for Class of ‘09.

If you’re not familiar with the idea, it’s a three month paid placement for all creatives - digital, photographers, illustrators, copywriters, and designers. The only condition we’ve set is that you’re not in full time education. More details here.

We’ve had a good response so far, but we’d like more. So if you consider yourself a creative, and you’re graduating this year (or have graduated in previous years), send your five best bits of work and CV to class (at) lovecreative (dot) com.

Mrs Corlett (Née Murray) isn’t the only one to have enjoyed a big day recently: the Talented Mr Preece, our Senior Interactive Designer, has just returned from his honeymoon. Whilst we don’t have any pictures from the honeymoon (and frankly that’s the way it should stay) we do have some pictures from the wedding.

We love it when a plan comes together.

Many Congratulations to Stu and Jo.

D&AD’s over for another year, so there are probably a few designers out there looking for new Awards schemes to help raise their profile. Well, look no further than The Pointless Star Wars Awards 2009.

Set up about at about quarter past three this afternoon, the aim of PSWA is to reward creatives with so much time on their hands that they can spend hours pointlessly making videos and posters using their favourite movie characters.

Categories up for contention include:

Most Ridiculous Use of Stormtrooper Helmets

Most Cliched Use of Star War Lego

Best Integrated Use of The Force

Most Pointless Use of Darth Vader mask

The Yoda Award for Copy Best Use of

Most Inappropriate use of Family Member in a Princess Leia Costume

Chairman of the judges Chris Myers said: “Over the last few years we’ve seen some really pointless Star Wars creations on blogs and websites all over the internet. Now is the time to give something back by recognising how truly pointless this whole process is.”

Entries cost 5000 credits and closing date for submissions is a long long time ago. (Groan)

(And before you ask: yes I do appreciate the irony that I’ve written a totally pointless blog post that gently pokes fun at people with too much time on their hands.)