#aboud creative

MEET THE JURY - Alan Aboud, Creative Director and founder of London-based ABOUD CREATIVE, works extensively with strong and inventive fashion, beauty, fragrance, and lifestyle brands. The agency has brought this belief to its projects for ZARA, Paul Smith, Levi′s, H&M, Thomas Pink, GAP Kids, Mont Blanc, River Island and Neal′s Yard Remedies. When we asked Aboud to provide us with some visual material that has inspired his career he explained "Many of the reasons as to why I do what I do has come from music and it's promotion, as well as traditional film and photography. The non-commerciality of some of my inclusions allude to why I like these pieces. The respective photographers, directors and designers sought solutions to communicate without going down obvious routes." Join Alan and the rest of our jury at CONNECTIONS London on Nov. 14th & 15th!

Boy-U2. Cover photograph of Peter Rowan "The image was created by photographer, Hugo McGuinness, and the Creative Director for all U2 projects, Steve Averill. It featured a portrait of Peter Rowan, a brother of one of the band's friends. This was 1980, and for a debut album, not having the band on the cover was perceived suicide, but Averill persevered with the concept and the album was released in 1980. The image was changed to a distorted picture of the band for the American and Canadian release, due to the record company's fears that the band would be accused of paedophilia.This album cover was the main reason for me wanting to become a designer. I wanted to create album sleeves, and create identities such as this one. U2's identity has been one of the most enduring music identities of the last 30 years, all due to Averill, their designer."

Joy Division-Atomosphere video. Directed by Anton Corbijn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C2W6cN19Cs "Shot in 1988, to promote the re-release of the the single, Corbijn's piece was, and still is, one of my favourite pieces of moving image. I have always admired Corbijn's photography, but to see his images move was inspiring. This video made me want to create moving image pieces."

Ian Dury and the Blockheads-DO IT YOURSELF album cover "Do It Yourself was released on 18 May 1979 and was part of a huge publicity stunt: Stiff Records released the album with at least 38 sleeves, each one a different Crown Wallpaper design. Crown also wallpapered all of the sets for the Blockheads' subsequent promotional tour. Posters advertising the album release were screenprinted onto actual wallpaper and pasted all over towns upon it's release. The sleeves greatly helped sales and there were reports of fans travelling to different towns and even importing more sleeves that were released abroad; in addition. various badges, combs, watches, paint brushes and wallpaper ties were distributed, mostly the creations of designer Barney Bubbles, who also created the Blockheads' 'clockface' logo. With Bubbles' untimely death in 1983, nobody really knows how many versions were actually created."

Le Ballon Rouge-Albert Lamorisse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiGFcVf34PM "The Red Balloon is a 1956 film directed by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse. The thirty-four minute short, which follows the adventures of a young boy who one day finds a red balloon, was filmed in Paris. It won numerous awards, including an Oscar Lamorisse for writing the best original screenplay in 1956. Simplicity is always something that appears in our agency work, and films such as these, inspired my to create simple stories, with very graphic photographic and cinematic imagery. The colour of this era is central to alot of our work. The sightly surreal, faded cinematic colour of this film is something that I use as inspiration for much of my work."