The City By Night

Steve Coogan's been popping up all over the place recently - Mid-Morning Matters, with Alan Partridge; The Jonathan Ross Show, with Alan Partridge; I Partridge, We Need to Talk About Alan (written by Alan Partridge). Of his recent spate of cross-platform aquantancings, however, this animated short is certainly the most left-field. Entitled 'The Beautiful City', the film is a stylish noir set in a dark metropolis and plays out like Sin City re-written by Alan Moore and visualised by Saul Bass. It's pretty intriguing stuff.

Coogan plays '99 John', a drug dealer operating out of the back of an ice-cream van. He rides around, flogging pills and wryly chronicling the dark deeds and dirty deals of the city. The hitch? He's mute, making us his only witnesses.

This episode is the first in a series of animations that'll be available for free download later in the year. The series promises to feature voice talents from a who's who of great British character actors, including Kathy Burke, Keith Allen and Howard Marks. All this and an excellent score by German jazz-men Kammerflimmer Kollektief make this series a must-watch in 2012...

A T-Shirt Speaks a Thousand Words... The Boys

Like it or not, we're a judgmental lot. It comes totally naturally: we each have our individual set of preconceptions and associations and we assign a certain meaning to nearly everything we see and run with it. Brain boffins call this 'consciousness'. Consciousness is a unique and private thing. It's our experience of the world around us, and it gives the objects of our lives a context and meaning that is entirely individual to us. It also means that, mostly, we've decided who a person is before they've opened their mouths to speak a word to us.

Given this, one might argue that fashion is our way of attempting to second-guess people's personal experiences of us. Throwing on a band tee, or one that reads 'GET IT HERE', sends a clear message - one we have chosen to be our first-response public face. They say "this is the me I want you to see"...

Or maybe it's just about sticking it to the man, now and always, through the clothage...

Either way, when the Taschen VINTAGE T-SHIRTS tome landed in our office, we got the FF family each to pick out their three favourite designs. The results offer a unique insight into who we are as individuals, how we'd like to be perceived, the stuff we dig and the stuff we don't dig (maaaan). And, on this glorious Monday afternoon, we give you the men of Fearlessly Frank, and their weapons of choice...

We Need to Talk About Kevin

As an industry, we're more than fond of a few accolades, awards and a bit of corporate backslapping. We work hard, we play hard and at the end of the day, everyone gets a big pencil.

But what about the other guys? The guys who, were they not to do the things they do, there would be no big pencils? Every agency has at least one: an Unsung Hero - the men and women who do magical things must us couldn't begin to comprehend, but without which we would all find ourselves unable to function.

This one goes out to the IT guys. This one goes out to engine that drives our machine. This one goes out to our man in the cupboard. This one goes out to Kevin Mayberry.

Proof of Life

In celebration of the launch of two new HTC handsets, the ONE S and the ONE X, we sent our good friend and uber-photographer James Hope-Falkner across Europe.

His mission: road test the handsets' incredible camera features in some of the most beautiful cities in the world. He came back with thousands of terrific shots, and his adventure was documented every step of the way by freshest-faced member of the Fearlessly Frank family. Now, for your viewing pleasure, we present James Hope-Falker in Laura Little's 'PROOF OF LIFE'...

Happy Birthday, Mr Little!

It’s our first February 29^th in a while, and it feels good – especially since we get to send a great big Fearlessly Frank cheer to the man that started it all – the man that made all this possible: Mr David Little.

Of course, David Little isn’t just the father and mentor of our fearless leader, Ben – he’s also one of the best in the business. His work is legendary - 'Burn This Ad' (below, top) is described in the D&AD REWIND book as being “one of the best pieces of direct mail of all time”.

Today is David Little's 17th birthday... sort of. As such, we'd like you all to join us in three cheers to The Godfather of Fearlessly Frank. Hipp-hipp...