...Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, Terence Conran, James Dyson, Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud, Dylan Jones, John Galliano, Gilbert and George, Gerald Scarfe, Paul Smith and who could forget Pierce Brosnan.

It was with great pleasure that Libertine accepted the offer to guest lecture at Central Saint Martins this week on 'Creative Strategy'.

A big thank you to all the students who came along - despite being evacuated at the end of the first day and finishing up in the park!

David

I won't even try and take credit for this, but we've recently been working with a writing group called (rather originally) The Writer, to help one client to re-engage people by binning the corporate language, looseningup and starting to write more the way we talk...

But I wanted to share a good question (and even better) answer that that came out of this.

Q.

"The way I talk and the way I write are completely different. I can't use the words 'and' and 'but' to start a sentence, that's just bad grammar..."

A.

So to dispell a few literary myths I will hand over to The Writer who had this great response...

Oneof the most persistent misconceptions about writing in English is thatyou're not allowed to start a sentence with ‘and' or ‘but'. Utterrubbish. In fact, sometimes they're the only words that will do – theycan give your writing pace, drama and oomph. And writers have beendoing it for hundreds of years.

But you probably knew thatalready. Maybe you're thinking ‘that's all fine by me, but my bossthinks it's wrong. How do I persuade someone else that it's OK?'

Show some examples
They're everywhere. But if you need one in a hurry, try:

‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.'
Genesis Chapter 1, The Bible, King James version
(In fact, the Bible can't get enough of it: 33 of the 35 sentences in Genesis Chapter 1 begin with ‘and'.)

‘Manyof these missions, including MoonLite, are far from assured. And thereis no shortage of people suggesting we're better spending moneyelsewhere. But who can fail to be inspired when they look up at theMoon on a clear night?'
BBC news website, 19 July 2009

‘Thecoalition's leaders, at least, seem to have grasped that it must behavenot as an occupying army but as a partner, whose aim is to build up thelocal forces that will ultimately ensure Afghanistan's security. Andsoldiers and civilians are beginning to understand that development aidcan benefit local people...'
The Economist, 17 October 2009.

Set a challenge
Ifsomeone says they get annoyed by sentences starting with ‘and' or‘but', ask them to check their newspaper. They'll have been happilyreading them for years, without even noticing. We only tend to spot theands and buts if we're asked to look at a bit of writing critically.

Today(5th November 2009), we skimmed through the Times, the Daily Telegraph,the Financial Times, the Independent and the Economist. Every singleone of them has sentences and paragraphs starting with ‘and' on almostevery page. And we lost count of the number of sentences that startedwith ‘but'. There were hundreds – three on the front page of theGuardian alone.

And if they still don't buy it?
Hey, there are still some people out there who think the world is flat. You can't win 'em all.

(For all things wordy you can find The Writer at www.thewriter.co.uk)

Now Microsoft seems to have a bit of a chip on their sholder. Ever since Steve started teasing them in the playground about being PC they've been desperate to prove the other kids wrong.

The problem is, it all seems a little contrived. The slightly desperate response to Apples 'I'm a Mac' campaign left most people outside of north America cringing. And here's the problem... Cool kids just act cool - they don't waster their time trying to tell you. And it seems Microsoft might have finally twigged this. This latest viral seems aimed at the Jackass generation and whilst there is tenuous link with "make it doable - with Microsoft Office Project 2007" it certainly suggests that they've realised actions speak louder than words. The only question is whether they faked it!

We all know that advertising is having to work harder than ever to get cut through. Particularly in technology sectors where there is always a faster, smaller and more advanced model on the horizon. And at what point do advertisers run out of ingenious ways of marketing the next 40, 50, 60 gigathon model? This week the rather blandly named MSI (Micro Star International), did something slightly less bland to promote their new x-series laptop. I say 'did', because whilst they don't seem to have taken credit for it yet, the very nature of it reeks of viral marketing. But don't let that put you off - genius it certainly is.

So how do you promote the next super slim laptop range? ...how about making a viral film of people catching them with their, erm, ass.

When was the last time you saw a really big idea? You know, one of those monsters thoughts that tackles a real social need, changes the way we currently think and was just so painfully simple it was brilliant... Alas this is not it. But we’re sure this Malaysian brand thought they’d struck gold when they came up with CoffeeTea, a 2-in-1 mix. However, if the thought of staking an opinion about Katie or Peter brings you out in a cold sweat, the prospect of voting at a general election induces migraines or the issue of a cheek kiss vs handshake leaves you floundering – then maybe, just maybe CoffeeTea will be a god send to you.