Jamiroquai, Classic Nike Ads and Icebreaker: The Work That Made Douglas Redfern and Joe Roberts
Douglas Redfern and Joe Roberts are a senior creative team at Jung Von Matt London. They met at Loughborough University on the graphic communication course, falling into advertising thanks to a bit of luck and a lack of any genuine design skills (as they put it).
Their work spans everything from advertising, to short films and music videos. With a burning desire to find the funny in anything, you’ll often find them debating the intricacies of the fart gag and the importance of the main cast’s choice in hat. A fedora with safari flaps ideally, definitely not a baseball cap.
The duo sat down with LBB to reflect on the icon ads that influence their work and the recent projects that they are most proud of…
LBB> The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
Doug and Joe> ‘Jamiroquai’ - Virtual Insanity. I think it took us until about yesterday to work out how they made it.
LBB> The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
Doug and Joe> Nike - ‘Write the Future’. What could make you want to get into the industry more than seeing one of your heroes at the time (Wayne Rooney) losing it all and living in a caravan.
LBB> The creative work that I keep revisiting…
Doug and Joe> The ‘Little Caesars $5 Campaigns’. Yeah, we all want to write three-minute epics. But the ability to make something so funny in such a condensed time frame is a lesson in comedy writing.
Special mention to ‘I Think You Should Leave’ - ‘Brian’s Hat’. The insight is as perfect as they come.
LBB> My first professional project…
Doug and Joe> The first project we worked on was probably a line for a Now TV poster. The one that comes to mind was for the launch of the final season of 24. It had taken forever to come out, so I think the line was “It’s About Time”.
LBB> The piece of work that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…
Doug and Joe> We only vow to try and never put Steven Bartlett in an ad pretending it changed his life, when realistically he’s just a major investor in said product.
LBB> The piece of work that still makes me jealous…
Doug and Joe> Too many.
‘Helmet Has Always Been a Good Idea’ - Danish Road Safety Council
‘Cats With Thumbs’ - Cravendale
‘Sword Collector’ - Land Rover
Does having so many make us very jealous people?
LBB> The creative project that changed my career…
Doug and Joe> This is a hard one, but probably winning UK Cannes Young Lions whilst on placement at WCRS. It got us a job and meant we could eat more than baked beans and Pot Noodles!
LBB> The work that I’m proudest of…
Doug and Joe> We were given £60k to launch a beer for Greene King called Ice Breaker. It took a lot of discipline to make the ads funny and cheap!
LBB> I was involved in this and it makes me cringe…
Doug and Joe> It makes us cringe so much we would prefer not to say. If you know, you know.
LBB> The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…
Doug and Joe> It never came out. But we recently made a music video for a drum-and-bass DJ. The track had this distinct, trumpet laden chorus. We had zero money but a concept based around the idea that glass blowers look like they’re playing the trumpet when they blow glass.
We found this beautiful documentary footage from the 1950s and worked with our friend and editor Navid Daryan who found all these wonderful cuts and actions that matched the body of the track.
We'll release it when the copyright runs out... In a few decades.
