"For The Love Of" in group discussion at eDIT Festival 2011

FTLO (myself and Shane O'Driscoll) were delighted to be asked by eDIT Festival to be part of a group discussion on starting up your own business during a recession. The discussion took a Q&A format and was arranged by Dublin Institute of Technology tutors and students. Other people involved included Block T (Smithfield, Dublin), Designist (George St, Dublin) and The Lifeline project (Dublin).

Key items discussed over the course of two hours were business sense and where that fits in creative courses in college, new ventures being part of and benefiting the local community, the importance of collaboration between college courses with one another and the community, the ability to follow through on goals with realistic planning and other topics. The discussion was opened to the floor, which consisted of approximately 50 students from DIT, NCAD and other colleges, for Q&A.

The festival itself was a great success and testament to the hard work of its organisers Ned Kaar and Ruth Hynes who showed great initiative in creating this worthwhile and important event.

Best Yet advertising competition 2011

I competed in the inaugural Best Yet advertising competition at the end of March in the Irish Times building on Tara Street, Dublin.

I teamed up with TBWA Art Director Keith Lawler for the day.

The client was Miller Genuine Draft (MGD). The brief was to create awareness of MGD on tap and put the product in the minds of 18-35 year old males for consideration when in the pub. "It's Miller Time" also returned as the campaign line. Here are the two concepts that got us a top 5 finish:

The key aspects Keith and I picked up on where that the target audience "don't want to feel as though they are missing out on anything, that they are getting the most out of life", MGD should be synonymous with these great times. Our first solution is an image of a man's hand holding a pint of MGD with wrist bands from gigs/events up to his elbow, stamps from nightclubs and events covering his hand along with some lucky ladies' phone numbers.

The other aspect we concentrated on was "the potential of a big night out" and again making MGD a part of these nights. For this we pictured the lads in the pub swapping stories about their fantastic 'Miller night' experiences. "Make It Happen" was the campaign line focusing on the sense of adventure, excitement and positive outgoing attitude of Miller and the target audience.

Overall it was a fantastic day, a great competition showing the strength and healthy future of advertising in Ireland.

Funtimes!

Some brilliant ideas here and a great initiative from Volkswagen.

Dublin bids to be "World Design Capital" but have we done enough?

Dublin is making a bid to be the "World Design Capital" 2014. This award is in recognition of cities that have 'most effectively and creatively used design as a tool for social, cultural and economic progress.'

This will be a tough competition for Dublin to win, particularly with the 2012 capital (Helsinki) being a European city.

Does Dublin merit the title? There is some excellent design in the capital at the moment, Grand Canal and the Docklands featuring much of the best new architecture. In terms of graphic design, there is some decent work but I don't feel there is enough unique and inspiring work seeing the light of day and being used progressively at the moment. This is due to a lack of bravery and calculated risk taking on both client and agency's part. There is quite a lot of playing safe going on and this bid may be the wake up call to get people thinking differently and pushing boundaries for something better. I would argue that it would be better if we don't get the title "World Design Capital" this time round and this campaign can then give us the thirst to want more in the future and highlight where we are falling down in comparison to the best in the world. The ability is unquestionably here to be the "WDC" but we need to create better opportunities for ourselves to capitalise on our talent.

Check out the Pivot Dublin website for more info and see what you can do to help the bid, "Ask not...

D.A.D.D.Y. Cool

Incredible video which Dublin based D.A.D.D.Y. created with Ray Harryhausen for Bloc Party back in 2008. Always worth stopping by and checking in on Team D.A.D.D.Y. for some inspiration...

Best of the Best

With the submission deadline for the 2011 D&AD Awards closing in (31st Jan), here's an overview of last year's winners. Personal favourites are; the Trillion Dollar Campaign by TBWA HuntLascaris Johannesburg, the High Line in NYC by various companies including Pentagram and The Best Job in the World by Sapient Nitro.

Black Beauty

London based design agency La Boca have created these beautiful posters for Darren Aronofsky's new film Black Swan.