CREATIVE BRIEF:

What is required?: World War II is now upon us, so we need to communicate the need to stay calm.

Target audience: The entire population of Great Britain.

Media: Poster.

Deadline: ASAP

As briefs go, they probably don’t get more challenging than this one. But after being set by King George VI in 1939, the result was one of the most memorable posters ever produced.

Even though it never saw the light of day until 50+ years later, when it tipped-up in a box of old books in Northumberland, it was just the sort of ‘stiff upper lip’ message that was needed during those times. And it was a sentiment that influenced our guest edit of The Drum, which comes out today.

With messages like ‘current economic climate’ and ‘doom and gloom’ being force-fed to us all on a daily basis, it’s obvious why everyone’s heads are down at the minute. So we wanted to get people thinking positive and see all the good things that can actually come from a recession. Because there are some you know.

And to show that the credit crunch doesn’t have to restrict our creativity, we challenged ourselves to produce the issue under budget. OK, still nowhere near as hard as the brief by King George VI, but still pretty tough going.

Thanks to Bil Bungay, Russell Davies, Phil Teer, John Boam and everyone who got involved and wanted to say something positive. Mostly though, thanks to the unknown creative who came up with that poster all them years ago. After the events of this week, Keep Calm and Carry On is just the message we needed to hear.

Hands. Sometimes they’re dab, sometimes they’re tied, and sometimes (when there’s a pair of them) they’re safe.* But after picking up a brief from PlayStation for the PSP3000, we found that they could do so much more.

If you live in one of the 33 countries around the world it’s running you might have already seen the TV adverts, as well as the posters and instore work. Thanks to PlayStation and all the team that worked on it: Dave, Darren, Chris and the neighbourhood.

* Source: http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/hands

Update: A special thanks/ pat on the back/ big hug to Jonny Whiteoak who also put a lot of hard work into the project. If you see him, please give him a high five or other alternative form of celebration.

The Fresh Digital Awards were held last night at the Hilton. We only had one piece nominated, so it was good that one won. 100% ain’t bad. The Warburtons We Love Bread website picked up the award for Freshest Digital Campaign. Well done Adam P, Mark, Jono, Stu, Emma, Darren and everyone else I’ve missed out. There’s always one.

Hats also tipped in the general direction of our neighbours on the 3rd floor of Basil Chambers, the neighbourhood who picked up the Grand Prix. See you at the bar.

A great philosopher once told us: “We’re all going on a summer holiday, no more working for a week or two. Fun and laughter on a summer holiday, no more worries for me and you. For a week or two.”

It’s a belief that’s been held by many civilisations throughout the centuries, but it wasn’t until we recently started work with luxury travel company carrier that we really understood its true meaning. These guys know how to holiday. And we know how to do websites. So it seemed only natural that they asked us to design a website for all their holidays.

It went live last week – click here if fancy heading off on probably the best holiday you will ever go on. Thanks to everyone who worked on the project with us.

Three simple steps for any students/ grads looking to get noticed:

1) Buy teapot

2) Write your name and contact details on teapot.

3) Leave Teapot behind in agency after crit.

Not exactly rocket science, but half an hour plus a couple of quid spent in Wilkinsons makes all the difference. Thank you Lauren & James.

Unfortunately, due to something happening in the US most of the national newspapers seem to have overlooked the big story of the day – The Grocery Company have just launched a range of Nando’s Peri-Peri chips (like crisps but a bit posher) which they kindly asked us to do the packaging for.

They come in three mouth and eye-watering flavours: Hot Peri-Peri, Peri-Peri Chicken and Smokey BBQ Peri-Peri, with more in the pipeline. We’ve only tried a couple of bags so far (the hot is genuinely hot – you have been warned) and from today if you go down to your local Tesco store you should be able to pick up a bag or two or (ideally) three for yourself. Just make sure you pay for them too: crime isn’t a way of life.

Just found this video by Gnarls Barkley on James & Joe’s blog (otherwise known as Keirs and Callahan). Great casting and the dialogue’s particularly good. It’s been a while since I’ve been on James & Joe’s blog (which is why many of you have probably seen this video before), but there’s always plenty of good stuff on there. Well worth a look if you haven’t already.

So, last Friday we had eight grads showing their portfolios in our office. Good people they all were, and some good work on show too. If you are looking for some grads to add to your creative department it’s definitely worth giving these guys a call/ email/ carrier pigeon:

Matt Mear

James Gilmore

Ed Risby

Ed Andrews:

edward.andrews86 (at) yahoo.com

(you need to use the @ sign here instead of the (at) – just didn’t want their emails bombarded with spam.)

Mark Dunbavan:

mdunbavan (at) aol.com

Sean Simmonds:

seans-007 (at) hotmail.co.uk

Gemma Thelwell

Unfortunately we could only take one person on and in the end we decided that person was to be Gemma, who’ll be joining us sometime soon. So well done Gemma, and well done everyone else who applied. And while we’re at it, well done you too for whatever you’ve done today.