What the Flock?

I'm quite interested to see what this campaign is about.

Walking through Hyde Park into university the other day I was greeted by a large number of black sheep stuck into the grass, along with the words 'what the flock?' painted on the ground. Although I thought it was a bit weird, it's definitely not the weirdest thing I've seen in Hyde Park before so I didn't think much of it until I saw a friend had been tagged in 'What the Flocks?' album on Facebook.

So what the flock is with all the sheep in Leeds? No idea. The website www.whattheflock.org.uk says all will be revealed on 10/10/10, but all we have no aside from the large amount of fake wooly creatures around the town is a short video with a lot of students looking shocked and saying '17?'.

The suspense around this campaign is enthralling, it makes me want to check back and see what it's actually about. Maybe a not so good comparison was when Pantene Pro V shampoo did a campaign where they sent out non branded sachets of shampoo of their product and didn't tell any of the receivers what the product was. By doing this they had confidence that the effects of their product would outweigh the brand name.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this is all about on 10/10/10.

Current Issues

South African agency TBWAHuntLascaris has created a really clever piece of ambient advertising to draw attention to human trafficking in South Africa. Created on behalf of the Southern African Counter-Trafficking Assistance Programme, it is aimed at potential victims of trafficking.


“We realised that human trafficking relies on the fact that potential victims will be uninformed," say the creatives, Miguel Nunes and Charles Pantland. "So we needed to talk to the community directly, the way human traffickers do. Like the recruiters, we targeted children near schools or just walking the streets of poverty stricken townships and dense urban slums where unemployment and forced prostitution are common. And like the criminals, we employed an element of deception: we created tunnels with false walls which precisely matched the walls behind them, so that when people walked through, they disappeared – leaving onlookers wondering what had happened to them. By forcing people to imagine the unimaginable, the potential victims actually became the message." (copied from the Creative Review blog post)


Having taken part in projects where we had to create ambient advertising, I know how hard it can be to come up with an effective idea which still makes people look at it and say ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ This campaign not only targets the appropriate audience but manages to blend into the surroundings though it’s simple design effectively.

Agency: TBWAHuntLascaris
Art director: Miguel Nunes
Copywriter: Charles Pantland
Creative director: Vanessa Gibson
Executive creative director: Damon Stapleton
Photographer: Des Ellis
Director: Rob Wilson

Simon Danaher

I really like these advertising pieces by digital designer Simon Danaher. I find image manipulation to this level really fascinating, as although I would consider myself as a 'designer', I doubt I would ever be able to create pieces of work like this.

I would like to see what the original images looked like and the process he went through to get to each final image as I can image it was a long and painful task to get them looking as good as they do now.

Moss Art by Edina Tokodi

I really liked these pieces of Moss Art placed around Brooklyn by Edina Tokodi. The refreshing contrast between the green naturalness of the moss and the city scape is really nice. I esp like the image with the graffiti in the corner as it shows two contrasts of art.

The only problem I have with it were that if it is real moss, would it not die quite quickly?

Glove Love

I will always be slightly biased towards places that I've done internships for. Mainly because I am even more aware of the amount of work that goes into each design and campaign. So here is a fun campaign for an online charity called Do The Green Thing, who I spent a month with last summer.

As the name of the charity suggests Green Thing is focused on improving the world we live in through being greener. Based online, it focuses on 7 things you can do to live a greener life.

So, whilst on my internship there they were bringing all the abandoned gloves in from around London. Going to Transport for London daily and collected sacks of gloves that had been left behind and abandoned. Most were single, and a lot of them were in a state of disrepair.

The intention was to pair single gloves together and sell them (washed of course, and with the green thing logo on them) to raise money for the charity. This campaign falls into the 'all-consuming' category of the charity - wasting nothing and using everything. It's a great idea, and each glove comes with it's own heart-warming story as to where it was found and how it met it's other glove. There are some really fun videos on the website to promote the campaign too.

All the creative work for the charity is done by volunteers from all professions, including many a celebrity who the founders of the charity have contacts with (for my interview I had to go to a We Are Scientists video shoot). It's a great way to get involved and they are always looking for people to lend a helping hand and give their creative input.

This is the website - dothegreenthing.com

National Museum - Prague

At Easter I had the opportunity to go to Prague for a long weekend, and managed to get to the National Museum just at the end of Wenceslas Square. The largest museum in the Czech Republic, the aim of the museum is to enhance the sense of national identity and awareness that CZ is part of the European framework.

Unfortunately when I visited it the weather was against me, however you could tell that the museum itself is an amazing piece of architecture, with many a typical gargoyle.

The most interesting thing I found about the museum was the wide collection of stuffed animals that it held. I had no idea that that many species existed, and although slightly miffed at first by the idea of being in a room with so many of them I actually found it incredibly interesting.

Victor Churchill Butchers

I came across this retail design for Victor Churchill Butchers on the internet a while ago now. Unfortunately it's in Sydney so I haven't had the opportunity to check it out but it beats the butchers in the village I live anyday!

By displaying the meats in this way it's almost like you're walking into a high-end clothes shop rather than a room filled with animal carcasse. Using lights and cabinets to make specific meats focal points of the store is really clever and although I'm not sure how good the meat would be it would definitely be a new buying experience!

Dual Branding

As a final year student, I'm being slowly forced into thinking and reading up for my dissertation. After a whole placement year of frantically reading design publications to try and find something I'm prepared to spend a whole year writing about I've become interested in the subject of dual branding, which has been spotted as a trend to look out for in 2010.

Judge Gill's five retail design trend predictions for 2010

• Stores must become 'brand homes', not walk-in advertisements
• Experiential design will become a necessity
• There will be an explosion in dual-branded stores
• Retailers will aim to develop ongoing relationships with customers
• There will be a growth in digital elements

"Dual-branded areas will be driven by the practical consideration of sharing risks and cost, and also by brands becoming 'less precious' about maintaining their singularity, and realising the benefits to be had from teaming up" says Judge. But was has happened to the importance of intellectual property? It seems brands have lost their need to be individual.

A famous dual branding movement at the moment is Red, the aids awareness fund which has teamed up with a number of large brands such as Nike and Gap (you may have noticed the tshirts sold in Gap 'Inspi(red)'.

Inspi(red) t-shirt

The marketers at Diet Coke who's target audience is women, wanted the can to be more of a fashion accessory, so teamed up with online store ASOS to create a leopard print can. Limited edition bottles are also available.

Dual branding - Nike and Apple

I wouldn't be a Leeds Uni student...

...if I didn't show the Parkinson Building to any 'lucky' person who chooses to visit me for the weekend. It's a standard phrase for most Leeds students to say 'meet outside the Parky steps', usually meaning at peak hours it incredibly hard to single out your friend who you've arranged to meet.

However, whenever I've been away from Leeds for a while it's always a reassuring feeling when the clock tower comes into view. Right beside what could be considered as the main entrance to the university it's the main thing I remember about my first trip to Leeds. Those steps. I passed them about 5 times whilst lost on the ring road.

The Parkinson Building was named after Frank Parkinson, a Yorkshire electrical engineer and millionaire, who helped to partly fund the building, and opened in November 1951. It hold the Brotherton Library...something similar to that of Harry Potter's Hogwarts library.

A Leeds landmark, through and through.

Incep-what?!

When the film Inception first came out I had no inclination to go and watch it. Leonardo Dicaprio, the one thing that could have swayed me is now definitely slightly past it, and the thought of sitting through nearly 3 hours of film in which if you were to turn away for one second you would completely lose the plot line didn't really do it for me.

However nearly a month after it's release I found myself sitting in the cinema about to embark on probably the most confusing film I had ever watched.

But confusing as it was, I can safely say it was amazing. The amount of thought and detail that went into the film was ridiculous, and at the end of the film everyone was left with the thought of 'what just happened?'.

The idea behind the film is that Dicaprio plays Dom Cobb, who deals in the art of extraction from people's dreams, thus stealing secrets from your subconscious. His past acts have made him a fugitive and lost him everything he ever loved, but in the film he is given one last chance to redeem himself by achieving inception.

The main thing I liked about this film was that it left you guessing. So many films end with a happy ending, or an ending that will continue on to a sequel. This film, although not having a clear ending, is complete.

Branching Out Exhibition

According to Andrew Varah, chairman of The Liveries Wood Group, woodworking skills are 'as good, if not better, today than at any other time'. This being one of the reasons behind a new exhibition called 'Branching Out' conceived by himself, and being displayed at the Arboretum Trust, Kew at Castle Howard in York.

Giving several designers and celebrities a 15cm long piece of a dead oak tree, the idea was that they were to be turned into pieces of art and design which could then be signed and auctioned off for charity. Many pieces show different types of woodworking skills such as turning and carving to cabinet-making. And designwise many of the chosen designers used their specific design skills to create something relating to their interests such as a pencil holder/sharpener by Sebastian Conran.

Although having only read about this exhibition, I found the idea incredibly innovative. It highlights the way in which materials that may otherwise be thrown away can be reused and turned into pieces of art. It required each individual to manipulate something using their imagination and skills in an individual way. Some of the designs were incredibly intricate and clever including a beautiful sculpture by Joey Richardson (see below).