T shirt log

T shirt 33

This is by way of a postscript. A T shirt I have long wanted to make and distribute. At least it won me a bottle of champers at the WAR birthday party last year.  Their caption not mine.. Avian flu rocks!

T shirt 31

This should have been put in way back - the collar is going and it won't last another 6 months but I'm fond of it. The aboriginal art theme  probably locates its origin in the mid 1990s but this sort of bold design never ever goes away and can be found at hippy festivals in one form or another.

Tshirt 32 Guinness foreign extra

This seemed an appropriate way of bringing the T shirt series to a shuddering conclusion - I got the T shirt while I was running a workshop in Dublin last week in the Guinness Storehouse no less! Foreign extra indeed.  Now that's what I call work/life balance :-) It took me back to the start of my career in ad agencies when it was my job to make ad tracking work for Guinness advertising. Sort of completes a circle having it here!

Tshirt 29 & 30 water theme and trees

These Tshirts reflect the fact that I don't tend to wear ties to work any more and the shirts have to get more colourful to compensate and look fine with a suit - I'm bored with trying to guess the dress protocol for the particular working day - best to dress so you're not at your worst and no one can accuse you of being overdressed. T shirts as work wear even client facing workwear.  And why not.

Tshirt 28 - deluxe - High value junk low value

More paradox - dunno quite why paradoxes appeal so much but I find something reassuring in messaging which delivers 2 messages which interfere with each other - I think I bought this one in around 2003. The point of the deluxe is that the first part of the message goes across the collar - so the wearer knows both halves but the nobody else does. The casual viewer wonders why you're wearing a T shirt with a message about junk. Peculiarly satisfying to wear.

I append here a photo of another shirt (not a T shirt) which plays with paradox in the same way - guilty/special

T shirt 27 - Feel agency and Jip the dog

I've never worked with Feel and don't know exactly how I came to visit their website and apply for the free T shirt (which they sent me). But here's a tribute to Chris Arnold the creative behind the agency who I still haven't met.  But clearly I owe him! Feel went on to merge with Edgeideas with whom I had been working from time to time - a wonderful opportunity to work with Ron Leagas.  They changed their name to BLAC. And now word on the street is that they've reverted to Feel again.

T shirt 26 - Da Vinci - making the code

In 2003 I got asked to write a development process for an international media consultancy startup called Da Vinci. A great example of the sheer range of work I get asked to do. Sometimes I think I need to go and have a new business drive - what holds me back is that I fear that what I go after will never be as interesting as what turns up. If I have made a mistake in my career it is in continuously trying to innovate when often what is required is less radical. The danger is not taking people with you. The system I designed enabled you to explore brand partnerships - how to match media channels with your brand aspirations. It was advanced stuff and mirrored what Steve Heyer of Coca Cola was talking about at the same time at the first Madison and Vine conference. Though I didn't find this out till the following year when I wrote it up for Market Leader. Through the rest of 2003 I went and used the system once in Detroit with Chrysler. More work followed with Mercedes and Mitsubishi but I now think the system was a step too far. I've used bits of it since in various papers and workshops. But after a blast of a Christmas party in Dusseldorf where we were given these T shirts I wasn't asked to work with these guys again. Ah well.

T shirt 25 - the flying 40s and Bruce Cockburn

This is rather out of sequence - it should have been located somewhere in the middle of the Jesus T shirt sequence to maintain the chronology. I was given this by Claire with whom I shared the 40th birthday party.  Her husband Andrew and I were room mates at university and aficionados of the Canadian musician Bruce Cockburn hence the lyrics.  At this point Miriam my younger daughter had been born. Around this time I managed to tie in having a vasectomy and getting my ear pierced at the same time whileI was still on painkillers (which is probably more information than you want right now) but people still talk about it and remind me - was I having a midlife crisis or was this more Griffiths eccentricity?  Last year I was wearing the shirt at Greenbelt at a gig when a stranger leans over and identifies the Cockburn song and the album it came from. Now that IS scary. Cockburn fans tend to obsessiveness - so I'm in familiar company.  I didn't like turning 40 but in retrospect it has been a good age - full of health and opportunity. The lyric nails the uncertainty I was feeling at the time.

T shirt 24 - Success means never having to wear a suit

My sister gave me this in the spring of 2000 as I was plannning going freelance from CDP and plotting the genesis of Planning Above and Beyond. It perfectly captures how I was feeling at the time. Though the dot com boom had relaxed the dress code significantly. In fact we yoyoed up and down. Dressing down for dot com meetings and sometimes remembering to dress up again for bemused bricks and mortar prospects.  It wasn't casual - if you overdressed for the dotcoms they wouldn't take you seriously. I still wear suits regularly truth to tell. Its the ties which went and mostly haven't come back. It takes a funeral or a pitch involving a LOT of money to get me to put a tie back on. And I've only been made to take out my earstud once for a pitch on the spurious grounds that the senior client was a born again Christian who would think I was gay and that might affect the pitch. I took it out .. we still didn't win.

I'm still in the habit of wearing the T shirt WITH a suit to show that working for yourself doesn't necessarily mean you turn into a walk on part for Miami vice - mebbe we're not as successful as we look :-) I remember wearing it on the platform (with a suit) at the 2004 MRS conference where I assembled a team paper which won the prize for best new thinking and was shortlisted for best paper and the David Winton award for best new research practice innovation.   But that's enough boasting for now.

T shirt 23 - On your feet

Late in 1999 I was had moved from working on Honda to an even better job within CDP - planner on new business which allowed me to read books, go on courses and generally get ahead of the game. The Account Planning Group organised a day course run by the Improv group On your Feet. It was tremendous fun and here's the T shirt that went with the course perfectly capturing the notion of mischief they were inculcating in the creative development process. On your feet mix brainstorming with theatre improv. There's a bit of actOR, bare feet and legwarmers at times - concentrate on your breathing luvvie. But only a little. Mostly it is about how creativity can be promoted through the practice of theatrical improvisation. The 'offer' which must be continued and not blocked. Using exercises from  mime and physical theatre. Dunno if they're still at it but if they are then book your self on.  Highly recommended.