Tom Mortimer of 12foot6 on Animation
"Did you have a mentor when you were starting out?
I worked with some great illustrators when i started. We shared a building with the Central Illustration Agency and so met and listened to a few of them. Brian Grimwood, Simon Spilsbury, Robert Shadbolt, Geoff Grandfield. At the time illustration was being battered a bit because everything was going digital. But as we always say - good art will always find a way.
What's your process for writing a treatment?
We like to try new things whenever we can, so it's about getting the idea and pushing to see what we can do with it. And we like to get something drawn or made or modelled quite quickly. One piece of art will always inspire you to the next step we find.
Do you often collaborate in the early stages or do you work alone?
There are 20 of us at 12foot6 and we all do slightly different things, so everyone has to rely on everyone else - all we ever do is collaborate.
Pencil & Paper or iPad ?
it's a bit hard to send an email with a pencil and pen. But i know what you mean. We find there is a pretty simple rule in animation, in fact with any work I think - you get out what you put in. Put good art in and you stand a good chance of coming out with something you'll be happy with. Use whatever tools you like, as long as it works."
(Millie Ross, 13.07.2012, Jotta)
[The Animation/Illustration agency 12foot6 was started by Dave Anderson and Tom Mortimer. Their name was derived from their collective heights i.e. (6 foot 3) * 2]
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Theorizing Advertising and Promotion
"The visual rhetoric of ads is not, then, confined to the copy. An ad is an argument, a persuasive communication. Every part of it must support the main argument, must be persuasively suggestive. A press ad for Retinol Activ Pur face cream used a clever visual metaphor to support a claim that the cream reduced facial wrinkles. The ad featured two juxtaposed images of a beautiful (Caucasian) woman. She was wearing what seemed to be a white robe, folded over one shoulder like a Roman toga. In the background was a pure blue sky and a suggestion of white pillars, of the kind found in a Greek temple. One picture was cracked, like the surface of an old oil painting. The other was smooth. The metaphoric reference was clear: the cracks suggested wrinkles, but in an elegant way that was complimentary, not demeaning, to age. Old paintings are things of classical beauty, but the paint does tend to crack with age. The ad was designed to draw the eye across aesthetically appealing images while giving the reader heavy hints about the classic beauty they might aspire to if they were to consume the brand.
However the levels of meaning in advertisements are theorized. Acknowledging their presence lends a new dimension to the analysis of advertising as persuasive communication. It brings to light some of the subtlety and complexity of advertising design, while also allowing us to draw an intellectual connection between the various artificially differentiated categories of marketing communication."
(Chris Hackley, 2010)
Chris Hackley (2010). "Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Approach", Second Edition, SAGE Publications Ltd.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Anando Milk: visual effects in outdoor advertising
Credits: Advertiser/Client: Anando Milk; Product/Service: Anando Milk; Advertising Agency, City: McCann Erickson India, Mumbai; Country: India; Advertising Agency, City: McCann Erickson India, Mumbai; Country: India; Executive Creative Director: Prasoon Joshi; Creative Director: PK Anil; Copywriter: Prasad Venkatraman; Art Director: Kapil Tammal, Swati Goel, Roopra Sarbjit, Sandesh Kambli; Photographer: Shekawat HS
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
PaperScope: a tool for graphically representing reference and citation chains
"PaperScope is a tool for graphically exploring the Astrophysics Data System (ADS) which is a database of published astrophysics papers. PaperScope is extremely useful for identifying the citation/reference relationships between papers, and enables the user to visualize these relationships to make locating papers of interest easier. Use it for constructing reference or citation chains, as well as identifying common references/citations between several key papers. It is a tool designed to simplify the process of searching for relevant papers to an astrophysics researcher whether they be a professor, post doc, or student."
(Mark Holliman, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Application Economics (will interactive agencies please make themselves useful)
"many advertisers aren't focused on building the digital applications that people want to use; they're focused on somehow cramming marketing into them. Some kid comes up with the next YouTube, Facebook or mobile platform, and most advertisers want to figure out how to market on it. Instead of designing and developing useful applications that could give brands the opportunity to insert themselves meaningfully into our lives, we get cutesy but useless 'Sprite Sips' on Facebook, ubiquitous banners in all shapes and sizes and microsites that you won't likely return to. And I'm talking about digital advertising -- never mind traditional.
As agencies and our clients strive to add value to the lives of the average consumer, user and active participant, it's helpful to think about how we can do this in a framework I like to call the 'Three U's of Advertising in the Application Economy.' They are:
1) Usefulness. Any experience is useful when it's meaningful and serves a purpose. Currently, much of marketing still breaks down into self-serving gimmicks and interruptions that offer little value. Much of what's offered in digital is no exception. While the majority of criticism is of traditional advertising, the fact of the matter is that interruptive traditional digital advertising is not much better. These are the digital gimmicks that work to get your attention but are usually done so poorly that they offer no value whatsoever. Usefulness is the exact opposite.
2) Utility. Utility is interaction that delights us in some way. But hold the iPhone. The industry has hijacked the word delight and brainwashed us to think that only companies like Apple and Disney are capable of serving it up. Let me tell you a recent story about the 'no-frills' Craigslist. My wife took pictures of a large play set we wanted to sell. She uploaded them at 10 a.m., by noon she had several people interested, and she sold the set in time for a late lunch. We had the set dismantled, picked up and were [US] $100 richer that evening. That's delight in the application economy.
3) Ubiquity. We are living in a fragmented world with what seems like infinite touch points available to us. Brands and businesses that can distribute value across these endless touch points in effective ways will tap into new markets and solidify existing ones. Because some of us are interacting through multiple social channels, we can now find people just like ourselves who we trust and see what they like and dislike. This influences our decisions, from the stuff we buy to the things we recommend to each other. The best marketing in the world tries to simulate this, but usually ends up coming off as contrived. Meaningful interactions through multiple networks and channels lead to authentic word-of-mouth references and, ultimately, affinity.
One of the reasons I took my role with digital shop Critical Mass was its strong foundation in transactional digital design. When you think about the application economy, I have a hunch it will be fueled by organizations and individuals who have figured out how to retool Web design into something more engaging, rewarding, useful and valuable. Call it 'brand utility' or call it a good experience. Whatever you want to call it, it's not a one-trick dog and pony show."
(David Armano, 5 May 2008)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
