Doodles by Darren

Back in August I was asked at work (The Big Kick) to find an illustrator for an interesting commission. We needed them to doodle on our boardroom table...

After going through all my Facebook friends in search of an appropriate artist I found Darren Luchmun, We used to work together in Borders and I remembered he had always been great at drawing and had recently completed a degree in Graphic Design and Illustration at Herts Uni.

To cut a long story short, this is what he came up with:





As you can imagine we were all very impressed with the work and he managed to come up with it in record time!

For more info:
Darren's work -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28646055@N04/

Darren's blog -
http://comfortindarren.blogspot.com/

My 'Footphobia'

Otherwise known as 'Podophobia', I suffer from an irrational fear of feet. I can deal with shoes and socks, but when it comes to bare feet, they make me want to throw up a little bit. My reaction to feet is somewhat like this...



My friends have never really taken this condition seriously, particularly a certain somebody (you know who you are) who actually put their foot so close to my face it hit me in the eye.

Obviously I just have to deal with it at certain times of the year when flip flops are rife (eurgh). I also avoid touching/looking at my own feet. Not because they're a bad pair of feet - but because all feet are unacceptable.

Millie The Greyhound

I visited home last Friday to discover that my parents had gone and adopted a greyhound. My mother has been threatening this course of action for many years. She has always said, "If dogs look like they're owners, then I should get a greyhound so I can be just as slim and graceful". I don't think she really thought that logic through, but it's too late now as there is a greyhound living in my house.


Her name is Millie, she is 5 years old and she is a retired racing greyhound from Ireland.

Here she is:




Her strange body shape reminds me of a really leggy alien, or perhaps a stick insect.

I love Lovefilm

I spoke to a man who worked for Lovefilm and he persauded me to sign up by giving me a code for 2 months free rentals. It was the incentive I needed to finally give it a go and I'm very glad I did. I used to spend a fortune on DVDs as well as going to the cinema and now I can just stay home and watch a DVD for FREE!

They have every title you could ever want and you can even watch some films and TV episode off of their website for free as part of your rental package.

You can also set the level of priority on your rental list to let them know if you really really want to see Shutter Island and think you could wait a couple of weeks before you see Madagascar.

I know this sounds like the biggest product plug ever, but it really is fantastic !

The end of an egg era

After completing a month on placement at Muirhoward, I have been asked to return to The Big Kick. Unfortunately I have been asked to return alone.

I have decided to take this opportunity for many reasons, which I won't go into now but obviously it means an end to mine and Vicky's creative partnership.

Vicky is to continue on placement with a different copywriter at Muirhoward (probably until the end of November) and I have the highest confidence that she will continue to dazzle them with her ideas.

I start back at The Big Kick on Monday 11th, where I will be helping out on well-known brands such as Walkers crisps, Becks beer and Nestle Kit Kats. After my experience there in the summer I have definately developed a love for marketing and I can't wait to get stuck in there again.

Ozzy

Oska was my cat for 14 years. He was born in a shed at the bottom of a garden behind the house of my school dinner lady, Marge. Marge already had many cats and didn't have space for another, so we adopted him.

As a kitten he was very badly behaved and often stupid. He did not understand that glass doors were still solid objects and had a love of chewing through fairy lights at Christmas.

Oska has inspired many artworks of mine including a typographic series entitled "Affection for food" and many photographic works. Here are some of the finer examples:







I have many fond memories of Ozzy... He used to chase the neighbours' dog, he enjoyed drinking from the bathroom tap, he attacked your ankles if you lingered too long on the bottom step of the stairs...

Although he had avoided death once before, Ozzy's colourful life was cut short by cancer of the stomach - a cruel blow for an animal that had so enjoyed his food. As a younger cat he was shot three times with an air rifle (we reckon it was our crazy next-door neighbour)and not only survived, but carried on with the pellets in his bum. He was indeed the 'Fiddy Cent' of the cat world.

He will never be forgotten, not only because I'll have the cat-scratch scars to remember him by, but because he was GREAT.

The YCN Awards

Last Tuesday Vicky and I finished our days work at Muirhoward and got the tube over to Shoreditch. We met our guests for the night, Emma and Josie and entered Shoreditch Town Hall for the YCN student awards ceremony.



We were greeted by an array of free Becks bottles, kindly provided by YCN. Strangely enough I had seen the limited edition Beck labels before, at The Big Kick. I had assisted one of the Becks account handlers stick on the very same stickers (to Becks bottles) to be delivered to a photo shoot at YCN. So it was a bit of a coincidence to see them at the awards ceremony. Keep a look out for them, they're promoting the album Wolfgang Amadeus.

After bumping into a few (loads) of familiar faces from Lincoln we were led into the main hall and seated at tables according to the brief we entered. We were shown short films by many interesting special guests including; Jean Jullien, Tomas Klassnik and Inventory Studio before they announced the commendations a brief at a time.

Vicky and I both recieved a lovely gold framed 'A' for award certificate...


(Photo from Amy)

From left to right: Me, Vicky, Amy, Pieter, Pete, Ollie, A man from P&O Ferries!

As you can see we all look pretty smug. It was a great night and many thanks to YCN for putting together such a fun evening!

P.S.

Sorry for the lack of posts, been very busy but more to follow!