The Washington Ballet by Design Army & Cade Martin

Absolutely amazing work. Nothing more to say. Enjoy.

More great McDonald's work out of Leo.

McDonald's Eat Fresh. Very fresh.

Ich bin ein Berliner!

Some random shots from Berlin - stay tuned for a write-up.

Tugging on the heartstrings...well done.

Out of Leo Burnett.

Veteran's Day

Remember that freedom is never free. And also remember those that are discriminated against by their sexuality and by the "dont ask dont tell" policy in the military.

This commercial plays OVER and OVER here.

out of Grey Amsterdam

A Beautiful Mind Indeed.

This guy is incredible. Autistic. Started drawing at an early age. They took him for one single trip in a helicopter over Rome and gave him 3 days to draw what he saw. He does so with remarkable precision. Watch.

You know what I dream of when I look up at the clouds...?

DREAMING OF FOXY BOXING!
Geüpload door . -

"It's time...to bring this place to life."

Fantastic work out of BBDo London for Guinness.

I know this much about racing in the rain. I know it is about balance. It is about anticipation and patience. I know all of the driving skills that are necessary for one to be successful in the rain. But racing in the rain is also about the mind! It is about owning one's own body. About believing that one's car is merely an extension of the car, and the rain is an extension of the track, and the sky is an extension of the rain. It is about believing that you are not you; you are everything. And everyting is you.

-The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein

When the sun goes down in Amsterdam...

Our Tuesday night spot at our neighborhood Brown Bar.



Leidesplein by night. Pancake Corner soooo good.


On the Lijnbaansgracht


Pub by candlelight.


Mexico in Holland.

That's Why I Am

10:20am (@agency)

It's raining cats and dogs. [Correction: its hailing.] The weather has progressively been getting grayer, rainier, and colder. Have to start systematically planning your bike excursions from A to B as rain and cold make biking worse. That said, Amsterdam is still as beautiful as it was the day before. We had an amazing fall day last Saturday (see pics below). Walked around the city a bit last night in between grabbing a bite and our usual Brown Bar pitstop for a beer - the city is no more than five stories high and mostly residential. You get to glimpse into people's homes and I have to say every single one looks so quaint and cozy, like a dollhouse. All these people kinda 'stuffed' into these ages-old buildings. Its unlike any place I've ever seen.



Fall in Vondelpark.




Haven't posted in awhile - I figured I'd eventually hit this blog slump. However, without having to spend hours updating my latest adventures here in Amsterdam, perhaps some pictures would tell a better story.

All in all, things are going well here. Feeling pretty settled into life here, although I know there is so much more that I haven't seen. It's borderline complacency almost, as I am settled into the agency/home/weekend routine, but atleast that is something that I am aware of and will try to break. Might be heading to Brussels, Belgium, this weekend so that would definitely shake some things up. It's been harder to run as well, as daylight savings time pushed the darkness up and hour and I have never been one to run in the morning. (Have been going here and there at lunch.)

Halloween. Halloween was great although i was little disappointed in the Dutch. I expected big things from Amsterdam and the best I got was a giant squid (which was pretty good. I speared him and he played along). We had a party with MAS people at our apartment and it was awesome - complete with decorations from the States (thanks Sof, P's sister!).


Sculpture in Vondel.


Dutch market this past saturday - everything from cheese to fresh produce to second hand items to socks to flowers to fish.

Love this :)

GLOBAL TOP DOG

We've entered the global arena for TOP DOG. Check out all the Top Dogs from the Miami Ad Schools around the world (we are SOUTH BEACH) and vote by COMMENTING on the blog.

GLOBAL TOP DOG

Our Neighbors on the Herengracht

Passed by this the other day with Paola.
Dutch fashion designers, Viktor&Rolf:
V&R: Herengracht 446
Pindakaas: Herengracht 320

Spanish Lunch in Holland.

Our classmates from Spain - Luna, Pancho, and Borja - had us all over for "spanish lunch" this past Saturday. It was a long, delicious affair - with a lot of sangria - and a long siesta afterwards. I wish I knew the spanish names for the dishes we ate, but I'll bastardize them and list them here. Sun dried tomato chicken, garbonzo bean salad with garlic aiouli, potatoes and onion casserole, a true spanish tortilla, a homemade tomato/pepper sauce, sangria, and a sweet chees/honey/walnut dish for dessert.

Thanks to them for the home-cooked meal.

On Art.

Came across an article this morning that kinda' falls in line with some work we've been doing in one of our classes. It's an opinion piece from this guy, Paul Wallis of Digital Journal. He talks about contemporary art and, seeing as we've recently been exploring some aspects of art, namely kitsch, thought it was interesting.

He reminds us that contemporary art is a business:

Contemporary art, whether anyone likes it or not, is an industry. It has all the howling spiritual sincerity of a fast food chain. Even the fountains of verbal futility in the art world are essentially marketing exercises.

In one of our classes, we are kind of exploring the idea of 'art' and what defines it exactly. This past week we had to explore kitsch art and determine how we personally feel about it and then determine whether it has any value/need in society today.

If we define "art" as the products of humans creativity, and creativity as the use of our imagination, and imagination as something that is perceived and unbounded, then how can art be categorized in the first place? It seems a bit backwards for artists and people to cast art as being in "poor taste." Everything in life is subjective - it is in the eye of the beholder. Obviously, art especially carries this essence. The age-old debate of modern art: some see modern art as beautiful, others do not. So how do we classify any one piece of art as 'kitsch', in 'poor taste'? Its syntactical, no? And then how much does the market for art determine its 'taste' level? There have been pieces of toast depicting the virgin mary that have sold for thousands of dollars...

Wallis goes on to say that contemporary art is dictated subliminally by the market for it:

The raison d’etre of art has moved a long way from the passionate, to the purposeful. Sadly, it’s also moved to the very predictable. Contemporary art is running on rails. Whatever the artistic values, the social values are now buried in cultural innuendo with price tags.

This is a question which shouldn’t be rhetorical: What does art do?
Before the Second World War, there were real schools of art. Even the Expressionists, lazy sods that they were, and Max Ernst, my hardworking idol, could legitimately claim to be individualists. The Beat Generation artists, who will be unfairly remembered as the ancestors of modern contemporary art, were perhaps the last real school, so nebulous and diverse they were never really defined except as Modern Art.
Whether or not art does ]things like that to culture now is debatable. Art is literally a splash of color to interior designers, and a milch cow to galleries. Publicity is the defining factor. Its relevance to anything is strictly nominal.
The definition of Contemporary Art now covers anything and everything.

Find the full op article here.

Just some random food for thought for today.

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas...

Tyke Bike.

Apparently, they'll get stolen, too.

“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live.” - Twain

Baptism by Vondel

11:08am (@home)

I've gotten to know Vondelpark pretty well by running through it. I have my 'mile markers' of sorts. There's a mishmosh of trams crossings right around the corner from the park. I swear one day one of those silent metal street creatures is going to eat me. At the entrance of the park there is always, ALWAYS (this morning at 10am) a group of people toking on the benches near the entrance to the park. Then there's the street musician(s) that play under the ugly overpass next - best acoustics I assume. This is also the spot were park strollers huddle to let the rain pass as it rains here every 10 minutes. [[Rain would normally stop me from a run, but not here. Here you can be fairly confident it will end in a few minutes.]]

Then theres the Film Museum (that I still need to tackle)and an outdoor cafe where people were reading their newspapers and having their morning coffee today. From there you enter the back loop of the park, which is actually a really peaceful (iffy by night) part. Just wooded areas, flat paths, and back views of incredible homes that line the park. Lots of local dog walking here and thus, a lot of dancing along the paths.

Wrap around the corner to the southwest side of the park and this is kind of the main thoroughfare. Fast paced. People rollerblading, biking, walking, running, jumping jack-ing, eating on benches, etc. Vondel highway. Some cool points of interest - sculptures, fallen trees, ponds... [[There's an area to the park that is overgrown and shut down. There is a huge sign in Dutch that sits in the middle of it. I still haven't figured out what it says exactly, but theres a little "trash dude" cartoon mascot thats saying something and I believe its along the lines of "too much trash so we had to shut it down." Hmm...punishment for dirty parkgoers?]] Back out the front of the park and onto the tram tracks up into the Leidesplein.

Sun through the rain today. 48º.

MAS Takes it to the Streets

Our creative director gave us two hours to go out on the streets and create a story of sorts. We decided that the overabundance of bicycles here was just not enough.

Blend Magazine's "New Talent Portfolio" Event.

11:47am (@agency)




Had the opportunity last night to attend Blend Magazine's (an arts/fashion/photography magazine here in Amsterdam) New Talent Portfolio Night. Victor, one of our teachers here in Amsterdam, invited us last minute and in a flurry yesterday morning so none of really knew what it was exactly. Definitely didn't realize what I was in for.

The New Talent night was hosted in the Pakhuis de Zwijger, a building that is devoted entirely to the arts and creativity, on the north side of Amsterdam. [Got a little lost getting to it - took a Tram and taxi ride.] The portfolio review was set in an intimate room, with couches and lounges in the middle of the room and tables lining the perimeter. Gathered on one side of the tables was a smear of big name creatives from the Amsterdam area - creative directors, photographers, CEOs (the CEO of McCann worldwide was one) - and on the other side were the up and coming talent presenting their books. I would say nearly 90% of the books shown were photography based, but I did see a few ad pitches and other media here and there. Most presented in the form of a physical book while others showed work on their macs. People threw back drinks in the middle of the room waiting their turn and sharing their portfolios with each other, all backset to a DJ who kind of emceed the night.



On either side of the room there were huge projection screens, displaying various work and photography. There was so much abuzz that you couldn't help but watch and listen. I was actually a bit overwhelmed. I had never before seen such a collaborative environment between creative professionals and up and coming talent in the States. And how genius it is - just a laid back, no pretenses type environment where you can get straight forward, quick, honest feedback about your work. Each of the portfolio reviewers (Peggy and Victor being two of them, by the way) possess a 'golden ticket' that they can award one of the portfolios they review for a final round at the end of the round robin sessions. Then a final review of those golden ticket winners reveals the winner, who will then be published in the next issue of Blend. Very cool.

Peggy pulled us over at one point so we could watch and observe her critique some of the books and so that we could see some of the portfolios. I thought some of the books were fantastic. Really impressive. And kind of two pronged in how it made me feel: incredibly inspired to create but also made me realize how much there is to be done. :P



There's a difference between the creatives here in Europe and those in the States. Theres a stronger synthesis/unity here amongst creatives - less cut throat competitiveness. As art should be.

Mob. Dance. Rage. Sell.

10:11am (@agency)

Little did T-Mobile know what it would start when it began unrolling their flash mob dances in the UK earlier this year.



The idea of a "flash performance" was hugely successful - what's a brand not to like about being the "Oz" behind a kickass spontaneous street performance?

Wasn't before long other brands wanted in: Trident's flash "Single Ladies."



Even Oprah got in on the idea (unbeknownst to her) with her 24th season opener.



And most recently, a promotion for the movie "Fame" in NYC.



Though not the first mob dance to happen, cheers to Saatchi for harnassing the idea and executing it for T-Mobile. Genius. All you others that jumped on the band wagon? Kudos for recognizing a great idea.

A "Time"ly Follow-up.

This book review for "Anne Frank - the Book, the Life, the Afterlife," by Francine Prose was just in last Sunday's Times book review... Just thought it a timely follow-up to my visit to the Anne Frank House.

The book contends that Anne Frank's diary was not discovered, but rather, always intended for wide-spread breadth.

Prose rebuts the charge that Frank’s diary was a “found object” — the inconsequential scribblings of an adolescent whose death elevated it far beyond its value as a work of literature. In fact, Frank intended her writings to reach as wide an audience as possible, inspired by a radio address given by a Dutch minister of education in exile who was determined, once the war was over, to establish an archive of accounts of life under the Nazis.

Read the full article here.

"I could have been a sailor, could have been a cook
A real live lover, could have been a book.
I could have been a signpost, could have been a clock
As simple as a kettle, steady as a rock.
I could be
Here and now
I would be, I should be
But how?
I could have been
One of these things first
I could have been
One of these things first.

I could have been your pillar, could have been your door
I could have stayed beside you, could have stayed for more.
Could have been your statue, could have been your friend,
A whole long lifetime could have been the end.
I could be yours so true
I would be, I should be through and through
I could have been
One of these things first
I could have been
One of these things first.

I could have been a whistle, could have been a flute
A real live giver, could have been a boot.
I could have been a signpost, could have been a clock
As simple as a kettle, steady as a rock.
I could be even here
I would be, I should be so near
I could have been
One of these things first
I could have been
One of these things first."
- Nick Drake, ONe of These Things First

On beauty...

Kate Moss for Alexander McQueen

Watched this today in Victor's class. Have watched it a few times since and find it very beautiful.

[[Interesting that this music was composed by John Williams for "Schindlers List." Never thought it would be used outside of the film. Very powerful piece.]]

Amsterdam findings...

Anne Frank Huis

8:27pm (@home)

"It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more." Anne Frank

Had the opportunity to visit the Anne Frank House, or Huis, yesterday. I feel there is not much to write about as I think the experience there can be inferred without ever actually being there. However, I will say that the way the "house" was displayed (in accordance with Otto Frank's wishes) was powerful. The rooms of the house are stark...empty with only a few key artifacts in cases that deliver stories from each of the rooms. The lighting in each room was kept similar to the way in which it was for the eight that hid there. Quotations dotted the walls - mostly experts from the Diary. A few video interviews were interspersed as well and, at the end, a memorial to the eight, with concentration camp logs of their names marked over with pen. Only one survived, Otto, and he ends the tour of the house with an interview he gave years after the ordeal.

It actually came up in the class today as we addressed the question of who we are as art directors and how we communicate ourselves to the masses. Otto reflected on Anne saying, "For me, it was a revelation. There, was revealed a completely different Anne to the child that I had lost. I had no idea of the depths of her thoughts and feelings.” He goes on to say that in this way, he believes most parents do not know anything about their children. It is an interesting thought... as parents can never penetrate their childrens' minds. They never really know exactly what he or she is truly thinking. A diary, someone's personal chronicle, is perhaps the closest one can come to someone's innermost thoughts. Although they spent two years in crammed quarters and isolation, hiding as a family from the Nazis, Otto's read of Anne's diary was "a revelation."

The actual diaries are displayed at the end which outline her dream of becoming a writer. Dozens of editions of her diary are also displayed, all in different languages, realizing that dream.

Downstairs on the way out of the museum, there is a separate theater that displays different viewpoints on the idea of democracy and the boundaries of freedom. "Free 2 Choose", it was called, and it basically presents short films with two opposing viewpoints in which the audience can vote at the end. Thought it a cool, appropriate interactive element to the experience...

Oh, and in case you didn't know, their hiding place was never discovered by the Nazis, it was compromised. Someone tipped them off. And that person is surely in hell.

Mantlepiece

New City, New Run

10.09.09
7:03pm (@home)

Ok, so it only took me a week to get back to running. Not TOO bad, I don't think. Headed out for a run today after work. Had my eyes set on Vondelpark as it is so close to where I live. [[Funny to think that at my going away in Miami, a friend said, 'Drew, make sure you go to Vondelpark, its amazing.' Didn't mean anything to me back then. haha]] Ran from my place down to the Vondelpark, through and around it. As it was right around the time people were getting out of work on a Friday, the park was filled with bicyclers, families, and people smoking pot. And it's amazing to see what Dutch people do on their bikes: I've seen everything from talking on their cell phone to reading the paper to smoking a pipe (or all three at once). Many also carry their young with them on the bikes - sometimes one in front and one in back, or sometimes in a huge plow that attaches to the front of the bike. Yes, the shovelplow children. I will try to capture a picture at some point. Either way, looks like fun chillin in those huge wooden plows being driven around the city.

Took the long loop around - cold, brisk run - and back. Was surprised to see it was nearly a 4-miler. Perfect small daily run. Shower time.

Take a Look Around Why Doncha'?

10.09.09
6:59pm (@home)

Here are just a few pics from around the agency...

Miami Ad School - Amsterdam

Here's the crew outside BureauPindakaas...

The Rain in Amsterdam Falls Mainly on the [Leides]Plein

10.07.09
11:41pm (@home)

Everyone told me upon moving to Amsterdam I would need two things: a bong and a raincoat. Needless to say, I have neither, but definitely need one of them and especially over these past few days. A raincoat, that is. It's been raining this week without much respite, fluctuating from a spitting mist to a heavy rain. A far cry from the blinding sunshine of Miami Beach, I'll tell you that much, but a welcome change. And believe it or not, it doesn't really distract from the charm and the warmth of the city itself. I don't think Amsterdam would be Amsterdam without this weather. It's a very wet place in general - the rain...the canals...the beer.

Pindakaas has been good - working on our own projects during the day (thus far) and then class at night. Alvaro Sotomayor, a ECD at Wieden+Kennedy, will be the teacher of our Tuesday night class. Great guy, had quick introductions, threw us a few morsels of feedback each, handed us our first brief (which I'm sure I will write about later), then took us to a new "American" bar a few blocks away. American bar meaning that they serve only American beer. It was funny to see Anchor Steam and Flying Dog on tap at a Dutch bar in the middle of Amsterdam. Was nice to kick back with the crew and discuss with everyone where we had been in the world... Much to learn from my international peers but I'd imagine our full work days together at Pindakaas will allow that naturally.

Came home late last night to the end of the David Gray concert at the Melkweg directly across the street. P and I were hoping we'd hear a few riffs of "Babylon" or something of the sort, but with no such luck. You can always tell when there is a concert or a happening at the Melkweg when you find hundreds of bicycles abandoned on the sidewalk/street. The noise level off the street follows suit with the concerts as well: from a few distant voices in the Leidesplein to a chatty crowd of smokers at a break in the show to an overpowering cacophony of concertgoers, swooning over the performer following the event. And, as has been the past few nights, my sleep follows that pattern as well. :) [[reminds me of living in my 58th street apt with flora in new york - the noise from the large crowds of concertgoers here miiiiight just equal that of the queensboro bridge traffic]] Either way, im cool with it and it actually lessens any feelings of loneliness i might have here...

Another long day at the agency today then class afterward. Two teachers from RIOT agency - Nathan, an Executive Creative Director there, and Todd, a Creative Director. Two down to earth guys that seem to have a good grasp on the digital landscape in the industry. We will be working on one main brief for their class over the quarter (which is great, much more time to develop and polish). More on that brief later as well.

Set a goal for myself to win a pencil (D&AD) this year. It's possible. With hard work, it is possible.

Barefoot to bed and into my cocoon.