Three Minute Happiness

James Cooper

First up illustrator and graphic designer Kate Moross spoke. Kate is 21 and still at Camberwell but has a body of work, both personal and professional that any full time designer of 10 years' industry experience would be proud of. I guess she is sort of the poster child for the Nu-Rave scene having done work for all those bands that I love to hate: Klaxons, New Young Pony Club etc etc this giving her international exposure but it was her willingness to get on with shit - with a smile on her face - that really impressed me.

She started off her talk saying that she thought it was important to be nice. Some of you may know dare's slightly happy-clappy recruitment policy of 'good and nice' but it sure makes a change from the snipey, bitchy creative departments of most traditional agencies (don't believe me? - just visit Scamp's blog and watch them tear shreds into each other when another big campaign launches). The other thing that Kate did that I really liked was a web app that let people draw in triangles (another of her trademark styles). She had no web experience but taught herself, got on with it and produced a wonderfully simple page that any web agency would be quietly chuffed with.

After Kate came Digital Club. I must declare an interest here. After seeing them speak at the ICA at the start of the year I got them in to help out on the product demo bit of our Bravia site. They did a great job for us and it was sort of surreal seeing them present the site on a huge Bravia screen.

As with Kate colours and experimentation were everywhere. They had ideas for sites that made art from google search images and a lovely site for minivegas based on the idea of 'business at the front - party at the back'.

I walked back from the talk in the pouring rain feeling very upbeat about the future until I went past a pub as Croatia went 3-2 up. I stayed for the last 10 minutes to watch the panto unfold (Dan's nice use of the word). I have a theory that English Football and traditional English advertising suffer from the same maliase - incompetence mixed with misplaced bravado - but that's a whole other post. For now let's celebrate the Under 21's creatives coming through.