A toast!

To Bill.

Well done to our Bill. His radio ads (scroll down to have a listen) have been nominated for 2 Roses Advertising Awards. Fingers crossed we'll come away with some trophies.

A nice rosy glow from the radio

As if the recent freezing temperatures weren't enough to get you dumping the cornflakes and reaching for a hot breakfast, then this national radio campaign we produced at the end of last year for Warburtons will surely get your tummy rumbling. Voiced by the talented Katherine Parkinson of "It Crowd" and "Doc Martin" fame, the ads were written by Bill Lyne (me) and produced by Mezzo in Leeds.

Brahm Snapper Advent calender

Well, we, the creative people at Brahm like to take pictures. So Vicki (hi Vicki!) set up Brahm Snapper for us all to do lovely weekly competitions and have a bun fight every Friday when the winner is announced.

Fast forward to Christmas and she had the great idea to do an Advent Calendar. It was leap on by all the fellow photographers and we ended up with some great pictures. And the lovely people over at Creative Boom loved it too.

Here's the slideshow...

Next!

Years and years ago, well 2007. Myself (neil) and Joe Coleman (now at TBWA/BDH in Manchester) did a little cinema ad for Chewits. It was aired during Finding Nemo at the cinema. We rather liked it. And spookily it was ahead of it's time. Anyway, we managed to hunt down a copy of it and here it is on YouTube for all the world to write really weird comments about...

Milking it

I've (Vicki) been enjoying some award success recently. We picked up a Roses Award and a Fresh Award for a mailer I did.

It was a one off piece to big up our experience of dealing with breakfast cereals - all those years working on Kellogg's.

Copy by Jerry Gross. Typography by Simon Thorpe.

Neeeeeiiiiggggghhhhhboooouuuurrrssssssss

I (Neil) have been scuttling away on a little project for a fencing company over the summer and the results are for all to see on a little known website called Creative Review. The pictures were done by the very lovely Mr. Chris Leah.

Life in Black and White

Hi....christ this year has flown by. This ^ is out there now - written, directed in super fast time, 3 mochas on the shoot and it was all over. I'm just doing a 30 second version so it can be used as delivered video ads online. Nice.

Oh well.

So we didn't win the Yorkshire Tourist Board work, it was a bit of a shame considering we did some pretty good stuff for it (even though i say so myself, cough). But at least this lot didn't get it. Phew.

I suppose I can only hope the winning route looks half as good as this.....

Enjoy!

N

New year, new erm, danger. No, rules - maybe...

Yes, 2009. is it going to be the year of doom like everyone says?
Christmas was weird in that a few more big High Street names went, I wandered around Woolworths and there was a strange feeling in the air (and smell) it was like people were itching for a bargain and were buying anything. Odd.
Still, in this doom and gloom i reckon we need to be strong and clever and just think about what's the right tone to speak to people in these 'difficult times'. The strong survive and even thrive at times like these.
Fingers crossed.

Crumpets roasting on an open fire.

It's been a busy patch - hence none of this - and now it's the run into Christmas, so it's sort of busy then it's quiet, then it's busy. It's good though because i've had a day or two to try and think with a clear head about something, and i've got some nice ideas out - so it's good. Yey headspace!

The picture is of a test shoot for Warbies, we've picked up a large brief from them and we're just going through the tweaking stage, as you do with most things. It should be around in the New Year.

Unfortunately we didn't get the Business Link work for Yorkshire, but that's quite good cos the campaign that did win isn't that great, so i wouldn't of held out much hope for any of the good ones getting through...

This is the shitz. *

Task of the week

Day 2, final day, of 'the task'.

It seems that yesterday lulled me into a false sense of security. Today is a totally different story. I knew the headphones were going to cause me trouble, I just hadn't realised just how many hours of trouble. But I remain calm and collected which isn't like me at all. Anyway they're done now and I've managed to finish the rest of it in the last hour or so.

So, that's the first illustration out of the way. 2 more to go...

Task of the week

Well, it's heading in the right direction, I think. Still a way to go yet though.

2 more cups of tea
Run out of biscuits
Music: The Shins, Yeasayer, Rilo Kiley, The Smiths.

Task of the week

Today I (Vicki) start on a mission...

I am producing an illustration made in 3D from paper to use in a promotional campaign for one of our nicer clients. It's on an online music theme.

Due to 'no budget', 'needed by the end of the month', I am embarking on this task myself, going into it with my usual, slightly foolish attitude of 'I can do that'.

So I started at 8 this morning armed with a selection of coloured paper, scalpels, glue, tape, and music to make and do by and it seems to have started well, if a little slow but I reckon I'm getting the hang of it now. I'm not sure if I'll be still feeling so positive when it comes to making the headphones.

Cups of tea so far: 2
Biscuits: 3 chocolate fingers
Music to make and do by:
Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country
The Concretes - The Concretes
Britta Persson - Kill Hollywood Me
(I hadn't set out on a Swedish theme but it suits the mood).

Northern Line

Here's a visual from the recent campaign we've done for Hallmark cards, they wanted to tell graduates that they've got a scheme where you don't need to know where you want to end up, but after training in various areas in the company - they'll set you off on your future. Seemed a good plan, so the line and a visual idea later and we had that ^.

It's going to be half A2 posters (which is nice) and flyers and online too. Nice.

Still staring...

I've also been staring out of the window recently. Mainly because there has been an inflatable banana stuck in the tree for over 3 weeks now. It hasn't moved and it hasn't gone down. I'm kind of liking it being there now. I hope it sticks around for a while longer.

Staring into space......

....i've been doing a lot of that recently. It's good because I've actually had some time to sit and think about a brief* - you need time when you think - yes amends need checking and yes you need to sort the costs for that shoot and yes you need to do the daily / hourly check of all the places you write and view - but you need time to think. And it's nice, because you come up with lovely ideas. Thinking is good. Long live thinking.

*in the loosest sense of the word! 'Can you do some cool stuff for ******?' - there's the brief, cool stuff. Hang on i'll open the drawer of cool stuff and stick their logo on it.

Baby talk.

Yes, well we've all been a bit busy recently.
I've (neil) been doing tommee tippee since we won it a while back, i'll stick up some of the ads shortly, but there's some shots of the shoot above - the ace Alex Telfer in action.

N

What happens when we get bad briefs...

Summer's here.

Not 100% where 'here' is exactly though. What with flash flooding and leaks, a few member's of brahm creative suffer from wet patches even on the driest days. It's also a sign of how busy we've been, that this blog has been left woefully bare, but we can sit back in our luxury spa pool bath eating a chip butty whilst someone else changes the baby....vague i know, but hopefully soon we'll be able to post up some of the bloody work we've done !


Enjoy your summer - it may be short !