Llama Birthday Party

Last week we celebrated 17th birthday of my girlfriend’s younger sister. She is fond of llamas and theme of a presents and the whole birthday party wasn’t a tough choise.

If you check #llama tag on tumblr you’d see that internet is obsessed with them. Llamas are the new cats. Why? They are fucking adorable. And don’t you even dare to try searching for images of alpacas (small llamas). You could die a slow death from sweetness and beat in the throes of charms of those little creatures.

Oh, what a hell, here’s a picture of them: picture of alpacas (click at you own risk).

Anyway, since the lack of content about llamas on the internet was not a problem we’ve stated searching. And here is what we did:
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Analog Sunday

Several months ago I stumbled upon an article about the idea of “Analog Sunday” — the day when you get rid of all of your gadgets, turn off your internet and try to enjoy your life as a person from the time before the internet.

Analog Sunday is an informal idea to encourage people to take a day off away from all thing digital. Any or every Sunday can be an opportunity to unplug, get off computers, relax and take a break from usual technology base routines by engaging with the world in a different way.

I found that article in April and we’ve decided to try this straight away, next Sunday. But… It never happened. I’ve got a freelance gig for the weekend and blah-blah-blah, typical misarable excuses. Next weekend we completely forgot about it and kept living our typical digital lives for the next 10 months. But yesterday we got home from work and out of blue decided to take another shot. So, tomorrow, on Sunday, November 20th we are going to turn off the internet, leave all our gadgets and try to enjoy a real life. Sounds like we are some weirdos from a nutshouse, I know :)

We haven’t decided if phone calls are allowed (at least incoming) or not, but we’ll figure this out. So, let’s see what happen. See you on Monday! :)

Why guys from BBH are awesome.

I’m trying to participate in almost every possible student advertising contest, applying for internships and so on. I’m trying to get every opportunity that lying over there, you know. Nothing major worked out just yet, but I’m not planning to stop fighting. And you know how this process work – you fill in an application form or just send an email and keep waiting. In most cases if you succeed you get a mail, if not – there is no mail for you. It’s kinda fair, but disappointing at the same time, because you have to wait and you realize that you’ve failed only after the deadline.

But few agencies out there make it in a different way, a special way. For example, CP+B Group sends everyone who have failed an email saying they didn’t chose him but that’s ok, there is no need to get sad. Quite helpful actually, and makes you get goose bumps when you see an email that have “CP+B” in a sender field.

But that’s not even close to BBH who have dealt with this in a super awesome way.

This September I’ve applied for BBH Barn Singapore (they have just opened up their Singapore office). I’ve answered few tricky questions, attached link to my portfolio and clicked “send”.

In two weeks or so I’ve got this awesome reply:

Hi Stepan,

 

Firstly, thank you for your application to join the BBH Barn.

 

Secondly, our apologies for not getting back to you sooner.

 

We’ve had a huge response to the program which has far surpassed our expectations both in terms of quality of applications and quantity of applications. We regret to advise you that you have not been successful in joining the BBH Barn this time.

 

We wish you all the best in your internship search and encourage you to not be discouraged as your application was well considered and showed a lot of promise for the future, plus everyone needs someone with good keynote skills. Be sure to keep following @BBHBarn_SG on Twitter for tips on how to break into the industry.

 

Regards,
BBH Barn team, Singapore

Guess what – they have actually sent me a personal letter. Not just a template they send everyone but a freaking personal letter! I wrote about good keynote skills trying to sell myself and they pointed it out in their reply. I didn’t make it but this email totally made my day!

Thank you, BBH Barn Singapore, you’re awesome. I will keep doing my best and won’t be discouraged! :-)

A genius has passed away today.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

One friend of mine always had a hanging poster of Steve Jobs near his desk. Why? His answer was quite simple: “When I have a serious problem at work or a tough decision to make I look at Steve’s portrait and ask myself – what would he did in this situation?”

Steve Jobs thought differently and he inspired us to do so. He pushed boundaries and inspired us to do so. I know, maybe he isn’t the greatest innovator of all time and some part of me feel quite sad that the whole world noticed his death, but didn’t noticed the death of other extraordinary people (e.g. Ralph M. Steinman who was awarded the Nobel Prize three days after his death, even though Nobel rules prohibit awarding a prize posthumously), but it will happened all the time.

There are many eminent people out there, only Steve was a leader and inspired all of us to bring change. And we need to keep doing everything we can to change this world, to think different and doing what we truly love.

Most of us will never get noticed as much as Steve did, but it doesn’t matter. As long as most people keep following Steve’s statements, the world will be alive. The spark will kindle a flame.

Steve Jobs has changed my life and made me who I am today. Thank you, Steve.

RIP

Portfolio Night 9 (RU)

Прошло уже почти четыре месяца, а я всё так и не удосужился написать о мероприятии под названием Portfolio Night, на котором мне удалось побывать в конце мая этого года. Мероприятии, побывать на котором я мечтал уже несколько лет. Пока не стало слишком поздно, пора взять себя в руки и наконец-таки написать об этом.

Portfolio Night 9
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Tags on Tumblr

Some of you might know that I have a Tumblr account. I post there some cool ad-related stuff that I found on the web through the day. Videos, prints, interviews, quotes, lectures and everything else, that is somehow connected to advertising, design or art and that I find pretty cool and useful.

For almost 10 months that I’m using it, I’ve collected a bunch of really nice stuff. During the past few days I’ve been tagging all the posts I have there. And now this is a neat, listed collection of ads for everybody.

Let me show you some examples.

You need to advertise some delivery system? Go to tag “delivery” and you’ll find bunch of ads that are somehow related to delivery. You wanna see some absurdity ads? No problem, go to tag “absurdity“. You wanna see ads from CP+B Group or ads from Russia? Same thing. Wanna see some cool lecture, interview or presentation? I guess, you get the point :)

Countires, cities, agencies, real names (e.g. Lee Clow), technologies (e.g. QR Code, Augumented Reality, iPhone), techniques, brands, categories, types of media, themes, products, you name it.

Unfortunatelly in some cases I didn’t add everything that is possible (mostly it has to do with product’s categories or ad’s styles and feelings) but I hope you’ll still find it very helpful.

Enjoy :)