VOTE FOR GAY FOR ADVERTISING!

We're all Gay for Advertising, and now it's time to show it. Straight from the desk of Brendan Watson, ADE [Art Director Extraordinare] is this call to voting action. Gay for Advertising is in the running to win the Best Promo Vid for this year's PN8. It's time to start exercising your clicky clicks to support the home crowd:

Alright team – this is a call to arms. Voting on the best Portfolio Night Promo video has begun and we need your help. Right now it’s a tight race between Toronto and Philadelphia and I’ll be damned if I let those cheese-steak eaters beat us.

We all worked way too hard on this to take anything other than first place. Please visit the link below and vote. And then vote again. And then send it to your friends. And then vote again. Tweet. Facebook. Do whatever you need to do.

http://portfolionight.com/8/archives/4289


Let's go to war on this one, kids. Much love from the Tattoo gang.

TA2 is Gay for Advertising

Tattoo is coming out. We too are Gay for Advertising.

Tattoo had the pleasure of doing the music and sound design for this hilarious promo vid for Portfolio Night 8 Toronto. Written by Y&R interns Jordan Cohen and Mishelle Menzies [who will be showing their books at Toronto's PN8 on Thursday, May 20th], we could not be happier for their success on this vid - congrats guys!

We'll be waiting for the chicken outfit to appear at La Senza.


AGENCY: Y&R
CD: David Houghton
COPYWRITERS: Jordan "Turbo" Cohen / Trevor West
ART DIRECTORS: Mishelle Menzies / Brendan Watson
MUSIC & SOUND DESIGN: Tattoo Sound + Music
AUDIO DIRECTOR: Steve Gadsden

Tattoo to Sponsor Portfolio Night 7

We're happy to announce that we'll be sponsoring Portfolio Night 7 here in the T Dot. It's a great event put on by our friends at ihaveanidea. For more info on Portfolio Night, click here.

We sponsored Portfolio Night 5 back in the day and had the joys of co-creating fictitious band Burnback with ihaveanidea's Brett McKenzie. Of the 4 songs Tattoo composed for Burnback, "Make The Logo Bigger" was the one that took the cake.

For old times sake, have a listen here.


Portfolio Night 7, we can't wait to see you!

Web Designer Wall

And speaking of Portfolio Night, Web Designer Wall is a great website for those design enthusiasts looking for some free tutorials and general design advice. Check it oot here.

Portfolio Night 7

Y&R Toronto have announced they'll be hosting this year's Portfolio Night 7 in the T Dot, woot! Designers, get them portfolios all shiny! The fun kicks off on June 11th, 2009. For those of you who've never heard of Portfolio Night, it's the brainchild of our friends over at ihaveanidea; an evening where aspiring Art Directors or Copywriters [i.e. students] are given the opportunity to show their portfolios to 3 different Creative Directors. Each student spends roughly 20 minutes with each of their 3 CD's. This is a great opportunity to get some feedback on your work, and for potential recruiters to see what's out there, so please try to check it out.

Not in Toronto? Don't worry. Portfolio Night is happening all over the world. For more information, click here.

A shmoke and a joke at Portfolio Night 6

I always dig a bit of strategic placing. I like how my supermarche houses the eggs next to the bacon and the cheese to develop thoughts of delicious omelette perfection. I dig how the milk follows the egg shelves, and leads one down the path of bread. The great land of Margarinus and Orangus Juicus is not far off. I'm a consumer. I've got no shame when it comes to product placement. I like my eggs and soldiers, and I like them in the same spot to remind me of just how good they are when purchased together.

So when I went out for a shmoke and a joke at ihaveanidea's Portfolio Night 6 in Toronto, I couldn't help but give a little high-five in my head to the kids at Taxi 2. Not only was there a fabulously interactive ad spot for Mini firmly in my eyeline [and a pretty amusing one at that], but it was strategically placed right outside of the entrance to the Rivoli, which housed this year's Portfolio Night 6 - an evening between Toronto's top creative directors, the young & hopefuls, and the young & hopefuls' portfolios o' dreams.

The ad for Mini is placed upon Toronto's triple slot garbage bins. For those of you who have never graced the T-Dot, our garbage bins are no simple means of disposal. Each silver bin, cylindrical in shape, has three compartments for the following categories: one for newspapers and magazines [to put in your transfers from the streetcar], one for cans and bottles [to put in the pop can that was chucked at your head on the streetcar], and one for litter only [to put in your snotty kleenex from when you cried after having at pop can chucked at your head on the streetcar].

Now, advertising on the city's bins is no new thing, nor are displays of art or graffiti. The following photo [in its original form at http://torontoist.com/2007/10/trashy.php] displays photographic work part of Magneta Foundation's Flash Forward exhibit from fall 2007, where twenty garbage bins across the financial district were given a temporary makeover by displaying the work of emerging photographers from North America and the UK.


What Taxi 2 has done with their Mini ad campaign is to not only take advantage of the small-scale billboard space that the bins provide, but to incorporate the existing functions of the original bins into their design. First gold star!



They have been able to link the copy seamlessly in with the function of the object to create an amusing advert raging with referential metaphors! Second gold star!



AND... they placed their advert RIGHT before the entrance to Portfolio Night 6 - a spot in the eyeline of Toronto's top creatives and future creative superstars. Third gold star!


Whether this placement was purposeful or omelette-by-chance, it couldn't have been in a better spot. Many creatives spent last night losing their voices trying to encourage the young guns to start incorporating more interactive and 'stunting' spots into their portfolio books. Although print ads full of puns are still in demand, the CDs want to see more of a consumer-engaging quality to the work. This is the stuff they're begging for! Right outside the doors.

I just hope the young & hopefuls were paying attention to example A on their smoke breaks. I also hope that no one owning a SUV, Sedan or Minivan take the ads literally, because car keys are just like bad eggs...

Once gone, but never forgotten.


Photos courtesy of Me.
For more on Portfolio Night click here