The end of the pilgrimage

Have started a new blog as this one doesn't really serve any purpose but to show how bad my writing is.

This new blog is a blend of my two favourite things, advertising and illustration.

I give up writing and I will only be posting up pictures that I have drawn illustrating some of the finer points of agency life. I will be including animals in my illustrations to further illustrate my points.

Anyway thank you to anyone who has read any of my posts and thanks to my one major die hard fan for your support (hi mum)

thank you and goodbye I hope to see you on:

www.drawingonexperience.blogspot.com

St Valentines

Love it or hate it St Valentines day is here to stay. 

I have already had my fair share of conversations as to why its shit and I have been surprised by just how many people seem to hate it.

Could it be that they genuinely hate the corporateness of the day?

Is it cool to hate St Valentines Day?

Do I have more single friends then I realised?

Or am I one of those annoying twats, who because he's with someone loves Valentines day? 

Something is up. People just aren't that interested anymore. One woman described it as making her feel ill.

The argument against Valentines day has become about the consumption and the fantasy of what love is. Its all lovey dovey perfection with lots of expensive presents and meals out. Or on the flip side it is about loving each other so much that you don't need to celebrate it.

But the saddest thing I find is that it is seen as a day to repair relationships not about simply celebrating it.

How are we meant to connect with this idea of showing your love for someone when before it has even started it has become already about what is lacking in your relationship.

Do something you never do for them, take her out for a meal as a treat, buy her a gift, say how you feel in a card. Misses the point a bit to me.

The industry doesn't quite get love in todays world but we are equally as guilty as it reaps in the money every year.

We need to get a lot more creative and daring. If you have been married for 40 years do something that proves youcan still surprise them. Get a tattoo of there name in a heart, what have you got to lose?

If your single do something for someone you really like that they would never have experienced before. If they say no then at least you will have a real reason for going out and getting wasted with your other single friends. Love is more than being in a couple. So why not celebrate Valentines Day with your friends?

To make it a great Valentines Day start by ignoring everything about it and go from there.


Dedicated to Melissa Songer :) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The best creatives are grown not made.

I want a lot of things. I'm not ashamed of it, I live in a capitalist society ran by corporate giants and I make a living pedaling their wares to the good people of this planet and I love doing it. It's what makes me good at my job.

I am young and inexperienced but:

I want to be the best creative in my agency,

I want to marry Hayley Williams from Paramore,

I want to change my appearance to better suit my personality,

I want to win a D&AD black pencil,

I want to set up my own guitar store one day

I want to be a fantastic scamper

I want to be the funniest guy you have ever met

I want to have a blog every/anyone reads

I want to be really witty and clever all the time

I want to be invited to all the cool gallery/event openings

I want to be the go to guy for creative inspiration

I want to give the best presentations clients have ever seen

I want all the account women to fancy me

I want everything

and I want a dog!

Like I said I am young and inexperienced yet I was in a rush to have all these things.

A very clever man taught me that "without the journey all you will have is the end". I thought great! I'll be everything on my list. "No" he said "you will be dead".

I should treat my career like I would work on a great brief.

I should enjoy the beginning, the initial stages where it is all about just trying anything, just going for it and seeing what happens.

The refinement of the ideas will naturally develop over time, drawing on all the different influences that have affected it along the way.

The finished product never turns out how you would have expected at the beginning. It nearly always turns out better.

It's so easy to want to be like the heroes in your life and you forget they didn't just wake up being the way they are. They to were at the beginning wondering what the hell to do next.

There is a lot of pressure on aspiring young people to be the finished article and a lot of the creative industry are guilty of expecting it of us. (agencies who only employ award winning juniors for example)

The best creative people in this world were grown not made. Mac went through a lot before it became ready out of the box.

All we will end up with is an industry full of gifted amateurs who are fired after a few months because they didn't live up to the expectation and the truly gifted will still be working as waiters.

James Cameron had to wait 10 years to make Avatar and it was worth it.

Commuting Etiquette

For the first time commuter first my congratulations, quickly followed by my commiserations. The only thing you need to know how to do when commuting is getting a seat. The holy grail to all journeys. I'm not talking wear a sombrero and bring a pig with you, no by acknowledging a few simple observations you can maximise your chances of getting your day off to the best start.

So... You first wait on the platform hoping to God that it is on time, trains do wonders for what I call S.C. (spontaneous christianity) and when the train does roll in the careful shuffling for position begins. Old ladies will shove you out the way if you do not shuffle with confidence and direction.

There is always one rich looking bastard who tries to edge his way in front of you having only just got into the station. This can be instantly remedied simply by staring him down, you must not blink, he eventually thinks better of it (every time). but don't forget you have to keep your eye on the carriages making sure you are getting onto one that has plenty of free seats.

Your now third to the door (hi-5) and you squeeze your way onto the train being careful not to lose your place in line, then there is the next hard decision do you go left or right. People will be filling the carriage from both ends so it becomes purely instinctual.

Filtering down the aisle you ignore the disabled and elderly priority seats, keeping your bag with you because storing it takes up precious time. You spot a seat, you spot another seat. So who to sit next to? The bald guy in a suit or the other bald guy in a suit. You take the bald guy in a suit.

Well done you have a seat, you avoid eye contact with those who have to stand up right next to you. But inside there is a massive grin and they know it.

You go through your getting comfortable on the train rituals (getting your ticket ready, putting your bag in the over head ect ect) and you sit back waiting for the next thing that could go wrong, hoping that on the way back you're not late and stuck with the drunk teens or screaming family going on there annual holiday to Norfolk.

If there was ever an argument for euthanasia this would be it.

In the case of missing out on getting a seat you have three choices, you can walk very slowly with the rest of the seatless down the carriage hoping there is an extra carriage today, you can sit on a cold moving floor having people walk on you or you can chance it in one of the priority seats although it does not go down well if you refuse to give it up. I don't care what that boy in a wheel chair said the fact that he is already in one suggests that he didn't need mine. No one agreed with me.

I'd like to dedicate this post to National Express. For they help me get to work everyday. Not because there trains run on time or are generally any good but because I hate them so much it gives me energy. I get up that little bit earlier everyday just so that I can hate them some more.

oh... I wouldn't move there...

Moving to the Big Smoke?. A phase of life all too familiar with a lot of young adults who have just finished their degrees. but if your new to the city of London and have been raised on the mean streets of Devon! the big question is 'where do you move?'

A much bigger problem than you may imagine. If you believe everything you see, hear or read you would become a shivering wreck and refuse to go outside. One person will tell you that Hackney is really bad, home of the murder mile ect ect but then your tiny, skinny and blonde friend who's a girl says that it's fine and that she has lived there for years.

The media is either painting London as a hoodie infested death hole or as a shiny beacon of hope for the world. Make up your mind! either way it's hard to know as one street will look fine and you feel good, you turn a corner and your in bum town feeling bad.

Truth is there are good and bad areas to any place and it is easy to get scared, especially with our news being the pessimistic and dare I say it sadistic bastards that they are. but if you ask the right people i.e. people who actually live there, you will find out that it's not that scary at all, just really fucking expensive!

So my advice is first ask those around you who know or live in London then go there, walk around and just ask people in the street and I am the biggest scaredy cat ever so I speak the thruth :)

The Second Coming!!!

Thats right after a bloody weird couple of months I have returned and to say unto you that I have risen from the dead of unemployment and have risen a fully employed Art Director in Advertising. Spread the word of the graduate lord!!!.

As you can see i'm still a loser but its all good :)

Right then so what happened since i was bored and poor... i'm still poor but in no way bored any more (i still play pokemon in the loo though)

The placement went very well seeing me and my Copywriter Mr Roach work on a number of great briefs ranging from Nestea (ice tea) to the advertising giants Coca Cola. There were others going for the position but (and I quote) "they were just shit" so we were either very good or they were just that bad either way I have one of the most difficult jobs to attain after graduating which is sweeeeeeeeet.

Won't ramble on or boast too much mostly because I could still lose this job as I am on whats called a probationary 3 months which means at the end they can say "actually we made a huge mistake don't let the door hit you on the way out!"

So no break, no big sigh of relief just a huge carrot at the end of a rope for us to follow. Don't know what the laws are might put up some work but this blog isn't about cataloguing what's going on in the ad world, there are much better blogs for that, no this blog is for me and about me and what's going on inside this creatives mind and hopefully will help others going into this industry with the bits that are always forgotten in lesson and in the text books.

I hope you continue to enjoy my thoroughly self indulging stories :)

Poordem™ matt roach

Poordem™ matt roach as you have probably guessed is the combination of being bored with the added handycap of being very poor.

Me and Matt are waiting for the 17th of august. then our assault on the ad world can begin. Untill then we have to pay rent and bills and then manage to find money for food. Now with the dare I say it "current economic climate" all the crap weekly paid jobs have been taken even the institutional new starters bar job has become extinct! benefits take ages to go through and you can't get a normal job because by the time you get it you will be starting your placement.

So what ensues is poor driven boredem. It manifests itself in a number of ways, for some its buying sainsbury's basic beer (we've all been there!), some take refuge by simply buggering off home and leaving everything and some watch and re-watch there vast collection of dvd's that they collected at uni, only it now seems a lot smaller.

As for me, mine has resulted in me picking up my old game boy and getting lost in the world of pokemon, vicariously living through my little pixelated me through his adventures.

This is something the student books don't prepare yourself for and that is the limbo in between graduating and getting that first job, especially this new super limbo where there are precious little crap jobs to take.

Could this be an idea for a book 'life after death of dissertation'?

On hind site I should have set up a small savings account when I started and put 10% of my part time job pay cheque into it so that I had something after I graduated but a lass I failed to find a time machine and go back in time to tell me this bit of information.

If you do have a bad case of Poordem™ matt roach I suggest buying a gameboy advance. Either that or get some friends either way is good.

Graduation

Graduation is something we see in the movies all the time, you know the films mostly american and its all emotional and vomit inducing but when mine came along I was pleasantly surprised at how much of an emotional experience it was.

My mum came with her sister, my auntie who were the two people who dropped me off on my first day kind of bringing the whole adventure to a proper end.

All my friends were there including those friends that you lose contact with. Old house mates, old random when your drunk I know you friends. My fiance and her family.

It was all very official considering how unofficial uni has felt. When I think of uni i don't naturally think of all my hard work, i think of all the fun i had and how much i am gonna miss being a complete douche and so to be walking up those steps and shaking some womens hand and been given this document of your academic achievement did seem like something out of a movie.

It really felt like the end of something everyone was talking about what they were doing or what they were gonna do and it was all very grown up and mature, no "yeah gonna go to this bar i heard of and just meet someone there and stay with him/her" it was "yeah i have a new flat and have signed on to make sure i can pay for it etc etc 

so sometimes the movies do have it right and it goes beyond a cliche and i find myself considering taking another degree so that i can go back, kinda like a shawshank redemption moment i'm an institutionalized man now!

a lot of people i know missed there graduation and i'll tell you now don't. it was great. 

"I'm not gay, I'm an Art Director!"

This exclamation I found myself making in town the other day was not a jealous attack on employed Art Directors, no it was in fact an act of self defense against my fiance.

Being an Art Director I have a very definite sense of what I think looks good and where it will look at its best and this attitude filters into the everyday aesthetic choices I make. I'm a sucker for an attractive blonde. Did I say Blonde I meant Brand, to me there one and the same. I love fantastic looking packaging with an equally attractive brand on it. If a product hits the magic two, it is in my basket end of.

Like I said I have a strong opinion on what looks good and if your a girlfriend or lucky ;) enough to be the wife of an art director, your clothes and general fashion sense is no different. We're the kind of men that when you ask our opinion we won't shrug our shoulders and be bored. So when my fiance asked what she should wear to graduation she didn't expect me to have already thought about it and had an idea as to what would look great.

A skirt and shirt combo with shoes later and she's giving me a weird look "you can tell me honestly, are you gay or have you ever thought you were or were you once... stammer stammer????"

"NO I'M NOT GAY, I'M AN ART DIRECTOR!" its like asking a gay man if he's straight because he doesn't like Paris Hilton.

You can't help it if something you think looks bad or out of place or even simply amiss its like a little bug biting you on the back of your head. It's the same feeling when looking at a campaign your gut instinct leads you.

Thats how I will always be be it clothes or even the new curtains for the living room, I'm a man who will have his say. There will be no "yes dear" from me!

My Copywriter...

Us creatives are a crazy breed, we aim to experience as much as possible. This is Mr Matt Roach my creative other half and looks like he experienced nearly all 100 things to do before you die at Download, which judging from this picture is a good job as he looks like he is about to die... come to think of it I haven't actually heard from him in a while...

I have and never will work with Matt because we simply just have too much fun in what we do. To be in Advertising you have to be a character, some of the most interesting people I have ever met have been ad people, they say what won't kill you... blah blah blah. Well as you can see Matt has way too much character :P

So why write a post on Matt? well he will be starting his own blog soon and so you can look forward to a much better punctuated and grammatically correct version of our journey, the content however I can't guarantee, as quite clearly my blog is already better than his (face! roach)

UNPAID (un)FARE NOTICE

Just a quick one to say a massive (ma-hoo-sive) FUCK YOU to National Express. Students have enough financial stuff to handle without one of your loser staff giving me the wrong type of return, then to have another one of the twats fine me for it.

I'm in a hurry, quite clearly as my train had already pulled in, I ask for the best priced return. I then proceed to run to the train. Now a normal person would think 'oh wait he will need a saver return not an off peak return as he quite clearly wants to catch this train, i'll give him the correct one' no! he thought 'ill give him the return which means he cant take the train till after 9 in the morning despite the fact he's out of breath here at 7:30'.

Having explained to the guard on the train that I was a smart chap who would know to buy a cheaper, correct return rather than a more expensive wrong one and that it was an honest mistake, he then saw the logic to fine me anyway.

Crack team you've got there National Express...

The lesser of two evils

To all parents who want the best for their child. Bring them to this place on a monday morning and guaranteed they will never want to go back again.

What I mean by the lesser of two evils is that I have had to go on job seekers and housing benefit. 'SCUM' you shout well its better than sponging off of my hard working mother, I have done enough of that its time for me to take responsibility. Now with this placement and general want to be in advertising, its safe to say I could be unemployed for a while, I'm not gonna give up and work for some crap local marketing agency just yet!

What an experience, my skin was crawling, I felt completely out of place but I new I had rent to pay and I had closed my Bank of Mum account. The whole process was demoralizing, I have to admit I felt like a failure but I snapped myself out of it. I have no desire to go back to that place to sign on, I may have to once more time but after that, never again.

I'm just glad I don't have a real family to support, I have two baby rats they need there water dam it!

It really put everything into perspective as to just how much people will do just to get by, my reaction to going on job seekers was a typical reaction of that of someone who had no idea of what financial hardship was. I was humbled by the whole experience.

One things for sure I don't believe for a second that anyone would rather live off of jobseekers rather than having a job as I have been doing it for about a week and I am climbing the walls.

I will try not to look down my nose at anyone on benefits again as quite clearly I'm just not in the right frame of mind to accept that some peoples lives are actually harder than mine ;) for a guy my age thats close to enlightenment.

Don't consider government handouts as admitting defeat think of it as the dark before the dawn. To anyone that does live off benefits, I am sorry because I can't imagine anything worse.

Now don't get com(placement).

Please lets make that 202 employees, Me and Matt were successful in our interview, we expected a 'we'll call you', meaning once we have checked there isn't anyone better than you then we will call you. but no the guys at BD apart from being nice guys (they bought me a coke) also sat there and listened and talked about our book, none of this complete silence whilst we judge you crap and they are giving us a 2 week placement.

Any student in advertising or trying to break in can tell you that me and matt are lucky bastards we both can't wait to start :) we will be working in the same building as the guy who invented orange wednesdays... I know, who wants to touch me?

Farewell farnham

Well thats it, done but not dusted. I have left Uni. It was an amazingly sad day, i'm not ashamed to say that a few tears found there way down my cheek. My life changed that day my mum and auntie left me in my student village room. How was I to know that the next 3 years would see me change into the person I am today?. I didn't.

Uni is more than just getting onto a career that requites it. It's one of the most important experiences of your young adult life. I learnt to appreciate the little things such as a sofa, which after three years without I know have and love.

I experienced the pure joy of excess and I experienced the excess I hated. I know how to make a pizza last nearly a week, I know what its like to have an amazing time without having to remember it. I learnt that it is friends that come and go and that it is love that lasts forever.

But with the obvious fun stuff I have learnt above all that I am worth a lot more than what I first thought upon coming here. I am good at what I do and I love doing it. The romanticized look on life I had is gone instead is replaced with a world of possibility but that you have to go through some shit times before you come out smelling of roses. I can now pay rent and bills... I can't afford it but I know what to do should the occasion where I have money arise :)

I will never forget Uni or the ppl that I met, and I have an Americanized, massive baggy hoody to prove it :)

This is MD

Myself and Matt have our chat with BD network this monday at 11am.

Matt is on his way as we speak to my new flat to spend the weekend sorting out our work and to just have a laugh since we havnt been able to chill out and have fun together what with all this new found adult hood.

Whish us luck the pilgrimage could soon be over...

Turfing

Look familiar? Well me and Matt were riding tubes a lot with our recent degree show and so we invented tube surfing.

When your on a tube you hold on to the greasy rail to stop falling into the fat guys lap, well me and Matt don't, we decided to throw off the shackles of oppression and let go of the rails we have for too long used as crutches for our dreary traveling. And as if on a surf board road the tube all the way into liverpool street station, your not allowed to touch any wall or person but you do have 3 lives. 

Best game ever.

If your extreme you can try one legged tube surfing but we are not liable for any injuries you may sustain or inflict.

Happy Turfing :)

The Duo Rides Again

If you read my blog and thank you if you do, you might have heard me mention my best friend Matt.

I have known Matt literally from childhood to manhood, thats since we were 11, we are now 21.

Originally we weren't going in for being a creative team as we had spent 3 years being told it was nearly impossible and if you make it you'll be fired unless your amazing all the time :s which was a shame as we both are very passionate about advertising.

We did however work together on all our uni projects, very few creative teams share the kind of creative connection that me and Matt have developed through growing up together. This does come with advantages, if one of us is being precious over an idea or just being plain shit we will literally just punch each other but equally we can break each others creative blocks and instead of bouncing ideas of each other we can play olympic tennis with bowling balls and rocket powered super rackets.

We don't need any stupid gimmick to sell ourselves as our brand is ourselves. Just chatting to us or to people who know us and you will see we just love to laugh, listen to rock music and make great advertising.

We were approached at DIALOGUE (which btw was a big success) by two really nice guys from BD Network who seemed to really like our work and told us to call them to talk. Both me and matt were a tad under the influence but it was free wine what can you do? and so I hope we didn't put them off.

We will be approaching them very soon once I have moved house.

So me and Matt will be going for the creative dream once again, we have both been feverishly reading everything on their website and we cant believe we haven't come across them before. Anyway thats for another post.

The duo rides again, but is it into the sunset?

Oh yeah, thats me the lanky one and Matt's the shorter ginger one, bit of a anti-climatic unveiling of myself... enjoy :)

DIALOGUE day 1

What's Big, square and white all over?

Our degree show room in free range 2009! The day (27th may) was long, tempers were frayed and the fast food companies made a bit more money. Everyones boards which I designed and so felt very responsible for were taken out of the packaging and were all fine. I breathed a massive sigh of relief exactly like that beer advert.

Lots of drilling, hammering, nailing, shouting, drinking and thinking and 8 hours later half the room was done. Only half of us had turned up (the better half) and we all deserved medals.

A great day until I watched the football... 

Final Major Project snippet

My Guitar is an extension of myself, I know every bump, dent and imperfection that makes it perfect. I am someone who can create something from nothing and can see through what's there to sing light into the darkness.

My guitar is my weapon of choice, my voice in this over crowded world. I don't shout in anger, I sing with passion. My guitar is my friend, the music our adventures.

To share something that runs so deep within you is natural, music is meant to be heard, not messed with but to be true and raw. Only Musicians understand that this shared passion is being on a higher plain, a unique level of consciousness and understanding you have with your own soul.

This is playing guitar.

Some of my Final Major Project for you to read and wonder at :)

portfolioh no!

*choral choir noise* heres my portfolio all sexy and ready for tomorrows meeting. I bought it today after it had been on the shelf for only 10 mins, fate had obviously brought us together as it is simply b-e-a-utiful. 

To me it is very important and I had up until today been looking for quite a while, my work doesn't need a fancy portfolio to make it look better but fuck it it doesn't hurt and it makes me feel better as I love things to be understatedly stylish, the smooth cool guy at the back of the room who doesn't need to say anything for people to be impressed. (I'm not this guy) luckily I'm a good talker and can convince you that I'm very cool.

Choosing one is harder than it looks because my one had to not only match my favourite graphic designery clothes that I wear to look smart but with a creative edge but it had to be made out of a good quality material, have a nice smooth zip!!! for a nice opening action, have a good sounding snap to the ring binder which in itself has to be slim and modern, not WHSmiths own clunky ones. Had to be easy to unclip and fold over the rings. A proper internal system to manage lose material and last but not least is, to me, the all important fact that it mustn't have a stupid logo emblazoned all over it.

No it has to be genuine and I won't be sticking stickers all over it like a lot of idiots do, all it does is to make you look 12.

About tomorrow, I'm excited and nervous at the same time, a feeling a friend of mine really likes so hopefully this is a good omen. Its quite a trek I have to make and it could send me home in an emotional body bag but this industry just wouldn't be interesting with out it :) I could become a portfolio salesman... its a form of advertising...

I Came, I SAW, I Conquered

We all know as creatives you should push the boundaries but look at your life, does it stop with your work?

If it does, start doing it now. I believe in being fearless in everything you do, no matter how scary the prospect is e.g. a particularly formidable client. 

Here is me on the new SAW roller coaster. Now roller coasters you may think is hardly being daring but when your really scared of them it is an extraordinarily difficult fear to overcome. This was made worse by the old warehouse design, torture instruments, blood, noises from the film of people being tortured, a massive shotgun noise going off in a pitch black part of the queue and the first part of the ride is you in the dark with that scary ass puppet suddenly appearing and starts telling you it wants to play a game!!! nicely followed by being dropped a 100 ft without warning.

Your nerves are shot and your shaking (very similar to a big deadline) then comes the 5 minute slow vertical climb before shooting downwards onto spikes which you barely miss!!!

At the end there is a lovely DVD to show you just how much of a girl you are in comparison to your fiance who laughed throughout the whole thing.

So am I fearless?

Of course I am I'm engaged to get married!

original content

If your at uni, male, white, 6ft and lanky you are in a band or are the band thanks to the developments in home recording technology.

I am happy to say I am an all singing, all song writing, bedroom acoustic guitar crooning cliche :)

I have a new addition to the family called the snowball microphone and its beautiful and records my beautiful voice and guitar playing. Finally a piece of hardware that can actually do my CF MARTIN acoustic guitar justice. you can hear every indian rosewood tainted note in all its glory.

www.myspace.com/somethingheartfelt check it out, I don't think I'm that bad.

Make sure when interviewing a graduate that they play a musical instrument, and putting together loops in garageband doesn't fucking count!!! that way you can be sure your employing someone who believes in the creation of something original and not into just being creative with what is effectively someone else's music.

Playing an instrument is just something you have to do, I don't get how a boy can get through puberty without it. do you?

The most rewarding bit of print I will ever do.

Here it is my 4 weeks notice to be handed in today to my boss.

Goodbye! part time job that I have always hated and despised, Hello! probable new crap full time job doing the same thing whilst looking for a job that I really want.

Not long before I can reclaim my weekend!!! it has been lost for nearly 3 years!!!

My little red book.

You do not have to say anything. But it may harm my chances if you do not mention when questioned something which I may later rely on in meeting you. Anything you do say will be used as evidence in an interview situation.

Instead of having the little black book with attractive women's phone numbers, I have the little red book with creative professionals email addresses and numbers in. (it's OK I'm engaged).

Who ever I phone, everything I learn e.g. email address, good times to call etc, will be put into this book a long with my actions towards you, such as whether I have sent you anything. I can also set a reminder for when to follow up an email or a time when I know its good to call them.

A handy aspect of this is I can also record my mistakes so that I know not to do them again. A howlingly massive mistake was replying to an email requesting a covering letter and CV and forgetting to attach it. I should have been beaten brutally for that one :s

B-E-A-UTIFUL.

Incase you couldn't tell I was being very sarcastic. Well kind of, it is beautiful but only in that it is a beautiful view from my window as I work on my CV and portfolio.

Ah well... back to work... Come on Lawrie you gotta want it!!!

The "List"

Here it is. The book all soon to be graduates should have. If you don't, go get one. I can't say where because my uncle gave it to me.

It is essentially a big fat A to Z list of agencies. It has a lovely big section for advertising and design.

I have a top 5, a back up 10 and 30 extras. What is great is that even if I get no where with all these, there is about another 100 for me to try.

My portfolio is nearly finished and so interview season is very close. It also means my phone is gonna be buggered sideways not to mention my bank account :s

Livin' on a prayer.

I have to admit I am not a religious person but a lot of my family is and my nan and granddad who come from Ireland pray for me a lot.

I go to my grandparents house every easter and on this particular occasion my nan told me about St Joseph ^ for those who haven't a clue what I'm talking about he is the part in the nativity play when you were younger that all the boys wanted to play but then played one of the sheep.

Joseph (a carpenter) along with being Mary's husband and Jesus's guardian, is the patron Saint of employment and that there is a prayer you can say every day to help you find a job, I have to admit I was skeptical but considering all the stories I have heard of peoples methods of trying to get a job e.g. hunger strikes, breaking and entering. This wasn't the most far fetched method I have heard of.

I believe we all turn to a 'higher power' when in need, not necessarily God or Allah but the powers that be that could help you. The Audi God that could help you avoid the traffic jam or the God of Marketing who will magically change your essay mark for you.

I am not making fun of peoples belief systems, quite the opposite as I think it is in this belief and what you do to reassure your beliefs that makes things possible. Any book you read on the creative industry is essentially some one laughing at you going "you want a job in advertising... you! jog on!" We are battle hardened to the hard knocks to our self esteem this life sends us.

I may not be religious but I can't help but look at the prayer every now and again in the hope that it might do something. Usually I avoid luck because I have something more to prove but I would never say no to a bit of help. If there is something that makes you feel good about yourself or a situation no matter how silly it might be or how others see it. You should all ways do it.

What a difference a Dave makes...

What can I say I like this T-shirt, never a truer word spoken by a top quality garment. Finally my ability to bring my skill and personality to a project is being recognized world wide. Well not quite because as this t-shirt demonstrates...

Yes it is a world wide phenomenon that everyone knows a Dave, not to say the quality of some Dave's have been ruined by cheap copies and imports no no no, Dave's in short are amazing which is why In every creative agency there is a Dave, I challenge anyone to prove me wrong and if you can... well! what are you waiting for there is a Dave about to graduate right here!!!

If you could, buy one of these T-shirts @ www.balconyshirts.co.uk your guaranteed to get laid. Unfortunately not with the models as they don't come with the T-shirt.

New Look

Same Blog, new look. It just occurred to me that if I don't tell anyone that I have changed the look then the people who do read my blog wouldn't know to look unless I did a post so 2 birds with a big rock and all that :) Let me know what you think about this style of illustration, I have had some really nice feed back from a creative director.

i before e except after c

it has been brought to my attention that my grammar and spelling in my posts are 'shit' i felt i should address this personally as i had no idea it could offend people. 

When writing these posts i don't really write up to Eton standard, its not like i can't write properly its that i don't have time, i'm a busy man :) if you can read it and understand it thats good enough for me, ok i wont be proof reading any books any time soon but i think i'll get over it.

As for my un-capitlised i's it is actually because i prefer the shape of the small i to the big I. To me it looks better so there you go mystery solved.

The cat sat on the mat.      see!