creative department gabble

All the news and gossip from Penna's blue-haired stepchild

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

tacky magnet update



who comes up with the designs for these?

maybe they could come and freelance for us sometime. NOT.

Friday, November 17, 2006

blindfolded

JR can do puzzles.
blindfolded.
gold star for JR.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

heavy workload.

Someone told me to take this picture.



I have no idea what JR is doing. Or why that stamp is so big. Like in any creative department, on our end of the office you just start taking weirdness as a given. And when someone tells you, 'photograph JR, it's funny' you just do it. Post it up. And have a cup of earl grey.

There you are. I call it,

'JR pretending to lift heavy object'. Medium: pixels.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

all around the wrekin....

...they're talking about their new agency.

Well, OK, maybe not all around the Wrekin. That could be an exaggeration. But all around our office, we sure were pleased to see Beardy Cernuschi giving us the thumbs up as he took the 'welcome onboard' phone call from Telford & Wrekin.

*flashback*

PRC's legendary journey to Telford & Wrekin...

An exhausting week. Now, to put this into context, I think nothing of being out every night rubbing elbows with fire eaters (not too closely, mind), lindy hopping until dawn, waking up on the floor with the dog in strange places in parts of London I have never seen, stuff like that. Which is to say, I'm hearty and I thrive on NoSleep. But Telford & Wrekin pitch week was Do it, Do it again, Do it again, OK we're happy now. Ish. No wait. Do it again. I had to join an agency of perfectionists.

Well. I did, actually. Would you join an agency full of plodders?

During this pitch we cancelled our entire social lives. We worked until midnight several days on the trot. I got drenched on my moped in the worst thunderstorm I've ever seen in London, and got home only to realise I'd forgotten to set the alarm and I had to go back. It was then that I actually started to consider sleeping under my desk.

It's a labour of love. And during pitch time that's the sort of love that would benefit from setting up a futon in one of the meeting rooms and just never leaving. Treat it like a romantic weekend. In an office. With not very good room service.

This pitch was being tweaked so down to the wire that we were boarding up very late the night before, fuelled by pork pies and vegetarian quiche, working fast. Early train to Telford. Hurry up kids.

We had forty minutes to present. And shedloads of creative work. We figured out we had to run our presentation to absolute precision if we were going to get it all in. No extra words, no flourishes. Anne Riley offered to be timekeeper and give us signals if we were running on too long. Good.

Commence the most buzzed up presentation I've ever seen. 'When I get enthusiastic,' Mike Burgneay says, 'It comes out in speed.' And he wasn't kidding. At one point, someone on the panel informed us that, however hard we may be trying, we weren't going to get extra time if Mike had a heart attack. Someone else very kindly offered him his inhaler.

By the time we got to presenting our third set of creative ideas, I was getting panic signals from Generals Riley and Burgneay both. Cut it short, DeLand. OK. So I gave it a rather breathless '...and you can see this campaign, here you go, it's very nice, I'll just put that there, and moving quickly on...'

...followed by Anne's tongue twister speed-talking wrap up.

Ta DA! And that's PRC!

And someone says huh. That's funny. I make that you have ten more minutes.

TEN MORE MINUTES?

All eyes on Riley as we realise she jumped the gun on the timings. And we have actually packed our already-tight 40 minute presentation into a half hour. Unnecessarily.

We came back to the office and put two clocks on the wall. Greenwich Mean Time. And Riley Time.

Let this be a warning to you all: don't be late to a meeting with Miz Riley. Because when Anne says on time, on time clearly means ten minutes early.