Teachers, students and business people alike, should see the Propellers!

A flurry of mail this week from teachers wishing they had seen and brought their students to Dinh Q. Le at aSaigon/CreativeMorning's last session but sadly, that time has passed - as will all Creative Mornings, so it makes only good sense to catch things as they happen. To that end, we are including the following flyer for posting at your school, company or otherwise place of business.

aSaigon/CreativeMorning.Propellers.Flyer

We are intent on increasing the student population at events and are happy to fly in the face of other more commercial 'seminar' series that seek to charge you real money to see, too many times, just commercial people, trying to sell you something. At aSaigon/CreativeMorning, we have but one thing to sell you - new ideas. And we hope that will provide a kind of lasting value, quite seriously lacking in business today.

Please download and post the following flyer for people who may not know us from the Internet. We have been pleased to have had many RMIT lecturers at events, but far fewer students. We hope aSCM to be an event for sharing information, so please teachers and others, share and share alike. Delloite, Raffles, Vietnam National, DDB, BBDO, WPP, Lowe and Navigos, join us as well.

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aSaigon/CreativeMorning welcomes The Propeller Group - 15 April, 8:30am

The Propeller Group is an art collaborative that specializes in media production, using popular culture, cinema, television, advertising, the web, galleries, museums, writings, interviews and conversation to distribute and disseminate art projects. The Propeller Group’s projects have been about collapsing media strategies of power, distribution, and access to information as well as issues of public vs. private space within the development of sub-cultures and popular cultures.

"In many of our projects, we try to create disorder, hoping that disorder in such particular instances can become another "sense of order" to an audience that may be all too afraid of change, or unaccepting of other possible ways of engaging with their current cultural/social structures. We like to play. We align ourselves with different cultural producers. We like to let ourselves get ingested into the bellies of big social beasts such as television or the various manifestations of pop-culture. We feel that true criticality comes from the change that can happen from the inside of a system, and not from analytical discourse posited from external positions."

The Propeller Group is comprised of Phunam Thuc Ha, Matt Lucero, and Tuan Andrew Nguyen.

Based in Los Angeles and Ho Chi Minh City, The Propeller Group doesn't want you to view art in the way that one might have been taught to view art. And The Propeller Group doesn't want you to see television or any other medium for that matter for what you might believe it to be - rather they seek to be deconstructivist in any variety of media and have you put things back together in any way that you like. With the blurring of lines between television, telephones, computers and the next big mobile bling to hit the market, it only makes sense to begin to re-examine our relationship with media and recreate it for a new means of consumption. Come join us on April 15th as we explore disparate and ever changing creative horizons with The Propeller Group.

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aSaigon/CreativeMorning III - Dinh Q. Lê

Reprinted from the blog, Studio Mads Monsen.

aSaigon/CreativeMorning March speaker Dinh Q. Le at Stella Caffe, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Brilliant. Inspired. Moving. It was simply a great presentation and the early birds of Saigon enjoyed it. “I’m lovin’ it” to quote McDonald's, however, it was a far better deal. Unwrap a burger and you get disappointed as it never lives up to the tasty, juicy advertising image that sells you the deal in the first place.

The Early Birds

Dinh unwrapped his thinking and reason behind his works. His research methods? Obsession he answered.

Multi-media with Dinh Q. Le

His work on Agent Orange was nothing but brilliant. His latest projects include exploring the visual language around us. If people with a voice can find a way around to get noticed, artists can too. He proved that with his Agent Orange shop example - a real shop in Vietnam that sold cute little outfits for agent orange babies, like double hooded jackets and sweaters with teddy bears and flowers on them. Cute, but scary in that the usage could be real.

That looks nice. A box?

Our lucky-draw prize. From TIKI.VN. Guess what?

Portrait - Dinh Q. Le

Overall, a great start of the day, all thanks to the humble and yet so talented Dinh Q.Le

Location for Friday: Stella Caffe, 119 Bui Vien Street, D1, HCMC

Sorry for the delay all. The location for Friday's meeting is Stella Caffe, 119 Bui Vien Street, D1, HCMC. Stella is a fine Italian restaurant with what I consider to be the best Ceasar salad in town, but that might not be your breakfast choice. When you arrive, be sure to take stairs in front to the upstairs meeting room. We'll CU there at 8:30am, sharp!

Sponsors welcome to aSaigon/CreativeMorning

In response to the many requests we've had to open aSaigon/CreativeMorning to other agencies and industry sponsors we are doing exactly that. DDB, Lowe and BBDO have all expressed interest but we haven't booked yet, and it's not like just one agency can sponsor. TBWA remains our beloved benefactor for getting us off the ground (George gets huge props here). But now we're doing what we set out to do. We more like the idea of brotherhood and togetherness so if two coffee sponsors want to take a go at it and run a taste-off, we're game! Malongo is ready! But none of you guys get to show your company reels, bad PowerPoints or other silly promo stuff. Restaurants? Come cook against the Tin Foil Grill! They've got some game you know.

Sponsorship opportunities are now available for location, coffee, breakfast and other ideas to your liking. Sponsorships go from Gold to Bronze but trust me, nobody's going to want Bronze cause you look like 'Cheap Charlie' around here.

TBWA was smart enough to execute the following press release and we think this sort of press has value to many companies. aSaigon/CreativeMorning remains a non-profit enterprise and all proceeds go towards maintaining the event and printing the cool t-shirts we're making for those in the groove.

Please contact us for sponsorship ideas. We maintain a very select avenue to Saigon's top creative thought leaders and are not interested in numbers at all. Ideas rule and if you're in that business we hope we can work together and get a few better ones.

Have a blog? Check our blogroll - and get on it!

Notice our new blogroll on the lower left. Are you there? You should be, so use the 'comments' form below to leave your blog and we'll be sure to add it. Otherwise, we're just too lazy to go through the whole membership and sort out the blogs. We have jobs you know!

We now have a Facebook group

For photos, check out our new Facebook group, aSaigon/CreativeMorning. We'll keep all our important communications here on LinkedIn but just wanted to give people a way to share photos. If you have photos from Dustin Nguyen, feel free to join the group and upload them. Enjoy.

The Dieline, a great packaging design site.

Today, this site sent from Mads Monsen. The Dieline is a website dedicated to the best in packaging design. Here are a few samples from this year's student competition. Check out the site for more.

"This is a brief that required us to create a cooperate identity for the Dairy company, including the brand name and a whole range of packaging."

"In this packaging class students were instructed to either redesign an existing architectural paint line or choose a brand or designer and invent a paint line for them."

"This beer brand concept was born on a sunday night at school were we were supposed to make a brand for a micro-brewery. The name is traditional Icelandic name that could be loosely translated into "thirsty one"."

Sandrine Llouquet - Give Gallery - Singapore, 20 January - 3 March, 2011

Sandrine Llouquet.Singapore

Should you be in or visiting Singapore over the next few weeks, be sure to visit Give Gallery for the work of Sandrine Llouquet as part of Art Stage, the New Contemporary Art Fair program sponsored by the National Arts Council of Singapore.

Dustin Nguyen Unplugged II

Thanks to actor, director, producer Dustin Nguyen and a spirited group of creatives, our first session was informative, casual and fun. We hope to have video up next week.

Thanks also to Sandrine, Bertrand and Mads for the photos and TBWA for the space :) More photos for download here.

We learned how not to make an "Instant noodle soup movie", just how tough the Vietnamese censors are as compared to Singapore and China, and just how many seconds your product can be on screen if you paid for product placement in a love scene - interesting stuff. More to follow.

And not one single person asked one single question about Johnny Depp.

Good Creative Mornings to you all.

More about Dustin can be found here.




































Please leave your comments below and let everyone know what you thought.

The Blogosphere Welcomes Saigon/CreativeMornings

Artist, Sandrine Lloquet, Photographer, Mads Monsen and agency, TBWA have covered the launch of Saigon/CreativeMornings on their blogs. Click the respective links for a 360 view of the event.

Dustin Nguyen Unplugged?

What if we don't show video of his past work? What if you don't see his 21 Jump Street co-star Johnny Depp on film? What if we don't even have a microphone? Will you care? I hope not. Saigon/CreativeMornings is not about PowerPoint shows or corporate meeting stuff. We hope it's about real. Dustin will discuss the balance between art and commerce. For all those who signed up and will join us on Friday morning, thank you. Let's talk. Let's chat. Let's learn. Let's have fun. Good CreativeMornings to you. You made it happen. (Sandrine covers things here in French.)

Dustin Nguyen Sold Out, January 14, 2011

Saigon/CreativeMornings first event, Dustin Nguyen, sold out in just 3 days - but don't dismay - we're keeping a wait-list in case tickets become available. See the form below and sign-up for the waiting list. We'll inform people next week of availability.

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Saigon/CreativeMornings welcomes Dustin Nguyen, January 14, 8:30am, 2011

Dustin Nguyen and his family moved from Saigon to the US in 1975. He is the prototypical embodiment of the American Dream - creative, yet eternally viral. He matriculated through middle and high school in America to become an actor on the Television show, '21 Jump Street'. This was not a small a accomplishment. He continues to act and direct and offers inspiration to all those who pursue a creative life. Dustin Nguyen was voted Best Actor in Vietnam in 2009 and continues to pursue excellence and creativity in life Please click on this link and register. We are very pleased to welcome him. Dustin will discuss the balance between art and commerce.

Saigon/CreativeMornings Press Release

Following is the press release for our first event. Should you be aware of a news service who would find this useful, please download a copy and forward to them. Thank you all.

Saigon/CreativeMornings Introductory Press Release

Saigon/CreativeMornings first event: Friday, January 14th, 8:30am, 2011

Mark your calendars. We're not going to tell you who the first speaker is, because that's a fairly large surprise but we can tell you that we remain committed to bringing world-class creative talent in to illuminate the creative process and have accomplished that in spades. The event will work like this: On December 31st, New Years Eve, we'll announce our speaker on this and other blogs and news outlets. We'll also include an online registration form. Registration opens January 1. You must register online to get on the list and the list will be limited to 30 people. First come, first serve. If you don't make that, we will keep a waiting list, but no guarantees, so early birds will get the worms, along with coffee and whatever we can dig up from mom's kitchen. The event will be roughly two weeks after registration begins and do expect the list to fill up quickly. On the day of the event, doors will open at 8:30am and our guest will begin promptly at 9. No one will be admitted after 9 so do plan on getting an early start that day. There will be a 30 minute presentation followed by 30 minutes of Q&A so we're all wrapped up by 10 and everyone can get off to work. Saigon/CreativeMornings are completely free to all attendees with generous help from our organizers and sponsors. Keep your eye on this blog and we hope to see you all on the 14th of January in a brand new year. Happy Holidays.