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Boet Fighter/KFC collab wins Silver and Bronze at 2020 Bookmark (Digital) Awards

At last night’s 2020 Bookmark Awards (South Africa’s benchmark awards ceremony for digital media, advertising and content), Boet Fighter’s collaboration with KFC South Africa/Ogilvy SA/Mindshare picked up two awards; a Silver and a Bronze. The awards were a recognition of our collaboration to create custom Boet Fighter arcade machines for KFC’s stand at Comic Con […]

Five Great Books to Get You into Science

Science classes in school – at least when I was growing up – did a lot more harm than good in terms of my scientific literacy and my eagerness to grow it. Laborious, beige textbooks full of graphs and math. Jaded teachers (most of ’em anyways – I did have one or two winners) with […]

Toon: Rhinofish

This is an old favourite of mine from about 2002 or 2003, while I was studying advertising at Vega. I drew it with pen, scanned it, and then crudely painted it in an early version of Photoshop. Sadly, those files were lost years ago. Finally, I’ve gotten round to redrawing it. I’ll repaint it in […]

Toon: Three-toed Sloth

An old idea that I drew years ago, but then lost and forgot about somewhere along the line. At the request of my dear friend and Facing The Gallows guitarist, James “Flames” Irving, I resurrected him using the Procreate App for iPad Pro and gave him a little upgrade. I’m really quite fond of him…

Why social media might be last thing you need right now

You’d kinda expect it would be the opposite, right? While many of us are self-isolating – either out of choice or by mandate – you’d think the internet connecting us to friends, family and acquaintances near and far, would be just what the psychiatrist ordered. If ever there was a moment for the internet (and […]

That Guy Over There

I love to see my friends each day,And tell them all hello.I love to give them lots of hugs,I’m sad to see them go.I’m happy each and every time,There’s something new to share!I love to greet most everyone…But that guy, over there. I only want the best for folks,My friends and family.I want to see […]

Book Review: “Factfulness”, by Hans Rosling

This might be one of the most important books I’ve ever read. Turns out we (and I mean all of us) are wrong about just about everything. Especially matters of global scale. It’s in our nature. It’s in our culture. And it’s in our systems. To see things as they really are requires some learning […]

2019 HSBC Cape Town 7s digital/TTL/Radio Campaign a Blazing Success!

I headed up last year’s 7s campaign for the fifth time in seven* years, and it was bigger, better and more effective than ever! SARU are an ongoing – and favourite – client of mine. Each year (just about*) I have the honour of heading up the marketing campaign for the HSBC Cape Town Sevens […]

The People Who Forgot to Be Nice

A poem I wrote because people on the Internet make me sad sometimes. UPDATE: This will soon be published as an illustrated children’s book, under my new publishing company, Turtlebird Books. Keep an eye out for that. Thanks to everyone who demanded I finally get around to it! There once were some people, Who were […]

How to Get Started as a Voice-over Artist

It’s a question I get asked all the time. How did I get started as a VO artist? And, how can others do the same? Well, let’s get you started, shall we… The voice-over industry. It’s one of those catch-22 vibes, where the more work you’ve done, the more work you tend to get. Which […]

Tutuka website relaunch, rewrite and brand refresh

During 2020, I was brought on board by the good people at Tutuka, to help them plan and then execute the copy for a brand-new website redesign, rebuild, rebrand and relaunch. The site is no longer live, as of December 2021, since the merging and rebranding of the company to Paymentology. I was brought on […]

Review: Mortal Kombat 11 (for LW Mag)

My long-time homies over at LW Mag made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: review the brand new Mortal Kombat 11 game, and they’d hook me up a free copy. Truth be told, I’d have happily reviewed it for free. Such is the level of my Mortal Kombat nerdery. This also means, though, that my […]

Gord Laws Character Acting Voice-over Showcase

This was fun. I let all the voices in my head have an argument about whether I’m any good as a voice artist. The result? Inconclusive… You decide. Actually, this is far from all the voices I can do, but we only had so much time during my portfolio-update recording session I did when I […]

The Gareth Cliff Show: Decimal Dan, the “Ront/Cent” Man

There were some hysterics on the show this week. Also, it turns out, the name of our currency is actually pronounced “Ront”, which is a little depressing… Check out this Wednesday’s episode of the Gareth Cliff Showon CliffCentral, where we discussed South Africa’s move from the British Pound’s Imperial currency system, to the decimal-based Rand, […]

Toons: “High Diver” doodle series

A simple series of little doodles I very quickly sketched in my notepad during a long and not terribly interesting meeting some time last year (2018). I didn’t think all that much of them, except that it was a fun way to pass a few minutes. But, when I posted a pic on my Instagram, […]

John the Horny Panda

I’m so happy was able to find this old poem of mine. I wrote it in 2012 for an entertainment website I used to co-author with my buddy Dale. A few years ago, though, the hosting lapsed and the backups were lost, along with a bunch of my favourite poems. I managed to find this […]

SA Boet Hard Eddy Narrates a Game Drive (Parts 1 & 2)

A “new” video of an SA Boytjie narrating a game drive has been doing the rounds again. It’s actually Part Two in a 2016 series where my alter ego, Hard Eddy, jols some schweet, kak-informative descriptions over a wildlife video shot by my charnas at PVR films… Sadly, these videos, which seem to go viral […]

Movie Review: Alita: Battle Angel

Ho. Lee. Shit. I loved this movie. Let’s just clarify that upfront. That said, it’s a manga adaptation, and it’s pretty damn over-the-top, so it’s never going to be everyone’s cup of tea. But it certainly was mine. A sci-fi/CGI/superhero/manga mashup unlike anything I have ever seen. A total mindtrip. Utterly gorgeous to look at. […]

Gord Laws interviewed on The North South Podcast

The cool guys from The North South Podcast invited me to be an interview subject on their podcast. Never one to shy away from conversation, of course I said yes. If, for some reason, you’re interested in hearing me talk about me – a lot – this is the podcast for you! We got into […]

Movie Review: Captain Marvel

It feels like there was a lot of hype around this one. According to some, this has something to do with a female protagonist, and something else about a “feminist agenda” in Hollywood, and blah, blah, blah. Yawn. Like Black Panther (which was just a very good movie), this was either going to be good […]

The Gareth Cliff Show: Cloacas, R Kelly, and people who are offensively attractive

This morning’s episode of the Gareth Cliff Show was an especially funny one (if I may say so myself). As usual, we got into the stuff that really matters. Like, R Kelly’s “black room”, fat people on aeroplanes, how birds have one all-purpose sewage tube, and why some people are blessed with more handsomeness than […]

How to work out what you should charge as a freelancer

First of all… Don’t be sorry. It’s okay to want to earn a decent living. You’re worth it. If you didn’t think you were, you would never have had the ovaries to make the daunting (and sometimes, frankly, terrifying) decision to leave the comfort of a cushy (if, possibly exploitative) job to begin with. And […]

“Raise Up the Streets” TVC featuring Kwesta, written for UrbanArt

This was a really enjoyable project to work on. I was asked by Marketing Exec Angie Daniel at footwear distributor Dangee|Carken to write the concept and voice-over script for a TVC, featuring South African hip hop icon, Kwesta, to announce the launch of his new signature sneaker. The brief allowed me to write in slam-poetry-meets-hip-hop […]

Publicis Groupe Africa “Solar System” Group Structure Graphic Concept

I was pleased, during a recent visit to Publicis Groupe Africa‘s offices in Johannesburg, to notice that a group-structure infographic – depicting the Group itself as the centre of a solar system, with its various divisions and companies within the Group orbiting around it – had popped up at various receptions and other places throughout […]

Business Day “Understand Your Country” TVC (x3) and TTL Campaign, with OwenKessel

Business Day's "Education" TV ad, written by Gord Laws

I’m exceedingly proud to have conceptualised and written this campaign, including three TV ads, for Business Day in 2013. Together with my partner at OwenKessel (now Leo Burnett), Beth Hughes (now Dessington), my ECD Don Bryan, Account Exec Kate Jager (now Hawkins), CD Mike Cook and the champs at Velocity Films, we made some work […]