ICM - Leeds Design Agency

Some of us do it when we’re on the phone, some of us do it in meetings, some of us don’t do it all, and some of us can’t stop doing it.

Obviously I’m talking about doodling; that little creative pasttime that some of us can’t help but do. To celebrate the nation’s greatest doodles and doodlers you can now take part in National Doodle Day this Friday the 5th March.

National Doodle Day is all about putting pen to paper while raising money to help people affected by epilepsy and neurofibromatosis.

So what is a doodle?
Doodles may be shapes, patterns, drawings or scribbles – anything we produce in an idle moment while the focus of our attention is elsewhere. It’s amazing how creative we can be without even trying! Strangely, doodles seem to take shape of their own accord, as if they had a life of their own in a parallel world. So you may suddenly find a circled word transformed into a sun beaming down on a desert island, punctuation turned into arrows or flowers, or a lover’s name emerging bold as brass from a memo.

Why do people doodle?
Doodling has been defined as ‘to scribble or draw aimlessly, to play or improvise idly’. The word ‘play’ is interesting because we now know that play helps children deal with situations they find difficult. For example, playing ‘doctors and nurses’ can help a child cope with anxiety relating to illness.
When you are on automatic pilot and only half attending to what you are doing, you may find yourself thinking of something that has been at the back of your mind. Underlying preoccupations surface and, before you know it, take shape as doodles. Doodling maps the wandering of your mind as you plan a new venture, worry about money, or dream of a lover or holiday. At an unconscious level this seemingly aimless pastime may actually be helping people sort out their problems.
Doodles are like fragments of a map that shows how someone’s mind works.

Comedian, Jim Moir, better known as Vic Reeves is one of my favourite doodlers. Here’s one of his creations:

Hundreds of celebrities have contributed to National Doodle Day, you can see their entries here.

Over the next few days we’ll be doodling here at ICM, maybe some of those doodles will make it onto the blog…

Happy doodli…

Read the rest...

A young woman’s boyfriend captures her surprised reaction at the deluge of unlikely passengers while the subway conductor makes an announcement about how much food is wasted in the city and how many people go hungry, then pans to a poster asking people to donate to City Harvest.

Filmed in one shot entirely on an iPhone, “Apples” was created, produced and finished by The Mill NY with award-winning, marketing communications agency Draftfcb New York. City Harvest asked Draftfcb for a commercial that conveyed a lot of food is wasted in a voluminous way. The iPhone captured a realistic feel people empathize with, and one that lends to a digital life as a viral film and a cinema vérité-styled commercial. The Apples were created entirely using CGI.

Here’s how it is done: