THE STUDENT BLOG

Olly Wood

I’m beginning to realise how my mind works and also understand why I pissed in my Dad’s wellington boot at the age of 9.

It’s not something I’m proud of but still find it rather funny. It’s all about rebellion and not doing what people want me to do. I also have a problem with authority and like winding people up. In a creative way this is good and it greatly helps with my thinking and my work.

Below is a campaign called The Peculiar Swedish Fish and is a perfect example of doing the opposite and probably the best piece of work I’ve seen for a while, the industry needs more people that think like this and also more than anything else clients with some balls willing to do something like this:

Rosie Lewis

The School of Communication Arts is like no other School on earth. The selection process is rigorous, has many stages and only the best get through. However, you will not be asked for your grades, any written work or be required to send in a C.V.

So, how do you prepare for an interview so desperately different to anything else? You can’t, is the simple answer. The process is designed to allow the creative’s to shine where others to whom perhaps creativity (in whatever form) does not come naturally will struggle.

I am here to help though with some useful tips and tricks to calm your nerves.

Martin Headon

It’s a very human instinct, fitting in. It’s about survival.

And if we want to keep our careers alive, we need to make sure our communications fit into people’s lives and habits.

Look at the recent experiment by the Washington Post. They sent virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell out to busk at a Metro station, playing at the best of his Carnegie Hall filling ability. In an hour, perhaps 5 people paid him any real attention.

What did this tell us? Some suggested that it exposed the pretentious hypocrites who claimed to appreciate classical music, but couldn’t recognise it when it was shoved in their face.

Katie Harland

99% of adverts are shit. It’s a big problem that we must strive to overcome upon entering the industry. Since starting off as a creative my general consumption of adverts, whether it is on the tube, on a walk or on TV has been utterly ruined. I find I’m analysing every bit of advertising I come across with an increasingly critical eye. I can no longer absentmindedly consumer posters, print and TV commercials with the gay abandon I used to.

I have lost count of the times I have noticed an advert which utterly baffles me. The fact I am now familiar with the creative process that most agencies undergo in producing adverts doesn’t exactly help. I find myself thinking how on earth;

Jess Mallett

I like to read a lot. Before I came to SCA 2.0, my degree required me to read around 3 books a week, which let’s be honest, is something only a university student would have time to do.

Now that I’ve crawled back into reality, I am a lot more choosey with what I read because my time is more limited. I read lots because I believe that it will affect how I think and ultimately how I write. Therefore I try and read as widely as possible, even if it means my internal organs could start shutting down if I’ve picked something particularly mind-numbing (refer to George Eliot’s Middlemarch. My copy’s currently serving as a doorstop where I intend it to remain for all eternity).

Imogen Wethered

The Golden Section – This is a concept that will be eternally useful for Art Direction, as it guides one as to where to place key elements in a design, such as; figures or tall objects, typography or other prominent points. The Golden Section is a term used to refer to a mathematical aesthetic theory.
It is also known as the Divine Proportion, the Golden Mean or the Golden Ratio, and it was largely brought to life in the works of the Renaissance artists. If you look at the Wikipedia page you will be confronted with a lot of confusing algebraic equations which I personally struggle to get my head around.

Tom Evans

This week is anybody’s SCAB, a free for all where we don’t have to take turns to express our opinions but the only criteria for getting a post up is if it’s any good.

The front page of the website states:

We Don’t Care About Your Grades

If you got good grades at school, that’s great. We won’t ask though. We look for people who think a bit differently, are passionate about advertising, and who can string a sentence together. We are always looking for rough diamonds. Love ‘em.

Try as I might this is the one aspect to SCA 2.0?s architecture that I’ve had trouble getting my head round.

Why?

Harish Savdas

Who’s to blame? The agency or the client?

In this financial climate, companies are more reluctant to take risks but it’s the agencies job to make sure they aren’t pitching work which is too safe. Safe is boring, and we as creatives need to be pushing boundaries and embracing new models to connect to consumers.

Danielle Mensah

What the Funk?

10 Steps to Take When You’re in a ‘Funk’:

Cooper Stevenson

I have in front of me an eighth of an ounce in marijuana, ten 20 milligram capsules of Dexedrine, a 75 centilitre bottle of Casillero del Diablo Pinot Grigio, a further 35 centilitres of Appleton Estate rum from Jamaica, and a fresh pack of Camel Lights. It is a Wednesday, 9:25 PM, and I’ve got a blog post to write for my so-called “school.”

So here’s what gonna happen.

I am currently sober, and somewhat surprisedly working at a steady pace. The ganja won’t take long to finish — an 8th is no great task — the Dexedrine will be crushed and snorted using an Oyster card and Her Majesty’s likeness, but not all of it — my supply has to last a few more days before my mother’s care package arrives bearing cookies and cupcakes and new batch of uppers — the wine is almost gone as I type this, maybe a glass left….

Charlie Bowden

Our workload is fairly intense, along with the briefs we have to juggle there’s a healthy dose of master-classes (lectures) and Marc’s desire to throw twists in on a near daily basis for us to contend with.

We’ve been forewarned; it’s to get tougher.

Now this isn’t something in which I ‘m alone but the work doesn’t finish when I leave Vauxhall, often carrying on into the night.

Being a strong believer in (relatively) early to bed and early to rise. I often feel chained to my computer.

Two weeks ago we completed a portfolio brief, without going into details, my team’s response was well received by Marc and mentors alike.

Tom Evans

In the first week at SCA 2.0 we went through an exercise called the Change Curve which explains the changes one feels when experiencing something unfamiliar , from euphoria and the initial honeymoon period of a new beginning, to first doubt, loss of confidence, confidence regained and so on. I remember we used the example of Fernando Torres’ arrival at Chelsea upon which to chart this graph.

Our time at SCA 2.0 is often referred to as a journey and one that the Dean views as important; I’m sure careful thought has gone into its planning.

Thirza Prentice

Tonight was my first visit to the new Westfield at Stratford. I went with my boyfriend who I obviously care about, however we ended up leaving the place hating each other a little bit. In a later discussion with said boy, when back on speaking terms, I thought a little bit more about why…

Our mission was to find a group birthday present for one of our friends. The fact that the place is huge was not helped by the distinct lack of maps around during the first at least half-hour of wandering. This was particularly annoying as we knew where we wanted to go, but just didn’t know how.

Sophie Hughes

Recently I read that in 2011, sales of the classic novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ increased by 123% over one weekend. The author hadn’t died. A film version had not been released. And no election had been swayed on the back of an inspirational quote.

Instead, David and Victoria Beckham, the celebrity power couple of our age, had named their newborn daughter Harper Seven.

Nelle Harper Lee, supposedly Vic’s favourite author, is probably more aware of the Beckham’s now than she’s ever been, just as the whole celebrity worshipping world is more aware of her award winning novel.

Rasmus Jensen

On Monday we had a masterclass by Andrew Cracknell, author of ”The real madmen”. He spoke for an hour or two about the book and I was sold, lucky as I sometimes am, he sold it after the masterclass.

I bought the book read it in 2 evenings, which is only something I can do if the book really captures my interest, because I’m not much of a reader. But, I am almost obsessed with the life on Madison Avenue in the 60’s.

As I was reading the book about this amazing time in advertising history and all the stories about these amazing creative people like Bill Bernbach and George Lois, I started to think about…….

The Spank Collective

For our first group blog of the year we challenged ourselves to think back to day one and recount the best piece of advice or learning that had changed the way we thought and worked. So, here for one blog only is an amalgamation of thoughts, mantras, advice and wisdom, courtesy of mentors, legends, teachers and occasionally each other. We hope you enjoy and if you are a mentor come back to inspire us again soon.

Olly Wood

I dipped into another question recently, and that was one related to creativity: ‘Is there actually a creative process?’ With the answer being slightly more complicated than just a straight yes or no, it entirely depends on the person. A lot of the time for me it’s pretty much a random experience and I guess it’s different for all of us. Brainstorming is great, in fact it’s fantastic to fill your head with as much information as possible and then go for a walk, catch the tube, fly to Andudu, do whatever. Ideas will come and things will inspire you, this is how I’ve begun to understand how I work (to future employers, this isn’t just a lame excuse for a trip down the pub but a serious analysis).

Martin Headon

How can you be creative and absorb inspiration when you’re walking around with your ears plugged into headphones all the time?

Our Dean has said it. We had a brief asking us to encourage commuters to take out their earphones. And Sir John Hegarty told us the same thing. I only have one thing to say.

Balls.

Mariana Simao

This weather has been killing me. Apart from literally feeling that I’m dying – I’m thinner, whiter and my skin is falling off it’s so dry. I have been forced over the past few weeks to really make a bigger effort to keep the creativity alive.

If inspiration is anywhere that means you have to keep your eyes, ears and mind open 24/7. I think it’s amazing how you can have ideas on the tube, just by looking at an old lady reading the Metro upside down, or in Waterloo station diverting around a pigeon. It’s wonderful. Eyes open, mind working all the time.

Katie Harland

Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. It’s a phrase everyone’s heard before, whether it is in regards to sexuality, peanut butter and jam or going commando. It is also an admirable philosophy that I am proud to say everyone at SCA follows. We have been taught to become a cultural sponge, soaking up everything from all walks of life. Love watching Rom Coms? Rent a Swedish horror film. Take the tube to work? Bike. Stay in and watch TV on weekends? Dress up and head out to G-A-Y. It is not until you experience things that you can understand why they make other people tick. This follows on from a recent brief for New Zealand’s number one bread brand, Vogel’s. For two weeks nothing could be smelt in the studio apart from the mouth-watering aroma of toast, with discarded Vogel’s packets littering every surface. Ironically it was this particular week that the toaster threw in the towel and refused to cooperate.

Joanne Scaife

I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code

For years I have looked at code as a foreign language, a realm of secret encryption requiring knowledge of commands very few people would have the patience to learn and understand. After living with a .net developer for many years, it still seemed a mystery. Watching him stare at a screen full of attributes and elements, the endless hours spent bug fixing to find that one damn broken line, and of course, the never ending new jargon he tried explaining whenever I asked “How was your day?” No matter how patient he was when telling me about his world, I still never really understood what code was all about.

Jess Mallett

There’s one by my bed, one on my desk, one on the kitchen table, a couple in my bag and several piles scattered around the house in case I get ‘caught short’ as it were. I’m talking about notebooks of course! Since I began the happy SCA ritual of carrying a notebook and pen everywhere I go, I’ve started noticing some writing habits I’m picking up. I identified boredom as a key factor many blog posts ago. I’ve also mentioned that public transport is an ideal writing environment. If I’m on a train I’m often on my way back from visiting friends in Sheffield. Consequently I smell of hangovers and look like I’ve spent a week in a crack den.

Janne Vuorinen

Writing a blog post in this mood is probably not the thing I was looking for when I came to SCA 2.0 – as much as it was expected to happen. I’ve just experienced a beating. I feel I failed. But that’s just now. Later I will be boasting about it; the way I jumped into the ring and got my ass whipped and got publicly humiliated. For now I’m just getting prepared to jump right back on that stage and get another spanking in front of an audience. I’m starting to understand that to survive in the line of business I’m pursuing, I’ve got to fall in love with that feeling of getting a beating.

Imogen Wethered

Right so I am debating between whether I am by nature an art director or a copywriter.

So I thought I would use this blog post to discuss the history and theoretical arguments of the eternal tension that has existed between the two forms of expression. I know its a little long but it really is very interesting because at a time it was a very very intense debate between theorists and artists as they tried to define the dominance of one art form over the other.

The debate all began around the ancient Roman sculpture of Laocoon. The sculpture depicts the scene from Virgil’s The Aeneid, in which Laocoon the high priest of Troy desperately tries to rescue his sons from the two sea snakes before is subsequently being killed. In the 1700s Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the first ever art historian, wrote about this piece explaining that the subtle and only very slightly anguished expression on Laocoon’s pained face conveys the ‘noble simplicity’ and ‘heroic grandeur’ that was typical in the work of the ancient Romans.

Ellen Svenningsen

One thing about moving to another country is that you find out, what food you really miss from back home. It didn’t take me more than two weeks in London before I started to miss Danish rye bread. I went hunting various supermarkets and food-shops and found that apparently here rye bread is perceived as super health/organic bread, but I found it and so I joined the hyper healthy freaks that shops in WHOLEFOODS. It still seems quiet strange to me as rye bread in Denmark is the most common and often, in supermarkets a low-prized bread.

First day back at term the brief was named VOGEL’s – a healthy bread brand. Because of my two years earlier research in the UK bread market I thought I maybe had an advantage however I quickly realized I didn’t.

Harish Savdas

“I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me, shapes and ideas so near to me, so natural to my way of being and thinking it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.” Georgia O’Keeffe

“Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.” ~Howard Aiken

I often think about these two quotes, and how true they are for me, during my time in education I have learnt a lot about myself and how to develop my ideas, however the fact of the matter is this isn’t enough.

Emma Brincat

Over the Christmas break we were given the opportunity to gain some work experience with one of our current clients. I was excited by the prospect of us art directors at SCA working together towards something that would be executed live before the advertising brief took hold of all of us. So, I got in touch with the client all chuffed about the brief and when I got back from Malta I headed straight to their office. Little did I know that I was the only one to volunteer and ended up confronting the clients by myself.

Arvid Harnqvist

My name is Arvid and I’m an Art Director. (Unemployed at the moment, but still, an Art Director).

And I’m from Sweden. Which complicates writing in English a bit.

That’s why I’m gonna leave this space to let my new-found partner in crime, my word-generator, my copywriter, William Cooper Stevenson show of with some of his writing.

Enjoy!

Danielle Mensah

The school was set a live brief by ‘Smile for London’ – a company in charge of a two week project to ensure poetry would come to life on the London underground. Three students, including myself, from SCA2 won a spot with our poems. They would be animated and placed on the digital screens of the underground from the 16th January.

‘Oh, how interesting!’ is the general response when I tell people, but it’s the next question that leaves me a little bit twitchy – ‘What’s your poem? I’ll look out for it.’ It is here where I look at my feet and um and ah whilst explaining my poem. I can tell you I used the ‘1000 scamps’ technique, taught to us by the dean of SCA2, and I can tell you it’s based on a real tube journey truth – but the actual poem… I just tell people to look out for my name. It really is embarrassing talking about your work, especially when you understand your reasoning behind it, but others just stare blankly at you when you try to explain it.

Charlie Bowden

SCAB posts seem to come around at an ever-increasing rate.

Usually I try to use these in a semi-cathartic manner, an outlet for the thoughts flying through my head and a means to make sense of it all.

On Monday morning I was told today was my first SCAB of the year.

This time of year’s often filled with introspective contemplation, the ghosts of the year just past mixed with the excitement and anxiety of what’s in store all add up to an overload of thoughts.

Amar Marwaha

As we roll into our second term at School of Communication Arts, the intensity to produce intelligent and effective communications gets stronger. To produce work that works we need to understand strategy. The problem is that strategy is a really difficult thing to understand. Thankfully, we have some superstar mentors at the School – including JWT’s Global Planning Director, Shekhar Deshpande.

I grabbed Shekhar, asked him to share some of his knowledge on strategic planning and filmed it. Well worth watching!

Alice Ratcliffe

It is the start of a new term at SCA and I have been given a somewhat ominous task of marking the occasion by writing the first blog post for our new year. 2012 is going to be big year for us at SPANK. Fundamentally this is because 2012 is when we hope to leave behind endless years of “studentdom” and finally get a job.

Employment is ultimately the goal of my education. One thing that makes my blood boil is hearing someone suggest that as a girl – “surely I shouldn’t have to worry about my job as ultimately it will be given up once I get married.” Despite this being obviously outdated and sexist, what always struck me was the underlying attitude that requires me to find someone to marry and share a “happily ever after” with. This I see as a much more difficult task finding a job.

Katie Harland

As Christmas nears, I find myself thinking how this first term at SCA has shot by. Although it has been incredibly fun I find I am greatly looking forward to a the oncoming week of lie-ins, Christmas shopping and hopefully building a gingerbread house that puts Beckingham Palace to shame.

As I walked in this morning, seemingly unfazed by the fact that a police line had been set up opposite our school, I found my reflecting on what it meant to be working in Vauxhall. I remember coming for my interview day and being baffled by that fact the school appeared to be set up in a church, something it would seem that continues to flummox mentors on a day to day basis. Why would a creative course want to place its self out here I found myself asking? Most of the agencies I’d heard of seemed to be nestled away in Soho or Shoreditch.

Jess Mallett

“Hello everyone. My name is Jess and I’m an Appleholic.”

Like a lot of the students at the school, I will defend Apple to the death. If it weren’t for the satisfying clicks, pops and bouncy icons, I’m sure I wouldn’t be so happy to spend hours tapping away at my pearly white Mac keys.

I’ll be honest, I don’t quite have the funds to build my iShrine just yet, but I think between us all at SCA we could just about open a store.

Arvid Harnqvist

Throughout my first term at SCA I’ve been told numerous times that “good questions get good answers”. After a few months here in London, I’ve come to realise just how true this is.

The more questions you ask, the more you realise how little you actually now about the brand you’re working with.

And for me, not knowing something, is the best incentive to push my work forward. It makes me do my research more thoroughly. You tend to look for clues, themes and facts about the brand that you’d never have done if you haven’t asked all these questions.

Tom Evans

We had a master-class earlier in the week on “what makes a successful tv ad.” where the ten thousand hour rule was referred to and funnily enough ties in with the book I am reading at the moment: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. We were told that actually once we are inside agencies it will be five or six years before we have clocked up enough hours to really know what we are doing enough to crack every brief with a bulls-eye solution. This didn’t come as so much of a shock as an art director at Strawberry Frog who was sitting behind me during my time their would regularly refer to ten thousand hours and in fact in my case, I have probably clocked up 4-5 thousand already. But what is this theory?

Charlie Bowden

In our studio there’s a sign, “we sell or we die”. This maxim is the core proposition of the course.

As a group we ran a creative/lateral thinking workshop at a Vodafone privacy summit last week; the aim, to encourage staff to look at privacy in a new light and help them find ways to spread the message of it’s importance throughout the company.

In my group was a women, I’m not entirely sure her title, but, she told me many times she dealt with executive committees and that they’d have no interest in privacy unless it was linked to profit.

Olly Wood

Document a day of your life in a video format, upload it to youtube and either get as many views, as many votes, or just have the most creative idea. This was the competition, it could be a story about your best day ever, a rap about a bad day or a totally imaginary day.

At the time I was working for an agency and it was necessary to keep my identity hidden, I had to come up with something big enough to evolve, to advertise itself and become talked about. Something controversial and that stood for something. This was a chance and my only chance at going back to study, it was either win a scholarship or continue my job scamping dodgy retail ad’s, so it meant a lot.

Jess Mallett

This blog is an absolute must read for anyone who is representing an agency that is thinking of offering placements to SCA students. I would like to try and sell you every person I have worked with this term. Since September we have been working in groups on various briefs. We’ve all had ups and downs – with some people taking a rockier ride than others! I haven’t had the pleasure of working with everyone on the course in a small group. However, I would like to reflect back on all the briefs where we have been in groups of 4 or less – and declare what I believe are the strongest qualities of everyone I have worked with. I’ll go alphabetically:

Imogen Wethered

I am sorry to be bleak, But its leading to 2012, and while I used to think that people who predicted the end of the world were a bunch of nuts old dramatists, in the last few months I can’t help but think that this fate is already upon us. Every time I read the newspaper and every TED talk I watch seems to confirm this more and more. For example, I watched a TED talk about the fact that the world is going to run out of oil soon and that there is absolutely no way around it. On QI the other day Steven Fry was saying that in 50 years time we will all have to be eating insects because there won’t be enough other forms of protein on the planet.

Amar Marwaha

I wish I was an Art director instead
So I could easily turn off my head
I would no longer think
I would always drink
And ignore what the copywriter said

Helen Parry

Being dyslexic I kept up with English lessons – never thrived on them. But recently I’ve got caught up with language. Speech is the most basic form of communication – something that should definitely be on our radar here at the School of Communication Arts.

“Stop facebooking and come rollerblading with me – we’ll skype them later”

In that sentence I’ve mentioned three brand names. Without even thinking, some brands have infiltrated the way we communicate with each other. As advertising continues to seep into every corner of our lives I’d like to warmly welcome you to the era of Branded Language.

Thirza Prentice

I absolutely LOVE the tudors. Not sure why exactly, but I absolutely love them. I just find that whole period fascinating. There is nothing I’d rather do more than to go back in time for a jolly up at Hampton Court as it once was, investigating the grounds, attempting to dance to Tudor tunes (see below) and trying to stay clear of scandal. I have read countless books, watched The Tudors box set endless times and have obviously been to every possible Tudor site I could. Now the thing I struggle with is that, despite my every attempt to fill my brain and other senses with all things Tudor in order to satisfy my intense curiosity, nothing does the trick. Standing in the grounds of The Tower of London at the very spot where Anne Boleyn (my favourite of the wives) and so many others lost their heads, I find it impossible to grasp that all these things actually happened.

Purdey Fitzherbert

PR and advertising’s boundaries are blurring. The main aim for both disciplines is to get the right story in front of the right people.

Yesterday I took part in an event to launch the new ‘Rugby’ store in Covent Garden. ‘Rugby’ is Ralph Lauren’s younger ‘preppy with a twist’ collection. They had teamed up with the ‘Tweed Run’, a worldwide, charitable, metropolitan biking event during which the participants are expected to dress in traditional British cycling attire, specifically, tweed plus-four suits.

Arvid Harnqvist

Henry Ford allegedly said this in response to a question about customer surveys. It’s by far one of my favorite quotations since it relates so well to the business we’re all in.

You might think that what Henry Ford meant with this quote was to completely ignore your customers and just do what you think is right, but it goes far deeper than that.

You see, if Ford had actually asked his customers what they wanted, they would have answered something like a faster horse. Why? It’s simple. They couldn’t imagine anything else.

Dan Mountain

Bless me readers for I have sinned. It’s been a whole 6 months (and 12 days) since my last post.
And with only 3 weeks left to go, this will be my last chance to confess.

It all started on a cold grey morning in January, when my first day nerves were quashed (by thousands of uncommunicative commuters) within minutes of entering the Victoria line at rush hour. When I finally arrived in Vauxhall (late, as usual) the walk to the School seemed very different to any other first day – mainly thanks to the the wolf whistles from an over excited clubber leaving a local nightspot. Unabashed, I continued gaily on my journey, until I found myself… in a church. Of all places.

Simon Jensen

In 1945, Santa Maria Della Grazie, the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Sforza asked Leonardo Da Vinci to paint the last supper, Christ’s last meal before arrest and crucifixion. It had been painted many times, but Leonardo wanted do something very different. His idea was to capture the reaction of the disciples at the moment where Jesus Christ says, “One of you will betray me”

It was a hugely ambitious idea, and although Leonardo clearly had the vision to pull it off, it required a practical knowledge of fresco painting that Leonardo simply didn’t have.

Alice Ratcliffe

When I was 10 I was faced with what I would like to believe was a life changing opportunity. It was the year that casting directors began scouring schools around the country in order to find the perfect children to play Harry, Ron and Hermione. As a bushy haired brunette, avid harry potter fan with an impressive resume of roles in the school plays. I secretly considered myself a perfect candidate. Unfortunately at the age of 10 I was also terrified of failure. I plagued myself with excuses as to why I shouldn’t audition and inevitably I didn’t. But someone else did. A girl at school with me who also had similarly bushy hair and an equally impressive resume of roles in the school plays; Emma Watson. That stung. She had had the nerve to audition and now she had the role of Hermione in what was to become the biggest movie franchise of the decade. Each time I watch Harry Potter my darker side grumbles, “it should have been me.”

Danielle Mensah

Last week was the launch of Versace for H&M. I previewed the exclusive collection online, and fell in love with a red Grecian dress, that had timeless Versace sewn all over it. The rest of the collection was dreadful – prints and florals which the average Joe couldn’t pull off. And then, that one red dress seemed to go down in my opinion, until eventually I just didn’t want it anymore…I decided I would still go to the launch since it would help my research for a fashion brief I’m working on.

Emma Brincat

Recently, for the first time ever, I went to watch a programme being filmed for the BBC. The event spurred upon me quite suddenly and I had no idea what so ever what I was getting myself into. I was just rather excited about it. I attended the first episode filming for The Mad Bad Ad Show featuring Micky Flanagan, Mark Watson, Holly Walsh and Kate Stanners (Managing Partner at Saatchi & Saatchi).

Ellen Svenningson

“Asked about the power of advertising in research surveys, most agree it works, but not on them” – Eric Clark.

I think Eric is right advertising doesn’t work. Beyond doubt it’s somewhat contradicting to think like this, whilst studying advertising. It’s indeed a sad carrier I have in front of me spending hours of effort to convey messages knowing they possibly wont be heard, these thoughts been nagging me for a while now.

I believe in this quote because I am certainly one of those from the surveys. As motivating as it can be to work with good ads just as skeptic am I, when I am the target for an ad. I imagine more and more people are too if not already, because we all know that in the end companies make advertising to make more money.

Martin Headon

One day in 1968, John Cleese sat down to write material for the forthcoming series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

He decided to re-work an old sketch, where a car mechanic refused to accept there was anything wrong with a customer’s vehicle – even as it fell apart in front of him.

So he wrote one about a man returning a faulty toaster to a shop. It was a good sketch, too.

But Graham Chapman thought it was missing something. “How can we make it madder?” he asked – and then in a flash of inspiration, it came to him.

Mariana Simao

It’s a really funny and interesting exercise looking closer at adverts in Europe if you’re not European. Since the style of communication and reaction of spectators are different if compared to the south american market, lots of things in the ad industry seem very, very strange to me. That’s brilliant since it gives me the ability to leave some judgements behind (not having emotional attachments to the brand, for example) and really try to understand what’s behind the ads – if there’s any strategy there at all to be understood.

Imogen Wethered

This week we were shown the most horrifying Cabwise advert, it shows a girl’s head thrown against a car window with the most chillingly terrified and anguished expression on her face. It is through the effectiveness of this advert and the fear and emotions that it evokes, that I would like to discuss why I feel the 18th Century theory of the sublime can be an incredibly powerful tool for art direction for this type of advert. Though the girls face in this advert is horrifying, it is actually the fact that the majority of this advert is obscured in complete blackness that truly enables it to evoke horrified emotions within its viewer. The ad in fact shows us very little, instead it leaves the most horrific parts to our deepest internal thoughts and emotions, and we even frighten ourselves with what we imagine to be beyond that depth.

Katie Harland

“Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He’s all right now.”

I have now been at SCA two months, and something I find I constantly seem to battle with is the pun.

Coming from a family where puns are constantly batted back and fourth I feel fairly at home with this form of banter, as often as not at home, the more ridiculously silly the pun, the greater the praise received. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that this is the right approach when it comes to advertising, quite the opposite. I believe that most puns used are in fact a form of sloppy copy writing.

Jon Farley

You know that feeling you get when you’re struggling with a brief and you just keep thinking the same thoughts over and over again? An image or a phrase gets stuck in your mind and before long you’re sitting in a trance at your desk. Eventually you snap out of it and tell yourself to focus but, I think worst of all, you tell yourself to think harder. Five minutes later and you’re back in the trance zone.

The funny thing is, although it feels like you’re working hard, you’re actually displaying a kind of mental laziness. You’re so desperate to find the solution that you try and come up with the answer straight away, to take a shortcut.

Valentina Lauro

It’s less than a month since I am a Spanker, and this is my first blog…hoping to write in an acceptable English, I would like to tell my experience here so far. I?ve been in London since last summer, and I wanted to join the SCA 2.0. I had to do an interview with Marc. Unfortunately I had to go back to Italy due to health problems and when I came back it was too late to join the school. I tried to talk to Marc on the phone and to convince him to let me in in the school, but he confirmed it was too late. For a weekend, I thought of what to do, I felt lost. I was in a city I didn’t know and I know my limits very well though. I am a very determined and very positive person, but sometimes I need someone to hold my hand and bring me on the right path or I risk losing my way alone. So I decided to send another email to Marc, but this time I exposed…….

Olesia O

You ride on into the pit, and nobody can stop you for any reason. You… Each person in our life occasionally gets into the varying depth of pits Different people react to their presence there in completely different ways:

Someone was crying and complaining about life (“I’m wet, cold and uncomfortable, have pity on me!”)

Someone takes pleasure from staying in the Pit (“My pit — the deepest and most unique pit in the world!”)

Someone is engaged in self-deception (“It is not a pit, it’s the Top!”)

Someone is passive and lacks motivation (“The whole world — it’s a big pit, and can not get out of here”)

Rosie Lewis

When I saw my name against this date in the calendar, I panicked. This was a once in a century day, how could my blog be as inspiring as this fact alone. My thoughts must outmatch the simple magic of seeing lots of ones in a line. Like a child looking at their Halloween loot, I’ve been staring at the date bewitched.

A week has passed at SCA since I discovered that my blog was due today. However, it was only on my journey home on the cattle cart that is the tube, flicking through the Evening Standard that I had my Eureka moment. It all came from a man and a subject that I had no previous interest in. Mike Tindall.

Harish Savdas

I often think of people who excel in their field, who give so much that they embody their profession. The icons and legends forged through a need to be the very best that they can be. They are the doers, the ones who push boundaries and become inspiring.

I often think of Ayrton Senna. A man who embodied the spirit of driving, when asked if he felt he was dangerous in taking risks, he passionately replied ‘If you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver’

Sophie Hughes

Recently I read that as an industry, advertising is the best example of Darwinian Theory. Survival of the fittest. Beings continually change, physically and behaviorally, playing their part in life’s great show.
Adland also has the ability to meet the demands of its ever-morphing environment. It adapts.

In our jungle, ads swing from tree to tree with ease. Print became radio became television became online, and now we’re stretching out for the branch of another age.

Janne Vuorinen

One day walking in town I saw a group of teenage boys and in a flash it looked like they were all wearing the same clothes. Actually they weren`t, but the differences between them were really minor. It seemed that if one of them had a DC shoes T-shirt someone else would have a DC shoes cap or the actual shoes. Similarly if another one of the boys had a Nike shirt then the others would have Nike shoes or cap. It became apparent that what the boys were wearing was a uniform.

Jess Mallett

Have you ever had the feeling that someone has got you completely wrong? I’m not on about petty Americanised high school politics where someone thinks you’re an insensitive slut-whore because you’re good at PE. I’m on about a little old lady pointedly crossing the road when she spots you trotting towards her with headphones in. WHOA?! When did that happen? Maybe I’ve gotten a little bit taller, and filled out a tad since I discovered they sell bagels 24-hours a day in London. But I hope I don’t look like a complete thug. I say good morning to people at the bus stop, I ask the elderly neighbour if he wants anything from Tescos, and I made gingerbread men this afternoon.

Tom Evans

Last Sunday evening I returned from an enjoyable trip to Switzerland and what an awesome place SCA 2.0 is that such opportunities are on offer. Some time the week before Marc Lewis announced in Town Hall that the first three people to speak to him afterwards could be flown to Geneva to help out doing some social media stuff at a UN conference. I made sure I was one of the first, and in reality although technically sponsored by the UN it was the annual conference of the International Telecommunications Union held at Palexpo behind Geneva Airport, and an adventure I’d like to use this blog to report about.

Tom Houser

According to the rota this is my last designated day to blog for SCAB, another sign that i’m rapidly running out of time at the school.

Seeing as I’m so close to the end, the beginning seems like a good place to blog about.

For me it began with a 1980?s copy of THE FACE magazine, which my mum – a bit of a hoarder – had kept for inspiration. I must have looked through it a few times growing up, then in September last year she brought it over to me.

Joanne Scaife

Last week, I had the unforgettable experience of modelling on a photo shoot. The results really made me think about constructed beauty in advertising, and why we want it.

I spent a good portion of the morning being pampered and preened by an amazing stylist, as she busied herself pulling on my hair and plastering my face with all manner of products, she also began to give me a myriad of tips on how to make the best of my features. A touch of bronzer on the forehead, nose and chin, highlighter on the top of the cheekbone, using green mascara as a base to bring out the colour in my eyes etc… You get the drift.

Olly Wood

The greatest campaign the world has ever seen.

It changed the world and how we act. Created over a billion followers worldwide. Was the cause of many wars and many deaths. And over all this time, it has survived.

Yes. You guessed it

Charlie Bowden

suppose my blog today is more a question or plea as I’d really appreciate feedback and discussion based on your experiences.

There is a huge focus on networking on this course and in this industry.

I understand it’s necessity and how, with the likes of Twitter and Linked In, it should be easier than ever. So why does it leave me pained and uncomfortable? Why, when I can hide behind a screen is it so hard. The notion of tweeting at (I should say “@”) feels so unnatural, filling me with the sense of fear. Does it sound forced, or even worse, false?

Jess Mallett

As my train grinds to a painful halt at the station I manage to disguise a hearty guffaw (yes, guffaw.) as a kind of hideous chest-infection cough when I catch sight of this sign. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a posh kid. I currently live on a Hackney estate where someone got shot about 3 metres from our front door and my Dad’s from Burnley. But in my opinion David Brent has just about nailed the Slough-coffin well and truly shut. According to Wikipedia “Slough has the highest level of reported anti-social behaviour in the Thames Valley Police area” – and its biggest rival is a place called ‘Staines’. If your greatest aspiration was to overthrow somewhere called Staines then you have problems.

Purdey Fitzherbert

Is writer’s block a myth? At SCA we were told it is and … “don’t believe in it”.

I am no born writer. My dyslexia means my words come out somewhat scrumpled and scrambled. But this is not what I mean by writer’s block. I suppose I mean ideas block.

This got me thinking. How does it feel to have a block?
Like having a dark brick wall barricading your way? Or is more than that? A wall with 100 hoover heads sucking out ideas, leaving us stumped and empty?

Arvid Härnqvist

The last couple of weeks I’ve been, mildly speaking, obsessed with Bobby Fischer.

For those of you reading this who don’t know who he was, Bobby Fischer is widely considered the best chess player of all time. He won his first of eight U.S. Championships at the age of 14 and was crowned world champion between 1972-1975. In the 1963–64 U.S. Championship Bobby Fischer won the final game 11–0, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament.

Bobby Fischer played and won the most famous chess game of all time against Soviet rival Boris Spassky in 1972. The game was broadcasted all over the world, since it was considered a Cold War confrontation between America and the Soviet Union.

So, why am I writing about Bobby Fischer, you may ask?

Alice Ratcliffe

The first day at The School Communication Arts I was told,

“Buy a portfolio, take it with you wherever you go, make sure its always at your side, niggling and nagging you. You need to fill it. You need to feel guilty if it isn’t filled and a failure if your not proud of it.”
Our portfolio is our key to getting a job. So being a good student the sort the SCA likes to take on I trotted off to the local art shop. Hours were spent running my hands over the various offerings. I uhhmmed and ahhhed …….

Danielle Mensah

It’s really simple if you think about it. They just didn’t get my idea and that’s not my fault. All that matters is that I know my idea’s awesome, and they’re just idiots if they don’t know real advertising when they see it. They wouldn’t know real advertising, even if a meerkat jumped out of my pitch and punched them in their faces. Yeah, it’s totally their fault.

Simon Jensen

Bill Bernbach said that ”Advertising is fundamentally persuasion, and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art”. Is it right, just because the great Bill Bernbach said it? George Orwell said, ”Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket”. But again, did the great Sir John Hegarty say, ”Which business are we in? If you think it’s advertising, you are in the wrong era.”

What do I say?

Alessio Laudato

Sitting in my Shoreditch pad, sipping coffee and trying to find some inspiration for my blog post, I am suddenly struck by a mental image of myself carrying two massive suitcases stuffed with my belongings. There I was, travelling on a Piccadilly line train from Heathrow Airport to Central London, ready to start a new life.

Emma Brincat

On the first day at the school we had a paper plane making exercise. Apparently it was much harder than it looked. The technique was not all in the build of the plane, but in the way you threw it too. It takes a lot of trial and error until you get it right because there is a lot of adjusting that needs to be done for each throw, until you get it right. It doesn’t mean starting from scratch, but working on an existing foundation and perhaps finding different means and perspectives of getting the right balance. Unfortunately, many people forgo the trial because they’re afraid of the error.

Martin Headon

I was awake for about 22 hours yesterday, and now it’s Saturday and I have to write this bloody blog.

So it’s as good a time as any to talk about “work/life balance”.

It’s always struck me as curious that it’s a phrase you’d hear most often in the public sector, where you get to go home at 5 – and if you leave late one day, you can leave early the next…….

Anonymous

A message from an anonymous student….

Ellen Svenningsen

The words don’t write themselves. If they did though, I wouldn’t sit here, scared. I tell you why I’m frightened. It’s because I never written anything before. Nothing. I have literally, never written anything that someone, except from teachers and friends of course, would or could read, so if you are reading this you’re the first to ever read my open……

Mariana Simao

I confess, it’s not always easy being here. But the amazing part is so much more incredible than the hard part, which makes everything easy after all.

Context in a nutshell: I am from Brazil and lived in Sao Paulo until June of this year, when I realized that something was missing. What? I do not know, but I felt I could do and be more. There was something inside me….

Rasmus Jensen

The world of London is so different, but in a strange way very much the same. I am starting my fifth week as a Londoner and I am still blown away by the size of everything over here. To understand why I think everything is so big in London, I need to tell you that I come from a small town called Silkeborg in Denmark, a town with approximately 35,000 people. It’s not only the number of people living there, it’s also…..

Imogen Wethered

For us, there is no compromising
Till we find ideas beyond inspiring.
So our minds search far and wide
Looking to find where ideas might hide
Searching for insight to latch a thought too,
And where it will take us?

Katie Harland

Read Katie’s post discussing the ‘creative eye’ that she sees in her fellow SCA students.

Sarah Anne Smith

Sarah throws herself into the London art scene in her first weeks at the School, working on some amazing projects. Find out what she’s been up to here.

Cooper Stevenson

I often need excuses to write… a concrete reason to shut myself up in a room with a few packs of cigarettes and delve into the manic innards of a highly confusing head. With my follow-up blog post for SCA looming, I danced between a few ideas before settling on the simplicity of a short story (after all, advertising is all about story-telling these days, so we’re told). I have been swilling this particular idea around for a while now, unsure that the perversions of Webber might be seen as projections of my own, but with little else to write about I forged into the night with happy-tapping fingers full of smut. A pack of Marlboro Lights, twenty Dunhill’s, and eight Red-Bull’s later (the grumpy gas-station man refused to sell me some Jack past midnight)… this is what transpired…

Peace and blessings and all the dressings,

Jon Farley

Since I started at the SCA we have been encouraged to challenge convention and break the rules. We’re also taught the importance of making the most of our time. And with multiple briefs on the go, time is definitely at a premium. So, when my girlfriend joked that she could write my blog post for me I thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up. So, without further ado, take it away, Nicola Perry…

Rosie Lewis

Rosie believes that we should all be like swans. Seriously. She’s right.

Sophie Hughes

Today, in the sweltering heat of an Indian summer, amidst the multitude of Saturday shoppers I discovered an oasis of innovate thinking on London’s Regent Street. Molton Brown, the English ‘luxury bath and soap’ company have recently opened a new store. Entering with only the intention of looking, I left having spent £31.

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