The entries are starting to come in for our Coversoursing competition to design the UK jacket for Jeff Howe’s Crowdsourcing book: including this great one from Richard over at AceJet. Can You do better?

Young people aren’t interested in magazines anymore? Well, if they don’t like reading them, they at least still enjoy designing them as I found out at a recent workshop.

Could this be the new British flag? In the UK Parliament yesterday, culture minister Margaret Hodge pledged to consider a redesign of the union flag to incorporate the Welsh dragon.

It had to happen sooner or later. The Cannes International Advertising Festival, after proudly separating ad agencies from their money for 54 years, has decided to introduce design categories for next year.

The November issue of Creative Review is dedicated to giving you a behind-the-scenes look at how work gets made. From initial sketches to final artwork, our features for this issue follow a variety of projects along the rocky road of the creative process. As a taster, here’s an insight into the work of Karen Caldicott Shown above, stage one in the creation of a portrait of Barbra Streisand

McEwans Lager ad featuring You’ve Got the Power by Win (agency: Collett Dickenson Pearce, 1986)

As an adult, it’s rare to be frightened by an advert. But back in the mid-80s, I remember one TV ad scaring the living shit out of me (shown above). I can recall everything about it: the zombie-like characters, the concept of pushing giant balls up neverending steps and the stirring music that seemed to suit the desolate tone perfectly. It was immersive, gripping and (for me) pretty pant-soiling stuff. But ads don’t employ this aesthetic anymore: they don’t want to scare you. In fact they do the complete opposite – they’re frequently soft, fluffy, handmade-looking things for products that just want to be your friend. And invariably, the choice of music or soundtrack follows suit: arpeggiated acoustic guitar? Check. Softly spoken, whimsical vocals? Check. These are prerequisites in advertising’s obsession with the sound of twee.