London cancelled!
Have been doing some reading about branding and feeling pretty lazy. Went to a halloween gig for The Sin Kings dressed as...something half dead. We were then driven home by an apparently psychotic taxi driver. I fulfilled a private hero-fantasy of mine and got the chance to ask a big issue seller if she had somewhere warm to stay, without it being awkward or dangerous or embarrassing as I know her relatively well. She did, so the rest of the hero-fantasy was unnecessary.
Got another poster commission to be getting on with soon, for a music/spoken word event at the Kitchen Garden Cafe.
I'm really enjoying this book on branding by Matthew Healey. Seems sick, doesn't it? I've spent years ranting at television advertising though, and hence have a heightened interest in the backstage workings of product advertising and positioning, and a pseudo-savvy attitude to consuming. Understanding how to construct a brand implements the right and left sides of my brain - both very active and quite separate - and also, it occurred to me today, allows me to feel that I am taking control of that blaring box and those messages and images which bombard me day after day. I can shake my fist at the tv and say, I RULE YOU!!
I'm learning a lot and banishing a lot of naivete in an area which I've had a vested interest for a long time - the messages that advertising is trying to drum into me and the world, its motives and how it all works. And also, learning a process and a profession which involves problem-solving, meeting peoples' specific needs, working across a wide variety of media and themes, and nurturing the difficult beasty of Creativity. And that's very satisfying.
