Ron Cheong, Mindshare Guangzhou (China)

Combining your private life with working isn't easy in China, where working overtime is considered "all in a day's job". The Malaysian Ron Cheong is combining her advertising career with playing basketball competitions on top level. After her study in Advertising and Marketing Communication she freelanced as a designer in Malaysia. Then she travelled to China to become a designer/assistent art-director at Mindshare. It's just a matter of time before she'll make a leap forward in her career and become a junior art-director. Ron proves that when you have a busy life, it's passion that truly keeps you going.

It's been a rainy week. My last weekend was supposed to hang up, watching people walking all over the street for inspiration, getting ideas, etc. I ended up watching DVD at home. From comedy to violent types of movies. This is what I must do when I have free time. I can't stop to explore things that have to do with visuals, design execution, ideas. This is the homework for when I have to face my work. Visuals and ideas come from things that surround you in everyday life. And all these things kept me going every week over and over again. Because all these little things happening around you change every minute. This is also why I can overcome different task given to me by my CD and my Art Director.

Every piece of art work is improving week after week. At all time, I'm quite satisfied with the work I did the week before but when I recall my work from a week back it's just so-so or I don't think it's good enough. I have this feeling, that this happens to all creatives. Correct me if I am wrong!!

Well, advertising really makes me going crazy. Advertising is taking an important part of my life. When I'm enjoying advertising, I'm enjoying my life.

In every weekend, once I am out, I made a lot of friends. I love talking and I love to make someone else talk. They're usually quite curious about me and say I am lovable, open minded and the last thing they will ask is... what I do! I said I do Advertising proudly. Communication plays an important role in advertising. You want to know someone or you want to be known? It's just like you are being creative and letting people know your products.

Yigit Unan, Duval Guillaume Brussels

Nobody can tell whether Yigit Unan is in fact a copywriter or an art-director. Yes, he worked as an editor for a music/urban lifestyle magazine after his study. But he is also a skilled illustrator and art-director who makes layouts as detailed as a technical drawing (which probably has something to do with his study environmental engineering). After the Miami Ad School he started to work as copywriter/art-director at Duval Guillaume Brussels.

Allright... Seems like this is going to be more difficult than I thought it would be. I am in fact writing for the blog of my team-partner and any moment now, this might turn into some sort of confession of a husband to his wife (considering the rather sophisticated sense of humor of the readers of this blog I feel comfortable by choosing this analogy. I hope I'm doing the right thing).

First I definitely have to fire away few sentences about the company I am working for together with Robin: Duval Guillaume Brussels. I seriously think that this place is one of the most amazing shops one could land in in europe. It's like, how should i put it, perfect. We might not have a PS3 attached to a wall projector and a 30.000 Watts of stereo output but we have a cellar that have rooms with sharks, an African national park, an old school speedboat ride, a kicker table, several hundred bottles of soft drinks and a car ramp. Physically, the company is a hollow tower with floors consisting of corridors which look up into the endless opening in the center. It's ideal for sniping purposes and verbal intercourse between different floors at once. The creative directors are simply amazing. They have more clients per CD compared to many other companies but are determined not to conduct the huge amount pressure they are under to their subordinates and still manage to be great at what they do. This is something one should appreciate. In the short amount of time is spent here, they already become the advertising people I want to become in 3 to 5 years.

Ok, back to the real question! This was a hell of a week which involved many sorts of excitement and mixed feelings. My favorite roommate -who, with 1m57 was the tiniest european girl I met during my 3 years of experience with the continent- moved out of our flat to get herself a new life in her hometown Paris. I am sad but, go Marion! Creative reflection of this event: none. Physical reflection: significant raise in the length of arms and fingers due to countless trips made between the flat and the van waiting outside while carrying furniture and clothes of a fashion designer girl.

I had a birthday on Monday. I threw a lightning-fast "cake eating and excessive drinking" party. Number of people I invited: about fifteen. Number of people who really showed up: three (out of which one I didn't even know but was glad he came). Creative reflection: huge motivation to work on self promoting. Physical reflection: dehydration, headache, massive raise in sugar level to be stored as body fat from the next day on.

My girlfriend traveled about 2800 km to pay me a visit. Creative reflection: tremendous temporary improvement in art direction skills to make from a regular plate of pasta a 200-dollar dinner in Hilton's Restaurant. Physical reflection: complete chaos in all vital systems following the suspension of most brain functions and a near-meltdown in hormonal system.

In the meantime I had to work on several ongoing projects, because I am very well aware of the catastrophic global results of failure in job. Advertising is a mechanism of chain reactions which can bring salvation to humanity or lead it to its doom. Absolute doom. So this awareness was the motivation behind the spectacular TV billboards we created for the bottled water client we had. Same for the campaign we are going to make for our car client and the radio station. We do this, so the World can circle around its axis for another 24 hours in safety and happily (Hmm, I read too much comics, don't I?).

As a last word for this week, I would like to thank capitalism for giving birth to consumerism, brands and advertising. Whenever I am in despair, I imagine myself trying to make an ad in a communist system for a bakery: choose bakery 48, it's so much closer to your house than bakery 42! Hurray!

Zee Germans, BBDO New York

And whoever said New York wasn't safe?

Meet Zee Germans, Art Director Tim Zastera and Copywriter Patrick Herold. This creative "über-team" was one of the most awarded student teams in 2005 according to the Gunn-report. Since their graduation from Miami Ad School Europe, they worked for KING Stockholm where they shot over 35 commercials. They also found time to teach Miami Ad School classes for over a year, helping their students to win big in the student competitions. They have recently started their new job as Associate Creative Directors at BBDO New York. Do believe Zee Hype.

When you arrive at JFK airport, America shows its ugly face, immigration services. Being hoarded into long queues like cattle, your fingerprints are scanned and a photo is taken. Questions are asked, dirty looks given. First thing that goes through your mind, 'shit there goes my illustrious career in crime'.

But then everything just seems to fall into place. You get a taxi into town at a standard rate of $45. Well, I got an illegal cab which is less money and more fun. They have better conversation, but also far worse cars. I didn't realize that his rear window was smashed until I got in and we drove off. But he said that I could smoke inside the car, so I was sold.

I started getting a bit uncomfortable, wind blowing in my face, but then his mum called bugging him about buying a new fridge. At that point I knew he wasn't gonna rob me.

Enough self indulgence, let's hear more about ZEE infamous GERMANS.

Well, Tim and I left Sweden after a successful two year stint to find richer and greener pastures (not a money reference!). And the only place we could agree on was BBDO New York. I originally wanted to go to Tibet and join a group of monks that brew their own beer. Tim had offers to be Euroboy's stunt double in the next ten Turbonegro videos. Unfortunately I found out that the invitation email the monks had sent me was spam. There goes the 500 dollar participation fee (Can I get those back Robin?). Meanwhile, Tim found out that he was afraid of heights, fire, water and broken glass. Not really that ideal for a stuntman.

So we thought "Screw the World!" and became Associate Creative Directors at BBDO. Wow they have a title, well...it's America...everybody does. I guess it's better than "underwater ceramics technician"-Dishwasher.

The Agency is located in Midtown. Within the Agency we are located in a brown office. I guess they thought Germans like that kind of insurance brown. We asked someone if we could get an artist to paint the German Alps on our walls. The answer was quite simple: "Eh no, I don't think so!". Never mind we thought and ordered wallpaper showing a tiger jumping through a burning hoop, had second thoughts about it, and ordered the pandas eating bamboo. Just the right amount of gay.

Since we started here in January, we have been working on a multi billion dollar account for one of America's largest telecommunication companies. I am telling you it's quite a change of pace. They want a lot and they want it fast.

Which means long hours, no weekends, crappy take away orders, decline in health, incline in fat tissue, fights over silly things, make-up sex (just kidding), expensed cab rides, dusty PS3's, empty fridges, rusty ping-pong backhands, mid-day vodka shots, afternoon hangovers, no time for friends, loss of friends, no time for casual sex henceforth genitalia becomes redundant,...but selling something to the client will make all these things disappear or even reverse them:

Going out partying, hanging out with John Rambo at the viper room, death defying hangovers, everyday a weekend, michelin star restaurants, still decline in health, enough time for a personal trainer (fat chance! excuse the pun.), no more fights, casual sex with Porn Stars, ping pong battles a la "Balls of Fury", Friends (plus a few new enemies), ALL IN ALL A BIG FAT SLAP ON THE BACK.

That is the Zeitgeist from Zee Germans.

Find out more at www.zeegermans.com

Svenja Sund, freelancer El Puerto de Santa Maria

Svenja Sund worked in New York for three years after doing university. So before going to the Miami Ad School, this German designer already knows what living abroad is all about. After working at Landor Associates in Hamburg she decided to go to Spain and become a freelancer.

Hola. It’s great to be here. Thanks for inviting me to write about my working week in El Puerto de Santa Maria / Cádiz in Spain. Yes, Spain! Olé! My name is Svenja Sund and after graduating from Miami Ad School and spending a few months at the design office of Landor Associates in Hamburg, I decided it’s time to leave the rain and clouds behind and move to the South of Spain. Having been here for almost 10 months and having assimilated to the Spanish life style and work ethics, it’s quite surprising this text made it onto Robin’s blog this quickly – or even at all.

About a week ago Robin contacted me via E-mail and normally this is what would have happened:
Robin: to email me and ask if I would like to write about a week out of my life as a designer in Spain.
Me: to send an enthusiastic reply about how great this is and how wonderfully I would write something and send it out within a few days.
Robin: reminding me a few days later that there’s a deadline and he would love to see the text by Wednesday.
Me: no answer.
Robin: it’s Wednesday and another e-mail to Svenja asking if it’s still going to happen.
Me: short reply, yes, yes, for sure -- sending it out right now!
-- a day later still no text from Svenja --.
Robin: ? (if he had my cell phone number he might have already called and I would have either promised to send it tomorrow, something just came up and he would have it mañana, or I would have hung up on him in the middle
of our conversation, or I would have sworn never to have received his reminders, or I would say I already sent it and be wondering why he didn’t have it, and sweettalking and promising him he would have it tomorrow).

To make a long story short, my text might have never made it onto this blog, even though I had the best intentions to write and send it. So it’s a good thing, I guess, that even under the Spanish sun some German traits such as reliability, accuracy and productivity don’t fail to come through.

Working and living in Spain, well, you just got a gist of how it can be. Apart from sun, beach, siesta and fiesta, here, as well as in other places in the world, hard work and good ideas are acknowledged and rewarded and get you ahead. Being a freelance graphic designer I have to kick myself to do what I love, and when I have done the hard part and acquired a new project, I can enjoy the ride in an environment where stress doesn’t exist – unless it’s home made of course. So without a lousy paying job in one of the ad agencies of Andalucia, I opted for doing my own thing. And it’s been good so far. Organizing your own day and setting routines like getting up at 8am and sitting down at your desk in your office with a window. Spending the morning with reading and answering e-mails, reviewing the to-do's, talking to your client in Hamburg to agree on the last changes to their logo, talking to the printer in Berlin to get a quote for a business card, sending out a bill for that dj sandbox, nyc web-design which was finally wrapped up and finished a few days ago.

Sooner than you can think the morning is gone and judging from the growl in your stomach it’s lunch time. Great! The sun is out and the next hour or two are spent outside eating and reading or sketching out ideas for a new website of an interior architect. Around 4 pm the second part of the office day starts. Back inside, the logo for Bee Designs, the interior architecture office, needs to be polished and the layouts for their website need to be further developed. Around 7 pm I am wishing I had some colleagues around for a more energetic environment to keep me going so I won’t get so distracted by online chit-chat. Ok, gotta pull myself together and put in a few more hours on Bee Designs and also evaluate an inquiry for a brochure design. Around 8:30 pm I am ready to call it quits for the day. With a previous deadline in the first half of this week where the dj sandbox website had to be finished and hours and nights were spent finding the right java scripts and getting them to run smoothly, let’s do more mañana. You know, creative work doesn’t fit in a set time frame and you gotta run with it while it flows. But then there’s also time for a break and having fun. If I had co-workers, we would go out for a few copas now. For me a beer on the terrace is good enough. Cheers and have a great creative day!