I didn’t set out to be mentored by masonry, but a wall in Watford has long shaped my creative ambitions.
Not just any wall.
Tony Cullingham’s ‘Relevant & Radical’ Wall.
It was simple. Brutal, even.
Our ideas were publicly judged and assigned to one of four quadrants, where they were forced to confront their creative mortality.
Irrelevant & Boring: the graveyard.
Radical & Irrelevant: exciting, but pointless.
Relevant & Boring: safe, sensible, invisible.
Relevant & Radical: the elusive bullseye.
Nobody landed in that fourth quadrant often.
That was the point.
It taught me early that most ideas aren’t good enough, not because they lack imagination, but because they lack alignment.
That framework has stayed with me ever since.
Today, I’m an advertising creative, artist, writer, creative director and co-founder.
I build brands, create long term multi-year (sometimes decades) advertising platforms, lead teams, and develop ideas designed to travel across channels, cultures and conversations.
Whatever the project I still start with the same two questions:
Is it relevant?
Is it radical?
Relevant means it connects to the product, the audience, the moment.
Radical means it refuses to be ignored.
Too much of modern marketing settles for one without the other.
The Wall may be long gone, but the principle still guides everything I do.
Chant Happy has a diverse tonal range whereas Chant & Be Happy is a tone of meditative mantra originated by Swami Prabhupada and practiced by all four of The Beatles. Just like Swami and the boys I believe that creativity is the key to eternal happiness. So, join the chorus and take a trip down the rabbit hole to see if we can all live happily, forever.
bonjourchant.com
