before they were famous – LORELEI MATHIAS

Here to brighten up your Friday afternoons is a teaser from the archives of the disarmingly bonkers genius Mark Denton Esq.

There’s much more where that came from, (and not just from Mark) but to see them, you’ll have to seek out your own lovely early scamps and send them into Nat and I!

We’ve decided that you have until end of January to submit them to us, so maybe make it a post-turkey activity to get up in the attic in between christmas day and new year?

Thanks Mark for your exemplary self-restraint in not posting the rest of them!

The rest of you ‘famous’ lot, get them sent in, so that the world may be at once inspired and tickled by your early marker-pieces.

(does that even work as a portmanteau? I’m not sure but Nat’s in Cambodia and she’s my Pun Referee, so it’s staying in for now).

MANY THANKINGS IN ADVANCE, Lol and Nat

Please send your hopeful scampmissions to: Lorelei.mathias@bmbagency.com or Nathalie.turton@bmbagency.com

Finally we are able to talk about this – Nat and I are setting up a website called ‘Before they were famous’.

It’s a peek into the student portfolios of the world’s most successful creatives.

We’re launching it as we’ve just taken over as ‘Placement Scouts’ here at BMB.

So. We want to see the silly, the quirky, and the ludicrous work that people had in the student books they graduated with.

We think it’ll be very entertaining to see what the head honchoes of the industry’s student books looked like.

We want to show young creatives that everyone starts somewhere.

It’s proving challenging to get hold of them all, but John Allison has kicked things off with he and Chris’ RUDDY WONDERFUL first book here.

Of this, and all the other ones we’ve seen, the one thing that sticks out is how QUICK they are to look at.

The work speaks for itself.

None of this ‘watch the case study here, oh hang on it’s just loading, oh, f**king Vimeo’, and ‘here’s the social media gubbins’. Just simple, brilliant strategies that jump off the page at you. Of course, we’ve had to all readdress the way we look at books now because of the Internets – and that’s often a good thing too – but it does make you think how simple it was back then.

So get up in the attic, dust off the cobwebs, scan them in and get submitting to Nathalie.turton@bmbagency.com

Then, once we’ve collated them all, the best will be forever enshrined in the hall of fame/shame (delete as applicable).

One final thing. Another deeply Creative mind that we’re looking forward to seeing the early work of is Noel Fielding. Described by his Bucks University Advertising tutor as ‘one sick puppy’, we’re told one of his most memorable scamps was one for Jaffa Cakes that read ‘Kiss My Eyes.’

If you’ve got one better than that, please send them in.