This is an edit of some pics of Martin that we put together very quickly as a way of remembering how positive and full of life he was.

From Advertising Age.

For more info on the 'Idea X' competition, see Selfridges website.

Some stairs. Useful when moving between floors.

A big, empty bit.

Paul and Angus creating magic in a garage. On cliched, uncomfortable bean bags.

Stairs to the mezzanine.

Nev, in the corridor that reminds me of The Masque of the Red Death.

Black bog.

Some people working.

Kitchen, with mezzanine area above. Shame we couldn't manage to get cabinets in matching colours.

I stuck myself to the ceiling like a human fly to take this shot.

•    HAPPY SACKS (Inc CHRISTMAS PUDDING BAGS* and PET GOLDFISH BIN BAGS
•    PASS THE SALT
•    DAN WIEDEN’S MUSICAL RULER

(*The CHRISTMAS PUDDING BAGS will launch nearer Christmas time. For obvious reasons.)

We worked with Worldwide Co. and Suck UK to turn the original concepts into viable commercial products.  We then licensed the ideas to manufacturers and distributors in return for a percentage royalty. So, we're trying to put a new business model into practice. Don't know whether it'll turn out to be a big earner, but it's a new venture into creating products and brands for ourselves rather than for clients.

The brainchild of Wieden + Kennedy’s co-founder Dan Wieden, the musical rulers are sold with a ‘play in a day’ guide book: a complete beginner’s guide to ruler-playing by Dan himself. We made a limited number of these before but now they're going to be made available to the general public.

 
This very traditional-looking salt pot has a secret.  Cunningly concealed in the base is a powerful pull-back-and-go motor.  Created in collaboration with Worldwide Co. the pots are perfectly geared to deliver salt across any dining table, and can be aimed precisely to trundle over to fellow diners.  Copy on the packs is as follows:

Fully functioning seasoning dispenser
Twist top to open
No batteries required
B.Y.O.S. (Bring your own salt)
Pull back in direction of dimple on base
Goes quite fast

The Christmas Pudding and Pet Goldfish bin bags have been created to make the boring chore of taking out the rubbish more artistic and fun – to bring a little happiness to the streets on collection day.  The copy printed on the bin bags is as follows:

Pet Goldfish Bags
Caution: Ginger, the fat tabby from number 23 may become mesmerised by the giant goldfish and spend days trying to fish them from the bag.  In the event of this happening shout, ‘SHOO!’

 
Christmas Pudding Bags:

Suggested uses (in order of ridiculousness):
1    Festive bin bags
2    Father Christmas sack for presents
3    Festive hot air balloon
4    Fake entry into giant Christmas Pudding competition

 
You can buy the bin bags online here.

Some more examples of our concepts for 'Selfridges Future A-Z 2019', an installation in the famous Oxford Street department store's windows as part of their hundredth anniversary celebrations. Each letter of the alphabet is represented by a product that we imagine Selfridges might sell in 100 years' time.

H is for HAPPY FRUIT
100% natural antidepressant. Packed full of serotonin, the natural antidote to S.A.D., global sadness and other depressive disorders.

M is for MOON FLOWERS
Harvested from the Selfridges lunar fields. Flowers arrive fresh every day. Gravity-proofed and naturally luminescent. Do not water.

P is for PORTA-WOMB           
Retain your figure throughout pregnancy. Unisex design. Convenient cord tidy. Ask for details at the Pop-Up Surgery.

Z is for ZERO GRAVITY PAINT
Give any object instant zero gravity properties. Ideal for moving heavy items. Water soluble. Body painting should be approached with caution.

X Idea competition:
One letter is missing: the X. We're looking for ideas from anyone as to what future product could represent the 'X'. You can download an entry form from the Selfridges website or do your design on a postcard available from the Concept Store in the Wonder Room on the ground floor of Selfridges on Oxford Street.
Designs can be submitted via the entry box at the Wonder Room, Selfridges London, sent by email to ideaX@wk.com, or by post to us at: Idea X Competition, Wieden + Kennedy, 16 Hanbury Street, London, E1 6QR.

We're here for a Nokia catch-up, plus a bit of boat and sauna action.

Chesters and Owen prepare for cruising in the sunshine from Helsinki harbour.

A few hours later, they cling to the boat, lashed by icy gales and towering waves. Chesters grimaces, Nic does his best Captain Haddock impersonation, picks pieces of albatross from beard.

Chesters: unbowed. Owen has possibly fallen into the water.

Team on the good ship Venus.

Taking a break from his exhausting schedule (scrimshawing the whalebone, polishing the cannon, etc), Nic demonstrates ability to nap anywhere, in any conditions.

The bet was: could Paul Colman eat a four finger Kit-Kat in its entirety in 30 seconds or less?

The result: not even close. More like 60 seconds. But, who knows, there could be a campaign in this for  Kit-Kat: so full of goodness and nourishment that it'll probably take you at least a minute to cram one down your gullet.

The move into the new space all happens over the weekend.

Across the continent Mark is a household name – the fastest road cyclist in the world. He took four stages in the Tour de France last year, four in the Giro this year, two in the recent Tour of Switzerland and he won the Milan – San Remo classic. Dave Brailsford (the brains behind Team GB’s cycling success in Beijing) has described Cav as “the new Wayne Rooney”, his team owner says “forget Armstrong, Cavendish is the big story this year”. Despite being our best British cycling hope in years, here in the UK he remains virtually unheard of – and where he is known he has a reputation for his emotional post-race outbursts, his ability to say the wrong thing and what a lot of people claim is ‘arrogance’ about his own abilities.

But the one thing that no one can argue about is his speed on the road.

This execution puts the debate and the arguments to one side and lets his speed do the talking. As well as the image which appeared full page in Sport magazine editorial today alongside numerous cycling blogs, we’ll be releasing a series of filmed interviews throughout the three weeks of the tour each giving a different perspective on Cav’s approach to the race. The first sets up his ambitions for this year:

(http://www.youtube.com/user/NikeAdvertising#play/all/uploads-all/0/sE8zhUYMHA4).

We can’t wait to see what he’s capable of doing over the next three weeks. And to see if he can really bring that green jersey back to the UK…

A lion, recently.

According to a thing on Brand Republic, "The Big Won, in association with creative recruitment agency, The Garden Partnership, has analysed the entire Cannes 2009 Lions shortlists and winners."

There's no further explanation of these tables, but our folks seem to have done OK. Seems a bit odd that AKQA got a Grand Prix but don't feature but this is what the survey says. We all love rankings tables, so here they are.

UK top creative directors:

UK top copywriters:

UK top art directors:

UK top account people:

Way to go, Ryan!

 

In February Wieden + Kennedy London pitched and won a project to design the Concept Store windows for Selfridges’ 100th anniversary. The brief was “What will Selfridges be selling in 2109?” It was a great chance to do some non-traditional creative work and satisfying to know that we beat some top designers and artists to win the project.

The outcome was the ‘Future A-Z 2109’, which officially launches on July 3^rd. We wanted to come up with something that reflected Selfridges, the ultimate pleasure palace, in the future. The idea allowed us to show a collective view of the future with a series of 26 ‘crazy sensible’ future products, created by W+K. Thoughts range from the stupidly clever Airbag Cycle Helmets through to the darker dimension of Designer Organs. (This concept was endorsed by Vivienne Westwood.) Here are some shots of the installation.

The A-Z along Orchard Street.

A is for Airbag Helmet. Instantly inflates on impact providing 360 degree protection for any cyclist. Do not wear in bed.

A passer-by admiring the window.

As of all this wasn't enough, we have come up with a competition where we are asking you, the blog-reading public to complete our A-Z, since the letter X is missing. Can you think of what product the letter X could represent in 2019? Download the template from the Selfridges website and take a look at the teaser film.

The winning IDEA X will be made and exhibited in the window, along with the other 25 letters, from Saturday 8 August until the end of the month. The winner will also receive a £500 Selfridges gift card. Judges include Dr Frances Corner – Professor of Art and Design Education at the London College of Fashion, Patrick Burgoyne – Editor of Creative Review and Linda Hewson – Selfridges head of creative.

A special thanks to the team at ATOM for all their support and exceptional model-making.

Work nears completion on our additional space just across the road. We're due to move people around this weekend, so these really are the finishing touches. (Fingers crossed.)

Alex in the kitchen.

Big screen for big presentations, which is accompanied by some proper AV kit.

Ooo - design feature!

General work area: lots of desks to go in here very soon.

Looks like it's just been abandoned rather than about to be finished, but this will be a meeting room.

A yellow door.

A small room with some dodgy carpeting. This will be an edit suite.

Stairway to nowhere.

Looking down on the open area from the gallery. Minstrels not yet in residence.

Up on the roof.

View from the roof terrace: our current space on 16 Hanbury Street.

Nat welcomes Dan and Ray, who have finally agreed to join us full time. Like all new joiners they were asked to tell everyone a secret about themselves. Dan's secret involved atomic bombs. Ray's related to vomiting orange juice down her nose in a cheese shop.

Tom and Katherine explained what's happening with our fabulous Selfridges window installation.

And Feh shared his views on the highlights of the work from last week's Cannes festival.

Later, Windsor initiated the troubleshooting process with I.T. Tom. Note the sophisticated technical analysis of the reduced performance status of the multimedia hardware solution.

Dx

Carlo Brandelli, former creative director of Kilgour, came into the agency today to give one of our occasional talks from interesting and inspiring figures from the broader world of creativity.

Carlo didn't go to fashion college, but learnt from the artisans and craftsmen who surrounded him as he was growing up in Italy. He founded his own successful label Squire, bringing together the worlds of art and fashion, at the age of 24.

Kilgour, the famous Savile Row tailor responsible for dressing some of the most elegant men in the world (Cary Grant and Fred Astaire among them) approached Carlo in 1998 to design their first ready to wear collections.  In October 2003 Carlo joined Kilgour full time as Creative and Design Director, with the brief ‘to create a new kind of menswear brand,blending menswear skill and heritage with modern design‘. He brought the company into the new millennium with a sleek new store, and a pared-down collection that adhered to his own strict aesthetic.

In 2005 he won the Menswear Designer Of The Year award, presented by the British Fashion Council, the highest award of its kind in the country, and was voted GQ Magazine's most stylish man.  A menswear design award from Arena magazine also followed and an award from British Esquire in 2007 for best menswear fashion brand. A debut Fashion Menswear Show in Paris June 2008 was received with critical acclaim. He has a raft of nominations from GQ magazine for Menswear Designer of the Year and is a fixture in their 'top 50 best dressed men' list.

So he's just the sort of guy to debate the finer points of sartorial elegance with W+K style gurus like Gav, Dazzer and Danny Wallace: men for whom socks with sandals qualifies as 'a look'.

It was a fascinating talk and really interesting to hear of the similarities and differences between the worlds of fashion and advertising.

Similar: a lot of the creative work only gets produced in the pressured environment of the impending deadline; the creative process never seems to be easy; customers can be difficult and demanding; there are all sorts of category rules there to be broken; you get to see your clients with no clothes on. (I'm thinking here, in our case, of saunas with Nokia rather than fitting sessions with Tony Blair or Bryan Ferry.)
Different: there is no 'brief' in the world of fashion (though there can be some strict design parameters); budgets are much smaller; dressing as a banana probably not OK when meeting with Jude Law to discuss his suiting requirements.

W+K's style icon Noe pays close attention to Carlo's presentation.

Here's one that happened a little while ago.

Client: "You're making me nervous with these ideas."
Creative Director: "Well, nervous can be a good thing."
Client: "Yes, but this is the bad kind of nervous."

If I get time, later, I'll recount the story of the marketing director who physically attacked me to try to stop me from singing him our ideas for some radio ads. Oh, how we laughed about that one.

Interesting to see how the local press in Swindon has covered W+K's campaign to announce the reopening of Honda's UK factory, which is located in the area. The coverage suggests that it's a controversial move locally to spend money on an advertising campaign when workers have accepted pay cuts, but reports that Honda workers have backed the campaign. Most of those interviewed seem to have seen the campaign as a positive step, likely to encourage the business to get moving. A Swindon-based marketing expert is quoted as saying he thinks the campaign is 'a wise move'. And the article talks of Honda's 'impressive track record when it comes to advertising.'

A follow-up piece said 'readers giving their backing to Honda's ad campaign'.

An online poll conducted by the paper revealed 57 per cent of readers supported the campaign.

Pat, on a conference call, under the watchful eye of Wieden.

Blue sky thinking in the 'fishbowl' meeting room?

First up: the awesome White Denim, who rocked. Totally. Wah-wah, baby, wah-wah!

Strangely, their bassist looked like a 14 year old swot. He sang backing vocals at one point and I swear the kid's voice hasn't even broken yet. But he was STILL awesome.
Next up, in just a minute now: