OK, maybe we should start with an apology to all those who have been sending us your work in the last year, asking for placements. You know who you are. We’re sorry.

We know we’ve been a bit slack, but that’s about to change. CLASS is launching to give graduates the chance to come and work along side us for three months, and yes, you will be paid. Obviously we won’t be able to give everyone placements, but it’s a start, so bear with us.

CLASS is not specific to design or advertising or digital or illustration or copywriting or photography. It’s just specific to class. And by class we don’t mean middle class/ working class, or what class you were in at school. We mean class as in class act. What the dictionary describes as ‘Admirable skill or excellence in performance.’

So, if you think that sounds like you, and you fancy joining us for a while, email your portfolio to class@lovecreative.com, or post a copy of it to the address on the top right. First or second class is fine. Because of the length of placement, we’re only accepting portfolios from grads. If you’re a student out there reading this and thinking that’s a bit unfair, then, well… you might be right. But that’s the rules. You can still come in and show us your portfolio - you just won’t get a placement.

We’ll be spending the next couple of weeks looking through the work, and hopefully we’ll announce who’ll be joining us on 10^th October.

(I’m not exactly sure why I’ve included so many images of 80s highschool movies in this post. Think I just got carried away.)

Ben Wilson is an artist who works in London. Muswell Hill to be precise. Whilst most artists prefer to use canvas or paper for their work, Ben uses chewing gum that’s been squashed into the highstreet.

Ben’s been creating his miniature masterpieces full time since October 2004, and the trend seems to be finally catching on here in the north too. Here’s one effort we found outside our local boozer:

Thanks to DHM for the story and pictures (minus the last one). There’s also a short film about Ben’s work here.

Funny. By Agency Fusion. Via The Serif.

Just one final post from China…

I’ve been looking at this sign from the Forbidden City for the last couple of days (not continuously) and I’m still stuck as to what it means. If anyone has any ideas, or can translate it from the Chinese, please feel free to share.

Yesterday we didn’t have any meetings, so had a couple of hours to see a bit of Beijing. In the interests of saving everyone’s time , it’s probably best to just post a few pictures, rather than try and write some profound waffle. More tomorrow.

Forbidden City

Tiananmen Square

Crazy rikshaw driver

Duck (RIP)

I’ve never read the book Business For Dummies, nor am I 100% sure that one exists with that title. But if it does, I’m fairly certain that quite near the front, like page 1, there’ll be a passage that says “If you are attending an international design conference in China, don’t forget to take your business cards with you, otherwise you’ll look stupid.”

Fortunately Alistair bought plenty with him, but now everyone thinks we’re both called Alistair Sim. This is why he is MD, and I am not.

(click to download flyer)

Jesse Auersalo
YCN Live

There was excitement in the agency on Friday as no one eagerly gathered around for our monthly “Don’t Bake a Cake Off”.

Set up nearly five months ago, not baking cakes was designed to help build team spirit in the agency and has proved a real hit. So far no one’s baked chocolate brownies (scrummy!), Victoria sponge cakes (not so scrummy), flapjacks (won by Anna) and muffins (no one bothered not baking anything), but this month it was everyone’s turn not to bake Carrot Cakes.

Chris G’s effort – needed more icing.

We were really impressed with the amount of people that didn’t bother to bake anything, with Chris G, Rory, Emma, Leanda and Adam F all not making a really good effort. Adam R also didn’t bake a cake, but we suspect he might have got his girlfriend not to bake it!

Hari’s entry – slightly over-done, but no walnuts was a nice touch.

It was a really close call, but in the end everyone agreed the amazing, moist carrot cake shaped like a real carrot that Emma didn’t bake was the worthy winner.

Em’s winning effort – great with a cuppa!

Next month: no one’s baking cookies!

If you’re a fan of duck-herding, ferret-racing, morris-dancing, welly-wanging, pie-eating and smoothie-drinking, and you weren’t in Regent’s Park at the weekend, you missed out big time.

After kind invitations from Dan, four of us made the trip to our capital city on Saturday for the innocent Village Fete. Despite a large downpour around one o’clock, we all had an excellent time. Except we don’t really have any good photos to show for it. Sorry. Here’s a picture of Phil after he tried to drink Tuborg through his eye.

And a close up of the table we sat at. You can just about make out at bit of Jo’s foot, top left.

If you’d like to see some slightly more professional photography from the day we’d recommend heading over to the Fete blog. A big thank you to everyone for the excellent hospitality.

An official statement from the LOVE management:

On 20th July 2008, at 1810 GMT the new LOVE website was launched.

Due to other commitments Boris Johnson was unavailable to attend.

It has been designed in Powerpoint.

It contains work designed by us over the last seven years.

There is still more work to be done on it.

We hope you like it.

You can turn the sound off if you want to.

If you don’t know who Russell Davies is, you can find out here.

Thank you to everyone who has worked on it.

Statement ends.