These (http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2009/03/29/juice-skin-packaging-by-naoto-fukasawa/) should walk it this year.
When people say ‘Keep it simple’ and ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ that’s the kind of thing they should be referring to.
(Thanks, L.)
So I rest my case about how much creatives care about effectiveness over awards.
I voted for a number one single. I’m not really sure why. Number ones don’t seem nearly as significant as they used to.
But then neither do Pencils. Or full pages in The Sun.
But they still all beat a big increase in sales.
Shhh…don’t tell the clients.
Anyway, continuing the theme of job mobility, there’s a new question of the week.
(By the way, French keyboards require you to use shift for numbers and full stops. Pourquoi?)
With all this recession-redundancy-firing type stuff, the thoughts of many creatives are turning to the wonderful world of freelance.
As it’s not something I’m that familiar with, I’ve asked a friend of mine, who has been at it since times were good, what it’s really like:
“The thing that struck me most when I first started the temporary employment thing is the similarity between freelancing qnd placementing. In both situations you arrive somewhere new, hope to get briefed quickly by people you have never met before (after all, you do want to do the best job you can and it’s no good if you’re there for a week but you only get briefed on Wednesday) and spend rather more time than you’d like doing all the necessary aclimatisations. By this I mean sorting out getting on a computer or getting your own computer going with their IT so you can print stuff out; talking to the appropriate finance people to ensure you get paid; finding out who is or isn’t worth getting to know for useful information; and ingratiating yourself enough to extend your employment, but not so much that you seem like a dreadful arselicker.
You can’t help but compare agencies by the little day-today things that they all have, like the standard of the loos, the refreshments and how much they cost, the agency pub and the attractiveness of members of the gender(s) you find attractive. I think all that novelty is one of the main benefits of this side of the fence.
Learning to read your CD’s quirks and personality in a matter of days is also a valuable skill. The more time you spend trying to read his mind, the less time you have to crack the brief.
Timing’s an odd one. Usually the time keeping’s not as important as finishing the work. Some agencies don’t mind if you work off-site (handy for taking on more than one job at once), but the ones that want you in usually want you to do a 9.30ish to 6.30ish day.
Some jobs you give more of a shit about than others, but that’s the same if you’re permanent, but if you freelance, you’d better at least look like you give a half-decent fuck, or they’re not going to ask you back. And being asked back is important because jobs don’t just drop from the sky. You will now have a second occupation trying to keep the first one going.
But in general, I prefer it. There’s less time to get bogged down in the political bullshit and you don’t have to look like a you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid of whatever the corporate mission statement says. Just get in, do your job, get out and spend the next few months chasing up your payment with finance people who are never in quite the same hurry to pay you as the bank is to receive your mortgage payment.”
Thanks for that. Any other people want to add their insights, please feel free to leave a comment.
Also, I plan to do a post in the near future with all the websites of available freelancers. If you’d like me to feature yours, just send it to bwmkay at googlemail.com (sorry, I’m on a French keyboard and have no idea where they keep the ‘at’ sign. It also means I won’t update the comments as often as usual).
They say that nothing can make a bad product fail faster than good advertising.
I might have found an exception.
About a month ago I took out a subscription to The Guardian, which allows me to get about 1/3 off the usual price. You pay for a certain period of time, and The Guardian sends you a sheet of vouchers which you swap at the newsagent for the daily paper.
What they don’t tell you is that several newsagents don’t accept the vouchers, which is a bit annoying if it’s one that’s close to where you live or work. On several occasions I have had to go ten or fifteen minutes out of my way to get the free papers, which for a lazy bastard like myself is one hell of an unwanted bugger.
I started off by resenting these bloody newsagents who couldn’t be arsed to follow the simple redeeming instructions on the back. I mean, fuck them. Did they not realise they were also missing out on my Smarties and Cherry Coke custom (sometimes I have a taste bud age of about eleven)?
But then I asked my local convenience store, Sphere Xpress on Parkway (it’s the best convenience store in the world, by the way. They’re all really nice and they sell Corona and get the papers in early, which is a Godsend if your son is two and likes getting up at six. If you’re ever in Camden and you need some Wotsits or a Reese’s Nutrageous, it’s worth a minor detour), if the voucher thing is ‘cool’ with them. The really pleasant shopkeep replied that actually it wasn’t, because you had to keep ringing up the bloody Guardian and they made it really tricky for him to redeem my vouchers. So I apologised, and told him I felt like a bit of an arsehole. Then I asked him why he accepted such annoyances off me and he said it was because I was a regular customer. How nice is that? I love Sphere Xpress, even if I have no idea why that’s what they’re called.
Anyway, I know from my statcounter that someone at the Guardian reads this blog, so, whoever you are, please make your subscription voucher redeeming process less of an arse. Just because I’ve already paid you doesn’t mean you can fanny around with the newsagents of Great Britain.
So, going back to the opening sentence: I don’t know if this product is failing or not, but I won’t be doing it again because I feel like I’m stiffing Mr. Sphere Xpress, whom I like and on no account would I take any satisfaction from stiffing him.
Not a failure of bad advertising, though (it was the ads that got me to do it); just a failure of poor service.
Talking of which, don’t get me started on Virgin Media. Long story short: never, ever, ever, ever, ever get yourself involved with that steaming bunch of shitwipes.
1. Make it boring.
2. Make it completely believable.
3. Convey the ‘evidence’ in an unremarkable way.
4. Fall way short of the standards set by previous April Fools.
5. Make sure it’s so underwhelming that no one wants to pass it on.
6. Waste the licence fee-payers’ money when times are tight.
7. Put it on YouTube with a title that mentions April Fool.
And, of course, it’s in the same territory as last year’s corker: