We received a piece in the mail today: inspiring advice on creating great advertising from one of the best ad men ever, courtesy the Art Director's Club. Excerpted from a speech that George Lois made at the ADC's annual festival in Miami Beach. It's a scrappy, provocative, old school rant. It's also bloody good. Classic George Lois all the way. You can download a pdf and read all about it, via this link:
http://adcglobal.org/immortality/

Meanwhile, as a way of tipping our turban in George's general direction, here's a gallery of some of the man's best work.

You've got to love Google because they've got the guts, the balls and the brand to do this sort of thing. When a brand is big, it's big-hearted and big-thinking. The occasion here is the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi - October 2nd.

A soupçon of visual punning.
A dash of good timing.
A gentle invitation to break your fast at Amer.
A cracker of an ad for the Ramadan season from DDB Egypt via Ads of the World.


Advertising Agency: DDB, Egypt
Creative Director / Art Director: Wael A. Azzam
Copywriter: Mohammad Salah
Published: August 2009


Article: Creative Commons License 2009 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.
In other words, as long as you attribute ownership of these articles or posts to me you are free to use them and re-use them.
Go ahead. Spread the love and the knowledge.

Smart, hip and desi, Masala Chai is a steaming cup filled with desi design wit. Check it out. Posts range from an intro to the stellar fold-your-own paper dolls of Mira Malhotra (shown here) to the Madhubani-folk-art-inspired paintings of Arti Sandhu. Respect.

As a long-time poet and poetry promoter, I thought I'd use April - being National Poetry Month - to throw the powerful magic of poetry into the rattle-bag that is Bheja Bazaar. Besides, poetry and social commentary have always made excellent bedfellows. Here's an excerpt from the provocative Do Not Embrace Your Mind’s New Negro Friend by William Meredith. Click on the title to read the entire poem at at www.poetryfoundation.org.

“Do Not Embrace Your Mind’s New Negro Friend”

BY WILLIAM MEREDITH

Do not embrace your mind’s new negro friend
Or embarrass the blackballed jew with memberships:
There must be years of atonement first, and even then
You may still be the blundering raconteur
With the wrong story, and they may still be free.
...

Copyright © 1997 by William Meredith.
From www.poetryfoundation.org

Article and blog: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

A tip of the turban (literally) to fellow ad man, occasional employee and international Sikh Dalbir Singh. His Sikh Park cartoon series reminds us why this successful, industrious community is so much fun to hang with. They know how to laugh. At others and themselves. Vah, vah, vah. Keep it coming Sardarji!


Sikh Park, copyright Dalbir Singh. Via sikhpark.com


Article and blog: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

A beautifully executed series of peace posters featuring all 12 animals from the Japanese/Chinese zodiac.
Shown here, the Ox -it is the Year of the Ox after all. Enjoy. You can find the entire series here.


Image by Graflex Directions, via notcot.com

Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

An entertaining take on the major hindu deities. Hindu calendar art meets Stan Lee. Nicely done, and defended by the designer - especially if you understand the simplistic, anti-plural, homogenizing viewpoint of Hindu fundamentalists (oh, the irony! - that this aberration should appear in a religion of 330 million gods). (the screensavers are nicer than the T-shirts.)

Aamir Khan stars as the new spokesperson for Titan Watches, India's biggest watch brand. Unlike many other Bollywood stars, Aamir Khan is a real actor. A well crafted script + a well crafted spot = a great celebrity endorsement.

Not Cannes territory but a whole lot better and smarter than Aish in L'Oreal's formulaic blather, breathtakingly beautiful though she is.

A while ago I promised I would feature great ads on this blog from the major multicultural "home markets".
By that, I meant ads from India, Hong Kong and China to start with. Ads that show exactly how high the bar is in those markets and how sophisticated those audiences are. The Nike ad from JWT India I posted a while ago is a good example.

Now, my kid brother Russell (he's a Creative Director/Writer at Leo Burnett Mumbai) has given me more material for the series.

A campaign of his for Luxor highlighters won 2 Gold Lions and 3 Bronze Lions at Cannes and a One Show Gold pencil to boot.
And a NY Art Director's Gold, and 2 Silver Andys...
And got into the D&AD annual - which is surely the toughest award show in the world to crack.

Is it multicultural in any way? No.
Does it exploit an insight into the way Indians use highlighters? No.

I'm sharing it simply because it's a great campaign with a great idea behind it, and it truly demonstrates the power of the product. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing else matters.

Enjoy the ads.



Article: Creative Commons License 2008 Gavin Barrett



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Canada License.

This Nike Cricket spot is directed by Abhinay Deo with whom we have a tie-up for production in India. Abhinay is a Cannes award-winning director (it's easy to see why) and he made this spot for JWT India.

The national creative director at JWT is Agnelo Dias, a talented, quiet-spoken gentleman for whom I have a lot of time.

Talk about being on the right wavelength.
This spot hits all the right buttons.

Want to know why? Send me a note and I'll tell you.

The New York Times calls this London-based Sri-Lankan rappergirl's latest hit and accompanying video "electrifying" and "pure, surreal rhythm." M.I.A., I tip my turban to ya. Word.

Click on the article title to see the video on YouTube.