by Herman Manson (@marklives) What happens when two ad execs leave their jobs and step out into the world? Yes, there is life beyond advertising. Joburgers Chanel Cartell and Stevo Dirnberger did just that when they set off on 2 June 2015 on an around-the-globe trip being chronicled on their blog, How Far From Home. During their journey, they have been using photography, illustration, video, writing and design to keep the creative juices flowing.
We ask the couple, who are speakers at Design Indaba 2016, how their views on advertising have evolved since they set off.
Over to Chanel & Stevo:
We set off on our journey to re-energise our souls, and to reinvigorate our creativity.
From the beginning of our journey, we tried to distance ourselves away from the life we led back home, whether that was with brands we interacted with, the places we would visit, or things we would buy. As travellers, we soon adopted a “living with less” mentality. All we needed were the clothes on our backs, a place to stay, and some food in our bellies. We didn’t want to accumulate things. We didn’t want to stay in five-star hotels and be seen at the coolest pubs. We soon realised that life-changing experiences were what we wanted.
And so we went on to spend a lot of our time exploring wild areas, far way from the cities. It was incredible to see how our senses grew stronger, and were even heightened. When we would take a walk in central Sweden, for example, our eyes would be wide open, adjusting to the big spaces; we would be in the moment, in search of wildlife. We would look for details, and our ears would tune into the nature sounds around us. When we got back to the big cities, it was very overwhelming; we forgot how much noise there is in a city, and we don’t only mean the buzz of traffic — we mean the messages that were being thrown at us too. We have this theory that we protected ourselves when [we] were living at home, by crawling into bubbles just to avoid self-destruction from all these messages. That’s not to say we completely disconnected from all communication, as our relationship with social media was probably the only constant with advertising and branding. That is where we engaged the most with brands, but it was driven mostly because we wanted to stay in touch with friends and family from all around the world.
We have learnt that stepping away from the media is essential, and it’s getting more important as there is more and more clutter screaming for our attention every day.
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Herman Manson (@marklives) is the founder and editor of MarkLives.com. He was the inaugural Vodacom Social Media Journalist of the Year in 2011 and has, over his 20-year-plus career, contributed to numerous journals and websites in South Africa and abroad, including AdVantage magazine, Men’s Health, Computer World and African Communications.
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