We've gone all misty-eyed

It's been all about the nostalgia this week at Collective Towers. Michael kicked it off by requesting the Labyrinth soundtrack on the office Spotify, which led Dan and Holly to engage in a detailed and empassioned discussion of which Collective staff member would make the best Goblin King in an agency-only remake of the film. No satisfactory conclusion was reached, mostly because of the distinct lack of anyone with a blonde mullet in the vicinity.

Then it was time to move on from the elven eighties to the neon nineties. Because as of today, the office has its very own Nintendo 64, complete with the two undisputed Best Games Ever: Goldeneye and Mario Kart.

"Oh no, not Rainbow Road. My eyes!"

The arrival of the console was accompanied by a volley of trash talking, but most of it turned out to be bravado as we struggled to remember how to use the ill-designed three-pronged controller.

All of which left us wondering what the next rose-tinted arrival from the past might be. Snap bracelets? Vanilla Coke? 2Unlimited? We can't wait to find out.

Movember nearly over

It's been emotional, painful, hilarious, itchy and slightly scary. The Collective team has done a brilliant job of growing their mo's over November in aid of prostate cancer. Here are some pics of the mos' Guinness-tinged final lunch (is anyone actually keeping their facial furniture past December 1st?).







More on the flickr.

If you'd like to donate to the cause, please just click the banner below.

Movember week one

Movember has kicked off in earnest at Collective Towers. Here's who's Top of the Taches so far...


Omar's looking dapper with his tidily-trimmed nose-tickler (so carefully trimmed he was late this morning, in fact).



Jon's gone Wild West style with matching mutton chops. Looking foward to seeing how they develop.



Whereas Kenta resembles some kind of Bond super-villain.



Methinks we have a Mo-cheat in our midst.. Nice fuax-tache, Seren.

More pics on our Flickr.

Wear it Pink

Kenta and Sean cleverly combine wearing pink for breast cancer awareness AND sporting a terrifying costume for Hallow'een. Nice one boys, you look...

Bung Beer!

Thank you to Media Week, Campaign, Revolution, NMA and Marketing Week for allowing us to pop in and say hello yesterday. Hopefully the strawberry beer and cream doughnuts were a welcome treat for a Tuesday afternoon.

Amazingly, only two bottles of beer went 'missing' prior to the drop off and thanks to some very close guarding, the doughnuts remained in their boxes. Boy did they smell good though.

Ant update

Our little ant friends have indeed been busy, making themselves at home and digging away:



Katie's ants have made the most progess, surely due in part to the motivational poster bearing down on them.



Petter's men, fuelled by fruit and cereal treats, seem to have built a dual carriageway the length of their colony and have a rather cute Bug's Life wallpaper to gaze at.

More photos on the Flickr.

Ants

Collective received its latest recruit of worker ants today.. literally.



The new guys are kind of dazed and sleepy so far - but it's a Monday and they did just take a long-haul trip with Royal Mail so fair enough.



Expect regular progress reports, if they actually ever do anything.

Musings of Kenta

It feels so good to know that our design dept is headed up by such a well-educated and thoughful man.

End of week one - Collective impressions

I joined Collective on Monday so I thought now would be a good time to put down some first impressions of week 1.

For those that don't know the history I used to be a client of Collective's in their early birth. The Collective style of working at the time really appealed and their work was creative, productive and refreshing. Enthused by this experience I ventured off to agency land elsewhere to try my hand at life on the other side.

So, I've now come round to Collective again (or come home?), not quite full circle as I won't be working in the autos sector anymore, instead I'll be looking after some of the fantastic clients they've been working with recently.

What this week has shown is that the spirit of collaborative working has been retained despite the growth in size of the last few years. In the agency's early days it was probably a necessity to get things done, but now with around 50 people, folks here still genuinely seem to recognise the value of sharing and lots of involvement in creating the work... having 'Collective' over the door is clearly a help but the culture seems to have it ingrained. I guess if you share the responsibility and rewards and everyone knows the client this helps.

Only area I've spotted in the agency where the spirit has lost its way is the dishwasher, which retains individual mealtime neglect.... can't think of a digital solution to this, but maybe a brief is out there for it.

Still, week one nearly complete. Looking forward to picking up the account bag on Monday already... and making some Collective glory.

Class of Collective

The Collective team step back in time thanks to Yearbook Yourself





See more on the flickr.

£1 sandwiches no more

It's a sad day for Collective lunchers, and not just because of the rain. The delightful Harlequin pub announced to us it's shutting at lunchtimes, taking with it its wonderful £1 sandwich offer. Particularly distraught were those whose loyalty cards were nearly full. The free sandwich will never be!

A Bientot, Danny

Collective's resident be-afroed rockstar Danny B has headed off on a whipstop UK tour with band Ex-lovers. You can follow their tour exploits and check if they're coming to a town near you on their blog.

Diet tips

Need to lose a few pounds? Get some sound and practical diet advice from our very own 'skinny-fat' Office Manager Leila.*



*Don't really follow her diet; unless you have her metabolism you'll probably get pretty fat.

Having said that, the Collective office diet as a whole is going to the dogs. Despite a lovely healthy fruit box being delivered every week...



...we still revert to our inner five-year olds at the sight of old-skool candy.



It's all Leila's fault for pushing her awful diet on us. Don't tell our mums.

Collective Culture Shocks*

* danger: high voltage

This week we’re ...
...thanking Leila for our Friday Afternoon Tea Parties
... having our cake and playing with it
... travelling east for Field Day fun times
...appreciating real ale at the CAMRA beer festival
...reading about The Greatest Sci-fi Movies Never Made – including James Cameron’s ‘Spider-Man’ and Schwarzenegger in ‘I Am Legend’


Collective Guess Who
Told you this week’s would be harder! (Answer to be posted in comments)

1. Who would you invite to a dinner party?
Tom Waits, my grandparents, and the guy who continually parades down Sutton High Street dressed as Gandalf.

2. Which two things could you not live without?
My Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Three DVD box set and a good 2B pencil.

3. If you were an animal which animal would you be?
I avoid animals. Certainly wouldn’t want to be one. If you twisted both my arms and pinched my left ankle, it would have to be something extinct. Just to freak people out when they see me walking around. Let’s say a zombie dodo.

4. What is your earliest memory?
Playing with my Star Wars figures on my lonesome well past bed-time. I was probably six. Some things never change.

5. What was your first ever album?
‘Psychocandy’ by The Jesus & Mary Chain would be a lie. ‘Read-along-with Bambi’ would be the reality.

The walls have ears...
Farhan: “So Kenta, why did you join Collective?”
Kenta: “Mostly for the free bread. They didn’t give us bread at my old company.”

Pimp our Barry

Oh, Barry. You should have known what to expect when you send round an email like this:

They say that you should never judge a book by its cover, but if we didn’t do it there would not be a proverb to warn us against such rash judgement.

With this in mind what does my ‘cover’ say about me?? Have a look at the attached image and see what comes to your mind.

I would say the following:-
Bland
Boring
Uninspiring
Dull
Couldn’t be more uncreative if it tried
With this in mind I would like to throw the creative gauntlet down in the creative pit and shout ‘pimp my face’!

With that in mind, here are some 'creative concepts' for the new Barry...

Barry resplendent as a Victorian Gent. It's 'soooo now'.



Heeeeeere's Barry



What can I say, we all have Batman fever.



Dame Barry - love the pink rinse.



A bit of a nip and tuck...



The poor man is now on the verge of an identity crisis and is talking of going to Nepal to find his true self. Help him out by voting on which look is best.

 What look should Barry rock full-time?

• 
  
  The Joker


• 
  
  Dame Barry


• 
  
  Victorian Gent


• 
  
  Heeeeere's Barry


• 
  
  Collagen pout

view results
Free vote poll

New guy - Dave

Dave's joined Collective - he likes the Scottish highlands and is the largest extant species in the deer family. But is he a moose or an elk? You decide.







"Which way up do the antlers go?"

Collective are moving to a new office at 72-82 Rosebery Avenue

Collective are moving office today, to a new place around the corner. Goodbye to our happy little basement, hello to sunlight and windows.

Here's our new address.

Collective
The Market Building
72-82 Rosebery Avenue
London
EC1R 4RW

New telephone number too - 020 7843 3555