A nice piece about LOVE in The Drum. Maybe this year we’ll try to win the “Hybrid Design, Advertising and Digital Agency Of The Year Award” if such an award exists.

At this time of the year, the New Business League in Campaign is a bit like the football Premier League in the first few weeks of the season - whilst the big guns ease their way into winning form, smaller sides have their brief shot at glory by getting off to a quicker start and finding themselves holding the top positions. So just as Wigan Athletic were (very briefly) top of the Barclays Premier League last August (I had to get that in), LOVE finds itself challenging for a Champions League slot in the New Biz league. Of course, unless we secure about £55m of New Biz by the end of the year, our position might slip slightly. But for now, we’ll bask in our tiny little bit of early season success.

Everyone should have got one of these for Chrimbo.  Simply set the middle rings to your personal preference.  Liable to a bit of sneaky hampering however by wicked office mates who know you don’t like sugar/milk.  Be warned.

Saw it here via here.

We’ve been doing some new work with Umbro.

If you’ve got a particularly strong view on whether goal-line technology should be introduced in football, whether women footballers should be paid the same as men or whether fans should have the right to choose to stand up at football matches, then have your say at the new Umbro website designed and built by Swamp.

The plan is to conduct the biggest ever global survey of football fans attitudes to the modern game. And if the pope is getting involved in football, so should you.

Sometimes naff ringtones, dodgy landlords, celebs and overpriced lager can all get too much. Sometimes you just want to disappear.

So if you’ve had enough of WAGS, ASBOS, CCTV and the X-factor; if dodgy landlords, greedy bank managers and nagging parents have become too much; then STA Travel can help you vanish - via our first new campaign for 2008.

Plan your escape here.

Lots of luck from LOVE to the National Year of Reading 2008. The year, which aims to inspire and excite us all to read more, was launched yesterday at Downing Street by Gordon Brown and the Education Secretary, Ed Balls. We’ve got a vested interest in the Year, not just because some of us have kids learning, and struggling to read, but also because we helped develop the brand. It’s a great project with some brilliant ideas and ambitions, and we really hope 2008 is a good year for them.

It’s my first (and probably only) blog so I may as well go all Oscar like on you and get banned from posting again (for not being funny enough), but a big thanks should really go to Rory, Phil, Gre, Emma, Sarah. And not forgetting Bevsta who came up with the line ‘Reading takes you further’. Oh…and my mum of course.

Find out more or get involved at www.yearofreading.org.uk

Ali.

Another fine presentation from Glyn at Albion.  Thanks for the LOVE mention, too.

This is a hat. A sombrero to be precise.

This is Anita, our office manager. She didn’t want her picture taken, so I had to use this illustration from Keith Roberts’ 1970 book of the same name.

This is Anita (the real one) reaching into the hat…

…and pulling out a name. (Exciting this, isn’t it?)

Congratulations Joao Pereira.

You’re welcome to drop by any time to pick up your table football game.

But bearing in mind Joao lives in Portugal, we took the liberty of pulling a second name out of the hat.

Anneka was the next name out, so should Joao not be able to pick up the game, Anneka’s next in line. Joao - the choice is yours.

Here’s Marcus Bent of the mighty Wigan celebrating his hat-trick in the stupendous 5-3 win against Blackburn. Worthy of a blog post in itself, me thinks.

But it’s also worth a mention for the meaning behind the mystery goal celebration. It’s all to publicise a new scheme called A-Star which ‘encourages young people to be inspired by role models who do not glamourise crime, guns or drugs’ .

The mystery goal celebration gesture - which has already been debated on national sports pages is our very early tip for most successful ‘viral’ campaign of 2008.

For the last three months we’ve had Steve Owen on placement with us. Sadly we didn’t have enough space for Steve at the moment, but he’s a good kid with lots of enthusiasm, so we’d highly recommend him to anyone out there looking for good, young talent. Steve also proved more than useful when it came to making his fair share of hot drinks, although he couldn’t quite get his head around the concept that some people have one sugar with coffee, but none with tea. Or vice-versa.

Here’s a picture he created to tell you a little about himself. I suppose it’d be nice if our name was on that dartboard too, but I suppose the fact that we designed it in the first place somewhat makes up for it. Some other useful things you might like to know about Ste:

- he plays footie on Sundays
- he sometimes drives a taxi
- his sister is a teacher in Kuwait
- his work was featured in Creative Review, Sept 2007
- he won Best in Show at Stockport College 2007
- he won Best in Show at D&AD New Blood 2007
- he was Runner-up in the Obedience Discipline at Crufts 2007
- he loves girls from Huddersfield
- he always plays Hard-Fi or The Fratellis
- he now quite likes The National