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Pod1, a company I work for, was placed number 61 in this year’s Design Week Top 100. Last year we were at number 100, so it’s quite a leap. Our company was also named the second most bullish agency, (last year it was the most bullish one), but still the most bullish of all the UK digital agencies. Not bad :)

We have also relaunched our own website, on which I did most of the production. It was probably the longest project in company’s history, hehe. I suspect too many people were involved in decision making :) Some bits and pieces are still being changes and added to it, as well some funky stuff should appear on it later, but anyway it is ready for the public.

It’s a shame when you’ve got a good camera, but don’t use it often. Being immersed into typical weekday routine, I rarely got a chance to shoot something interesting. And then there is really no-one in our flat interesting in modeling:) Even Veronika (I’ve got no idea, why). She says she prefers shooting. Well then, nothing else is left but me being a model myself. For a while. Surprisingly , I’m fine with that :)

So we had that sort of short session a few days ago. One shoot came out particularly nice and the other pictures were supposed to go in the bin. But then last night I came out with an idea to do something interesting with those rejected shoots. And it ended up with going to sleep after 3 in he morning, where I had to get up for work in just 4.5 hours. But all hail to the thing called coffee, what help to get me through this day was invaluable. Totally.

So here is the result of that late night. Let me know what you think of it.

Last night the indie rock band Poise Rite, whose drummer is a friend of mine, was playing at the Carlington Academy, Islington, supporting someone’s act. The guys have just signed with a division of EMI and are going to play at Glastonbury this year as well as some other festivals. Their type of music is not particularly my favorite, but still they do a great job and I like it.So I went to see them and basically sneaked close to the stage and into the backstage as a “band’s photographer” :) and in such a way had a double pleasure - as a rock fan and a photography lover. Unfortunately, the stage lightning was dull and I could not spot too many opportunities for a great shot, but still think there are few worth sharing.
And also go the poiserite.com and myspace.com/poiserite to hear and see some of their stuff.

I’m getting more and more technical stuff to do lately, which is a bit disappointing, since it leaves me no time and sucks out most of my imagination to do something creative. So this is probably the only new thing I’ve created recently. It’s is a stage banner for the Disease, a sympho-black-metal band, which front-man is a friend of mine from the times we ourselves were playing hardcore. Old good old times.. Anyway, yeah, this is it, following the design of their latest CD (the logo was designed by the band).

This was the email forward to me from one of my colleagues. I thought it was so brilliant that decided to publish it here entirely. Enjoy :)

HOW GOOD IS THIS? REVENGE ON THE TELEMARKETER

1. The three little words: “Hold On, Please…” Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time- consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

Then when you eventually hear BT’s “beep-beep-beep” tone, you know it’s time to go back and hang up your handset …. you have efficiently completed your task.

These three little words could help eliminate telephone soliciting.

2. Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end? This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone. This technique is then used to determine the best time of day for a “real” salesperson to call back and get someone at home.

What you can do after answering: If you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer!!!

3. When you get those “pre-approved” letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk,do not throw away the return envelope. Most of these come with postage-prepaid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular postage “IF” and when they are returned. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! In that case, why not get rd of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage- prepaid return envelopes.

Send an advert for your local chimney sweeper to American Express … they might need one! Send a pizza coupon to HSBC … in case their canteen packs up.

You get the idea.

If you didn’t get anything else that day, then just send them back their blank application form … after all, it is their form! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn’t on anything you return. You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them, and it is their envelope after all … you are just returning it!!!!

The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the post, but folks ….. we need to OVERWHELM them, in order to stop them.

Let’s let them know what it’s like to get lots of junk mail and best of all they’re paying for it … Twice!

Let’s help keep Royal Mail busy. Since the Royal Mail are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, let’s help them so they will not need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea!

If enough people follow these tips, it will work - maybe you’ll get very little junk mail anymore.

THIS JUST MIGHT BE ONE E-MAIL THAT YOU WILL WANT TO FORWARD TO ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS !!!!!!!