Love/Hate

Everyone has written really good descriptions of Jonny Hardstaff's lectures which give a lot of info about him and what he said, so i thought instead of repeating what everyone else has said i'd just focus on what the lecture meant to me personally.

Their was two main things that really struck me.

First of all it was the love/hate relationship he described with big corporations and commercials. To hear someone else acknowledge this was so relieving. I am constantly battling with the ethics of advertising. Is it right? Is it manipulation? Is it a waste of creativity? Aargh, but I love love love it and its so much easier to just love it than to try to fight against something so much bigger than you are. I am genuinely concerned with the ethics of advertising, but at the same time I enjoy the human insights, the psychology behind it, the deep understanding of human behaviour - and exploiting that to get what you want. Its like a constant challenge against real people who could outwit you at any time. Its exactly like cock rock- its terrible and every things wrong about it, but lets face it, that party always ends with it and everyone is dancing.

Well its nice to know that someone else is thinking the same thing!

The other thing that really helped me was what he said after the lecture back in the studio - that Manchester is an exciting place to be, that things are changing and maybe in the future the north will give London more of a run for their money. Also, that the industry is crying out for women in this industry, and if you can produce good work then you will get noticed. This is good news for the girls finally!