Cake sale

I got in from work to find my other half and my son had been busy getting ready for a school cake sale.

Will have to sample for quality control obviously ;-)

Application of the week

Here is a covering application I was sent for one of my roles. 

Had to blog it for uniqueness.

Dear Mr. Dean Cousin,

Here I am,
there you are.
I have the dream,
you have the job.

More than four
are the years
where design
has been my life,
smile and tears.

Illustrator, Illustration
Quarkexpress, Photoshop
Corel Draw, Macintosh
Super Flash, Actionscript
Print Production and
are you worried?
Take a look
you will not be sorry: http://hjpo.carbonmade.com/

Enter will be pressed
with an automatic answer
ready to be sent.
Wouldn´t that be easy
escape the format
and have a Skype chat?

Yes I´m Portuguese
and I live in Lisbon,
but by airplane, boat or car
I will be where my dreams are.

CV of the week

Got to love this :-)

A splash of colour to the daily cuppa

Hit the Orla Kiely website for a few things for the house. Worth checking out if you like the style.

The Olympics London 2012

Crap weather, great games, 3rd on the medal table and loads of new national heroes!!

The Olympics is truly an event that my family and I will never forget. The vibe was brilliant, friendly people, well organised and was great value for money excluding the on site snacks, drinks etc but overall an awesome time and I was thrilled to be a part of this global event.

Check out some pics I took and feel free to comment on your Olympic experiences.

Kids make the best mess

My son had a kids sleep over the other day, what a mess! But oh what fun they had making it!

African Fashion Week London

I made it over to African Fashion Week London. The show was amazing and the vibe was awesome! Check out more on their website.

The market so far…

As we come into August we are hitting the peak months within the freelance design and creative market calendar. So, the industry should be a hive of activity with relentless phone calls with offers of work, right? Well, perhaps not.  We have the Olympics to deal with and we’re still feeling the affects of a double dip recession. I found myself pondering over the level of impact such events have on the market?

I noticed a flood of activity and increased freelance requirements (10+ per day) during July, but as yet it hasn’t carried on into Aug . It’s usual for people to jet off on holiday and this is also a period of change from perm jobs over Q3, which leads to a demand for cover and personnel.

In short, I feel confident that the coming months will pick up rapidly and as a result it is vital to keep in touch with your agent(s) if your availability changes, as this will increase your chances of being called for bookings and briefs. 

My top tips so far are:

• Update your agent with availability weekly (if in short term bookings). We can’t read your mind and don’t know when you can work if you don’t tell us
• Stay professional and conduct yourself in an open and honest way. You make the type of candidate we want to work with
• If working offsite, make sure you are accessible and contactable throughout the 8 hour working day… you never know when that call will come in
• Freshen up  your cv and folio with a summer look and show that you’re current and in touch with the season
• Agents - if you book freelancers, make sure you have a strong relationship with people and offer the right rates 
• Honour your commitments. You might have been out of work for a week or two,  but a pencil still needs to be followed up before taking other bookings

If you are based in London and work as a freelancer with in the creative sector then why not join my group: http://ht.ly/cEw8v and get involved in the conversations?!

CR Wall art

The CR wall art comp is finished. The winner Riff did a great job!

What do you think?

D&AD Newblood review

Had a great time at the D&AD Newblood exhibition today.

Here are some pics.

 Rach and me checking out the new talent!

 Some amazing stands including design, advertising and illustration.

 The juniors were really keen and seemed to be very motivated

 Nice bunch of people.

 Great place to check out some vibrant designs and mad new ideas.

 Me with my goodie bag!

 Rach and me networking and giving career advice.

 My old uni reppin as usual! Go team Kingston.

 We met with and are looking to register a number of Junior Creative Teams for live roles Yay!

 Creative Recruitment gets prime spot for the Ad Job Wall.

Overall the D&AD New blood event was a massive hit. The talent out on show was superb and I was really impressed by the 'can do' attitude and highly motivated young designers out on display. It was also really reassuring to see no egos on show and that the focus was about helping these talented young people find dream jobs or get a foot in the increasingly difficult door of the creative world.

The highlights for me were the advertising and illustration stands - really high level and credit goes to the tutors who had a nice mix of traditional and new contemporary approach to their design.

It was a real honor to be welcomed so affectionately and I can’t wait to go back.

A pair and a spare . diy fashion: How To Pack For A Holiday

a pair and a spare . diy fashion: How To Pack For A Holiday: Recently I've been posting little snaps of the contents of my suitcase whenever I have gone away for a trip, and have got quite a few emails...

Another busy old week

 Well the year is well on the go and I have been stacked with meetings, client visits and a bit of shopping.

 I saw these skulls down the road from my office. I love this kind of graff.

 Back to basics.

 Some nice vintage clothes tucked up in Shoreditch.

 I had one of these back in the 90s. £50 is a bit pricy for me!

 YMC sale on.

This pic does not do the VM justice.