Sharing her insight on the best Creative and Art Direction submission this month we have the lovely Vanessa Tamblyn, Head of Creative for the iconic Sydney Opera House. Working across a huge array of campaigns at any one time, Vanessa has a well-trained eye for spotting great creative.

Winner: Channel V – For the Love of Music by Patrick Harris

This entry was definitely my pick. Branded spots can be pretty tame and underwhelming but ‘For the Love of Music’ is a great, open-ended handle for positioning Channel V, and Patrick’s spot tapped that emotion in a really authentic way with the mythos of the music festival.

Well executed, great mood, great production values, right tone for the audience. I also thought that introducing the 3 characters was kind of interesting – its really just a nod in this execution, but it gives more thread to the storytelling. It also sets up a raft of potential to build the brand story from this baseline to follow multiple characters/ storylines/ grabs that all speak authentically ‘for the love of music’.

Nice one.

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Inside the project

Summer means festivals – our aim was to bring this thought to the screen in as natural way as possible. Very much guerillas in the mist (the mist being festival goers), we immersed talent and crew amongst festival crowds and shoot a summer documentary. Working with a tiny, tight-knit crew afforded us the ability to try a whole bunch of different (yes, sometimes strange & bizarre) things – some worked, some not so much. Produced with the help of all the Channel [V] team under CD’s Sean Vandenberg & Jeremy Hancock, rock’n’roll graphic art by Damian Horan, animated by Mark Blondel.

Our guest judge for the Photography competition is Andrew Johnstone of Design is Kinky, Semi-Permanent, Empty Magazine and Take Magazine. Not one to discuss art or photography at length, Andrew prefers to listen to his gut reaction. So what did his gut tell him when he saw the entries for this Creative Spotlight?

Winner: ‘Observations’ by Cydney Holm

Cydney Holm’s work has a strange and ethereal feel to it that I really liked. She has captured landscapes in a way that make a relatively familiar setting into something unusual. A really interesting use of light and shadow throughout both her outdoor and indoor shots.

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Inside the project

The “Observations” project for me is an ongoing (and very likely never-ending) attempt to depict reality through my own eyes. All I really want to do is view the world and all that is in it, and then show people how it appeared to me. I’m particularly interested in the relationship between the real and the surreal, and capturing moments when they collide. In this way, this project will contain photographs of anything or anywhere that has captivated me.

Each month we’ll welcome a new industry of creatives to enter. All you need to do is send a link to your profile on The Loop, making sure all your latest and greatest work is in there. A guest judge from the industry will then select a winner from the entries and write a short review on what impressed/inspired/delighted them about the project.

This month, we’re excited to welcome Jeremy Wortsman of The Jacky Winter Group as our guest judge.

Winner: Living Ink – By Jo Ley

I’m always so inspired at the new ranks of illustrators and illustration projects I see each day on The Loop, and while each piece was strong in it’s own way, Jo Ley’s ‘Living Ink’ project really stood out for me the most as a successful piece.

Firstly, I am a big fan of artists collaborating through the medium of Social Media. To see that the piece was made as the result of a twitter conversation was really interesting. Apart from a personal interest in both sci-fi and tattoos, I love that Jo created a standalone conceptual piece that had an idea behind it which mixes humour and pop culture.

That said, the technical craft and mastery, both in the confident linework, and subtle use of colour, is really what pushed this over the top. If the typographic element was more refined, it would be a perfect ten, but the fact that it was executed with skill was definitely in its favour.

At the end of the day, I’m always looking for a piece that makes me say ‘How did they do that?’ – Whether its a slant of humour, a certain skill or execution, or just a beautifully simple way of rendering, it’s that quality that elevates a good piece to a great piece, and Jo’s work definitely has that in many areas.

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Inside the project

Each month we’ll welcome a new industry of creatives to enter. All you need to do is send a link to your profile on The Loop, making sure all your latest and greatest work is in there. A guest judge from the industry will then select a winner from the entries and write a short review on what impressed/inspired/delighted them about the project.

This month, we’re excited to present Chris Doyle of Interbrand as our guest judge.

Winner: Don’t Mind Me – By Noemie Le Coz

A campaign for mobile device etiquette in public spaces.

Noemie has conceived and executed a clear and well articulated idea. The concept is fun, relevant, consumer facing (as opposed to design for design’s sake) and the execution is well crafted, highly finished and well photographed. It’s also clearly a large project and the attention to detail and consistency should be applauded.

Can I also give special mention to Nicola St John’s Seeing Mental Illness campaign?
I really enjoyed the surprising and unsettling execution of the project.
It was great to see something so unusual and striking among the entries.

Inside the project

Don’t Mind Me was a group lovechild from my Honours year at Swinburne University – way back in 2009.

The brief was to research social patterns and identify a social need/gap. Through literature reviews, focus groups and a few train rides, we discovered a lack of public awareness into mindful behaviour when using mobile technologies on public transport.

We identified instances when minding manners were neglected most, (such as texting in the company of others), who the most oblivious culprits were (Gen Y) and what marketing methods they’d best respond to. A multi-levelled interactive campaign implemented within Melbourne’s public transport system – aptly named “Don’t Mind Me” – was the platform for an off-beat, tongue-in-cheek shout-out to our tech savvy yet etiquette-ignorant audience. Four characters were created as the faces of the campaign – each personifying, poking fun at and bringing to life our own bad behaviours.

(Joint creative with Deanna German, Bianka Voigt and Paul Greskie).

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