welcome to optimism

Bunker Lover

Lucy writes:

I spent Wednesday holed up 3 floors down in the P3 space beneath Westminster University. I was taking part in a workshop day, 'Cascade' an educational programme which is part of this year’s Onedotzero ‘Adventures in Motion’ Festival.

It was an experimental education workshop mixing students of different ages and from different schools and colleges with different cross disciplinary practices. 50 students from Camberwell, Chelsea, LCC and Westminster University worked in 6 groups to document, map and record a response to a piece of work by Interactive Light Architect Jason Bruge, with their final concepts being some sort of city intervention.

Wednesday was creative process day and myself and Tony Phillips, Creative Director of Digital Communications at Imagination were asked to give presentations to the students on our respective companies and our creative practices and talk about some examples of collaborative city based projects we have worked on. I talked the guys through Run London North vs South and the Nokia Regent Street Christmas Lights and handed out Dan Wieden inspirational badges which seemed to go down well.

The P3 space is a huge, industrial, concrete bunker, the place where apparently the concrete for the Westway was tested.

More educational workshops are going to be happening in the coming weeks with more colleges and schools get involved adding further momentum to the Cascade project.

If you fancy seeing the results the finished projects will be presented at the Education Symposium at the BFI Southbank and Imax on Friday 14^th November.

Plus the wider Onedotzero festival will also be running between the 14^th- 16^th November.

As ever it’s the best place to check out the world’s most innovative motion arts and entertainment.

Thanks for having me Sophie and Shane, I loved the project and the bunker.

www.onedotzero.com

 

reporting a theft

The crime:

The original:

We believe we may have tracked down a suspect. Evidence on YouTube points to the oddly named Batey Ads of Singapore.

This isn't a case of 'inspired by', or 'referring to' or even 'hommage'. It's just bloody copying our ad. Poor show. Anyone out there know anyone at Batey? Can they confirm that Batey did this work and do they know why they so obviously ripped us off?

Swallow The Gentleman’s Club

These fresh-faced, young whippersnappers are The Gentleman’s Club, five 3^rd year Graphic Design students from UCA in Epsom. Together we have been working on an advertising project for the last 5 weeks. We played Ad Agency and for a change I got to be the client, Mrs Persil. The boys were the ad agency and we have spent the last few weeks refining a campaign aimed at students. We’ve had some highs, Stuart getting drowned in a rather dirty puddle in the name of film making. And some entertaining lows, Elio ‘s extensive day glow sportswear collection. Today was our last session and the boys turned up with a large cake from Patisserie Valerie. So that’s a big, fat A grade all round then.

Stuart, Paul, Elio, Barrie and Anthony I salute you and your half built fixed gear bikes.

Now who’s got the cake slice?

A great south run

Last Sunday we (Laura and Sophie) went on a road trip to watch the Great South Run in Portsmouth. We're working with Nike on their sponsorship of the Great Run Series and, showing unerring commitment to the cause, Laura took part in the 10 mile slog in torrential rain.

Here are a few pics:

Nervous pre-race smile from laura

A woman breaks down at the finish line - made Laura cry

1hr 24 mins - not bad at all

Reaping the benefits of VIP in the Nike+ tent

Paula pops in for a massage and a photo after breaking the British 10 mile record.

Well done Laura and Paula.

cookie-off

Alex writes:

Wieden + Kennedy Baking Club was back with a vengeance today - all eyes on the Cookie.

According to Wikipedia, in the States and Canada, a cookie (or cooky) is a small, flat-baked treat, usually round, containing milk, flour, eggs, and sugar, etc.

It would seem that at W+K, 'small', 'round' and 'flour' are not necessarily considered essential.

The pursuit of the title of Cookie Monster was an open race. 

Two recent additions to the third floor made their debut appearances. Clemens and Sarah stepped up, the first providing enough cake-like biscuits to feed a small nation, the latter baking the most perfectly formed of chocolate baked goods.  A valiant effort by both.

Spanna Fairclough - a baking-virgin - may have underestimated flour as a key ingredient, yet whipped up what was seemingly very tasty toffee. A potential queen in the making for W+K Fudge-off…

Cake King Ryan suggested he may have taken Perkins' mantle in the absence of the 'alternative baker' himself. 'Nuff said.

So when it came to the crunch (and the cookie crumbled!) it was a close-run race between Louise "Millie" Hill and our very own First Lady of Baking Club Bodoh. 

So much so the judges deemed it a dead-heat between Lou's raisin and choc chips and Sophie's chocolate / cocoa / double choc chip / Green & Blacks / Cadbury numbers.

Despite surprisingly low participation in this tranche of the now-established third floor baking competition, record numbers flocked to taste the goods for themselves.

waterslide

postcard village

Laura writes:

For as long as I can remember I have always collected postcards. I didn’t realize that I was a collector until one day I caught myself spending £11 on a single card.

Although I love all postcards my particular favourites are the 1960s and 1970s cards. I adore the fabulous Technicolor of their blue cloudless skies. They’re totally unreal. Yet while the images are amazing, the key thing about postcards that I really love is the fact that the only place you usually send them is home.

You can be anywhere in the world, Timbuktu or Skegness, and still send the same sentiment – I’m thinking of you.

So my tribute to these wonderfully human, little postal treasures was to create a village out of them. For me, a postcard means home.

Laura Vent's Postcard Village is currently on display in Wieden + Kennedy London's L Gallery in our reception. Officially London's second smallest gallery.

hello kajsa

Kajsa joined today as account manager on Nokia. She's already fed up of us asking, 'So, how exactly does one pronounce your name?' Other than that, we're trying to make her feel welcome.

nokia supernova updates - week 2

Here are the second round of weekly updates about our three characters anna, luca and jade.

For more details about the campaign, visit somebodyelsesphone.com

sex uncovered

Slightly belatedly, here is the ad we did promoting yesterday's 'sex uncovered' supplement in The Observer.