Hasta La Creative!

Paul Arden as drawn by his missus, Toni Arden.

Sad news today as Paul Arden moved to greener pastures at 67.

Mr. Arden was such a perfectionist that he was often maddeningly over budget, insisting that the smallest details be perfect, such as searching for a certain pair of wildly expensive spectacles to achieve just the right look on a face that would be seen briefly in passing in a TV spot.

Have you heard about Paul Arden not playing football because “the colour of the grass isn’t the right green.”Would that be true, Paul? Paul: – “I like the quote. Put it in.”

He was the Saatchi perfectionist, father of the Silk Cut campaign, and in 1993 started a film production company, Arden Sutherland Dodd, as well as collecting photography. Back in 1993 I had the pleasure of being one of his pupils at the School of Communication Arts. You might never know what he was thinking but you could bet on it being brilliant. I can promise you all that we’ll never see a man like Paul in advertising again, and we are all the poorer for it.

Paul Arden wrote several books in the past years, most recently Paul Arden on God,
Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite and here are some of my notes from Paul Arden’s Lecture at the D&AD back in 1993, his book It’s Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be has even been translated to Swedish.

L.A: What would you write on your tombstone’
P. Arden: Knife. (It takes him 10 minutes to sharpen his pencil.)

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This is just sad news. Paul Tilley was only 40 years old, has two young daughters and a wife not to mention the DDB creative department who are sadly lacking a great mentor and creative spirit this Monday. Candles lit for all.

Creative chief at ad agency DDB, Chicago Paul Tilley, 40, died Friday evening after falling from a window at the Fairmount Chicago Hotel. The Cook County Medical Examiner ruled his death a suicide.

The president for the agency Rick Carpenter said, “Last night, Paul Tilley tragically died at the age of 40. The reality of this news is difficult to comprehend. It is such a loss for DDB, but also for our industry, our community, and certainly for his family and all who loved him…Paul was a mentor to many, a friend to all. His ability to lead, inspire, and yes, entertain will be so greatly missed.”

Tilley began his job as the creative director in 2006. He has managed clients including McDonald’s, OfficeMax and Anheuser-Busch.

Man who jumped from Fairmont was ad executive

A top executive at DDB Chicago, Paul Tilley, died after leaping from a hotel window and landing in front of a CTA bus Friday night, according to police.

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“Pilo” is a typographic debut by Kenneth Pilo, in collaboration with MÃ¥rten Fischer, Ray Larabie, and Göran Söderström. The font has evolved from the logo on Pilo’s & posses website bold, a Swedish advertising and design forum where the above mentioned typographers hang out. One day the guys just figured that hey, why not make a real font out of it, and so they did. Now you too can play with the bold font, called “Pilo” because calling it “bold” would be both confusing and silly.

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Peter & the Wolf – co-produced at Semafor Studios, represented worldwide by HANraHAN – has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Short Animated Film.

Alan Dewhurst, HANraHAN’s executive producer for animation, produced and line produced this acclaimed digital stop-frame adaptation of Prokofiev’s much-loved classic.

HANraHAN’s Alan Dewhurst said, “This is a wonderful tribute to the extraordinary talent and dedication of everyone who worked on the film. It was a privilege to work on this magnificent story with such a team”.

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³UNUSUALLY² is a communication concept we have incorporated into everything we create for Pause
(an exclusive chain of HiFi stores). This campaigned was aimed at film enthusiasts, and communicates the film that should be experienced using the high-end products that Pause ljud och bild sell.

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Sad news today as the man who introduced the ad world to animation, and enriched the 50’s 60s and 70s with stylishly animated commercials for brands such as Dime Savings Bank, Alka-Seltzer, Green Giant vegetables, Crest toothpaste and Jax Beer and many more – Jack Zander – has driven his BMW bike to the dirt road in the sky.
The New York Times Obituary tells the tale of how Jack got his lucky break

The receptionist stuck her head into the lobby, where Mr. Zander and a friend happened to be sitting.
“Are you fellows animators?” she asked.
Mr. Zander, as he later said in interviews, had no idea what an animator was. But it was the start of the Depression.
“Yes!” he shouted, and so his career began.

CartonBrew has a recent Jack Zander interview from this summer, well worth a read.

One of the great things about Jack, that I think everyone who worked for him would agree on is that he hired and trusted a whole generation of young animators. Jack looked for talent, and didn’t care much about age, race, background, whatever. He wasn’t a New Yorker by birth, but he really was the quintessential New Yorker in his demeanor. And Jack sent some of the best animators in the business out into the world.
His production company was a great place with great people. And he was a great influence. A guy who encouraged free thinking and artistic expression in a business which for all its creativity, can sometimes stifle expansive thought.
He was a great man, and had a huge impact on advertising.

– says our own adgrunt tod.brody
At Animationjournal we found this quote from Jack on creating commercials:

The art form turned out to be a natural for the tube. First it grabbed the viewer’s attention just by the looks. At that time most of the commercials were talking heads or other examples of stand up deliveries. Pretty boring. Along comes the funny pictures and immediately the eye is drawn to the screen. Can t beat that. At that stage of the business all you had to do was make some drawings move. Our audience was there waiting for the message.

The lost 50’s cartoon have some images from Jack Zanders work.

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