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Spike Spondike is a livewire American creative full of ideas but a bit unsure of how to go about getting a job in the creative industry in London.

She came to Idea Shop with a lot of ideas and even more charisma and asked us to go through her CV and portfolio to give her the best possible chance of getting a job.

We were really impressed with the actual work but gave her a few pointers on her CV to make it more applicable to the British market as well as giving her a few contacts and recruitment companies who may be able to point her in the right direction.

Her CV and portfolio were presented in a rather kooky, creative way. We advised Spike to save the quirkiness for elsewhere and let the work speak for itself. She had a portfolio of two halves, half amazing conceptual creative work, half other stuff. After chatting to her for a while it became clear that the conceptual work was what excited her – happily that was also where she really shone. (She really is very talented). We suggested focusing her efforts on that work, rather than selling herself short on something she didn’t really want to do.

We also suggested she use a site like www.carbonmade.com for her online portfolio. This would allow her to focus on the work and not worry about doing, (or being judged on), web design/development.

And then for the quirkiness. We felt that in additional to a more traditional CV and portfolio, she could use her considerable creative talents to create a buzz around her work.  We talked about various ideas for a blog to celebrate her love of creative generalism and design diversity. We talked about the lovely lovely example of Make Something Cool Everyday by Brook Davies

http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Make-Something-Cool-Every-Day-2009/171640

We looked into ideas for a sticker campaign leading people to Spike’s blog or portfolio. We also discussed various guerilla stunts. But I can’t share any of these with you because it would ruin the surprise.

We wish this unique creative talent all the best in her search for work. Check out her blog here http://www.spikethedesigner.blogspot.com/

Posted by Jason Scott

Yasmin Butt is writing her first novel, titled Gunshot Glitter, and came to idea shop looking for ideas to publish her book.

An interesting personality with a rich past, Yasmin has worked as a journalist, was involved in marketing various bands and their music, and has written short stories and poems, she often performs readings at music events, but she has never published any of her work.

Gunshot Glitter is quite personal to her and she was finding difficult to think of ways to promote it. She briefed us not being sure if she wanted to target potential readers or publishers.

What we came up with:

We envisaged an integrated strategy aimed at potential readers. Aim of the strategy is to generate interest in the book by using the potential of viral buzz through on and off line means.

The book’s website will be at the centre of the strategy. Potential readers will be able to read / download one chapter for free from the site. All other chapters will also be available for download for a charge (via paypal). This would be the standard edition of the book.

Podcasts of book’s readings would be available for download too.

The book can also be ordered in print format via the site. This would be the premium edition of the book.

Site traffic is generated through posters and use of social media sites.

The posters would hero snippets of the book and the site URL. We told Yasmin to think carefully about the placement of these posters, where they’d get max visibility and impact.

Social media would be used to create a profile for the novel main character (a female professional killer) as if she was a real person.  Facebook and Twitter would be used to create this profile, so friends could be added, potential readers could then follow the character’s exploits periodically.

The Facebook profile could also be used to promote the real life events and book readings at. In turn these events could be used to drive site traffic (which is main aim).

The premium edition (print) version of the book should be carefully crafted, from the artwork to the actual materials used.

We briefly mention distributing press releases through trade press or webzines (flavorpill / boldtype) as well as magazines.