25 August 2009

they're only words...right?

Went to the D&AD New Blood show yesterday, and got to be in a workshop with Jon Sayers, a copywriter from Publicis. Check out their site, seems like a good place to learn one's craft i reckon.Anyway, we learnt a few new things about copywriting and what it means to be a good copywriter and what constitutes good copy.
Now for anyone reading who doesn't know what "copy" is..it's eerything you read on an advert, print ads, billboards, posters etc.. and it's also everything the voiceover on an advert says, tv, radio etc.
I sat there and listened to everything people listed, persuasive, patient, emotive, apathetic, engaging, versatile..many more were on the list, it got
me thinking about my relationship with words and the power of words and what i say and how i say things affects those around me.
Rudyard Kipling said "Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. Not only do words infect, egotise, narcotise, and paralyse, but they enter into and colour the minutest cells of the brain"....
in that case, does that make copywriters the drug barons of the ad world?? excellent...
Alot of the time i find people telling me, it's not what you said that affected me, it's how you said it. Now what i said may have been positive or negative, depending on who i was speaking to at the time, but in some profound way, i get told, it's different, and that's where i feel my relationship with language and words differs, and that's why i want to become a copywriter in the advertising world.
Poems, Bokos, Music Lyrics, Movie Quotes, conversaton on the phone, i can do for hours, for me, verbal and written communication are the most compelling forms of expression, "don't beleive me ask Michael, see Martin, see Malcom, see Biggie, see Pac, see success and it's outcome" however, contradicting that, i'm a visual person too, a great visual is amazing, but i believe reading something and imagining it for yourself is at least one dimension better than if you actually see it.
ok here are two examples



pretty cool right, nice visual and i have an appreciation for time and effort gone into this?


now, compare a simple visual with some damn cool copy, and this is why i love copywriting.








"Rules of the Garage
believe you can change the world
work quickly, keep the tools unlocked, work whenever
know when to work alone and when to work together
share ---tools, ideas. Trust you colleagues
no politics, no beuraucracy (these are ridiculous in the garage)
the customer defines a job well done
radical ideas are not bad ideas
invent different ways of working
make a contribution every day, if it doesn't contribute
it doesn't leave the garage
believe that together we can do anything
Invent"


Back to the workshop, we were asked towards the end to write a paragraph or so, about something or someone that means anything to us, but we have to begin every sentence with the same word/words...it's funny how in the zone you can get through such a basic excercise...and in a weird way, subconsciously i think my outcome was inspired by the Rules Of The Garage...check it out


And every year you make me smile,
And every year you make me angry,
And every year you give me hope,
And every year you dissappoint me,
And every year i'll sing for you,
And every year you'll hear me,
And every year i will sit and watch you,
And every year i will stand up for you,
And every year you will frustrate me,
And every year you make a fool of me,
And every year you make me drink too much,
And every year we meet 38 times,
And every year we trave to Europe,
And every year i will compare to the last,
And every year i will remember,
And every year i will love,
And every year is Liverpool's year,
Every year except this year


a dedication to my beloved Liverpool FC and just falling short of wining the title in 2008/2009..always next year i suppose.
much love

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