Leith is who we are.
Leith is where we are.
The Leith Agency's weblog.

Now this is what I call a hoarding…

I saw this in Paris recently. They’re doing some restoration work on the building so covered it with this and turned into a public art project. Very nice.

Found this site on psfk today. It’s a cracking idea.

You choose - from multiple choice answers - the word which best matches the meaning of the specified word. (I think that’s a suitably clumsy explanation…) And for each one that you get right, ten grains of rice are donated via the United Nations presumably to the hungry somewhere.

A brilliant example of advertising helping to achieve something both imaginative and really positive. And incredibly compelling for those that fancy themselves as having a bit of an extensive vocabulary.

Hot from the pen of the lovely Mariapia, an update on our latest cake fest:

All the lovely people of Leith helped raise a whopping £530 For Help Lizzie Buy a Bog Day. That’s nearly three Bogs! However, Lizzie is helping to build a hospital as well as teaching the disabled kids arts and crafts, so any extra money will help sustain the project.

Please click here to see for yourselves what Lizzie is up to in Tanzania.

The poster, put together by the brilliant Mikey, is kind of self-explanatory. But for those that can’t get beyond the charming visual, the beautiful Lizzie, currently living in Tanzania and teaching arts and crafts to disabled children, is trying to raise money to buy a toilet for the school that she’s working at.

Lizzie freelanced here for a few months over the summer. She’s a rather superb designer but not satisfied with crafting artful and intelligent brand identities, she’s set off to save the world.

Cakes available from 11am plus any visit to the toilet today will be accompanied by a collecting tin. Spend a penny for a toilet..??

The current issue of Fast Company is delightfully full of a bunch of articles making a case for the pivotal role of design within any self-respecting organisation seeking to stride through the twenty-first century with confidence. Sir Alan’s dream come true.

Highlights include a feature on Wrigley and the latest invention of their R&D team: 5. Targeted at young adults, it’s intended as a gum that “reflects who they are”.

Dan and Chip Heath speculate about how you make an idea “stick” by using environmental triggers.

There’s a brilliant article about a guy called Yves Behar who runs a design firm called fuseproject that appears to have a tremendously successful track record with huge corporations like Coke, Johnson & Johnson and Kodak and uses the profits they make doing this to experiment with profit shares for smaller innovative start-ups. It’s called “All About Yves”. Hard to beat as an article title for Marilyn Monroe fans.

A very interesting interview with Bob Greenberg who started out using CGI for Hollywood films but then turned his attention to interactive advertising and now works with Nike and Nokia amongst others.

And then perhaps my favourite. An interview with the grand master of design (Sir Alan excepted for a second), Philippe Starck himself. He shares a couple of glorious soundbites with us.

“Today, all buildings are very fancy, they are all narcissistic masturbation to the glory of the guys who design them.”

(Don’t know if David Chipperfield, master architect for the new BBC offices in Glasgow would agree with that.)

And finally, his formula for creativity:

“Every morning, take royal jelly and omega-3 oil, eat oysters and have a good sexual life. Don’t care about anything and never listen to anybody. Be free.”

Sir Alan, take note.

Since writing in July about the campaign for establishing a Leith Museum I’ve heard from MP Mark Lazarowicz who sent me this letter with news of the campaign’s progress.

Please click on the letter to zoom in.

We are one.

This blog is one year old in the same way that Margaret Thatcher was a grandmother.

This is the 87th post in that period, so we didn’t quite score a century in our first annual innings. I expect we will second time round, now that there are prolific bloggers like Claire W on board.

The subtitle for this blog is “Leith is who we are. Leith is where we are.” Having flicked through the archives I’m happy that we’ve done what we said on our tin. There’s a good mix of stuff from within our four walls and outside on our doorstep.

87 helpings of Extra Salt & Sauce. Can’t be good for the blood pressure.

There’s a really nice campaign running for an eco-friendly electricity package from utility company EDF in France at the moment.

The ads feature little corners of blue sky like so:

These are located in all sorts of places: in a postcard rack, in someone’s back pocket, in a child’s pram and so on.

Assuming my rough grasp of French has allowed for the true subtleties of the headline, this reads something like: because everyone is entitled to their own little piece of blue sky.

A quick scan of blogs (and again assuming my translation skills serve me right) suggests that the campaign launched with a DM drop to all households consisting simply of this little corner of blue sky with the line on the back reading this piece of blue sky is for (your name). No branding but just a telephone number - which gets you through to the EDF sales line.

A pretty neat way, it seems to me, of making something which many might see as dull, a little bit more charming.