By: Ekrem Dupanović
Today is a big day for me. While you are reading this text, I’ll be at Printera printing house in Zagreb, taking over the first copies of the book The Best of Adriatic Creative Directors. In the afternoon, at 16:00h, at the Zagreb restaurant Lobby I’ll meet with a hundred of my friends at the promotion of the book.
The Best of CDs is one of my greatest adventures in life. It was easy to decide to start writing a book, it also wasn’t a problem to choose creative directors who deserve to be represented in it, or even form a sizable team that would support me in the realization of this – it later turned out – crazy idea. When the communication started with people to whom I dedicated the book, more serious problems started to appear. The delay in response, sending of bad visuals, sending unrepresentative pictures of CDs … I had started writing in April / April, and by the beginning of June I decided to give up. I thought that I would never be able to finish it. A stroke of luck came in the form of the Cannes Lion for Jana, then the first communication with Iva Balent, her invitation to Zagreb for a coffee, the meeting and an incredible positive energy… As I drove the car from Zagreb to Sarajevo, I realized that Jana’s campaign must be in the book, ie, that the book must come out to testify the first Cannes Lion for Croatia. After returning home, until late at night, I was reviewing the materials that I received and started making the plan of the book. I thought I would be able to finish it by the Weekend Media Festival, but then Žare Kerin, art director on the project, began to discipline me. He sent back half the materials … and that’s the story you already know from the previous diary log. The book was thus finished only today.
So, thanks to Iva Balent, the unknowing culprit in the fact that this book actually came out.
Thank you Vedrana, who suffered all my frustrations and helped me overcome the crises which occurred.
Thank you Asja, my daughter, who believed that I would finish the book and constantly encouraged me.
Thank you Filip, my son, who in the most important moment for the book came back from the Netherlands, and thus relieved me off the paternal worries, and promised to do a web page of the book. I have finished the book and almost the entire print run has already been sold out, while Filip still hasn’t finished the website. But it doesn’t matter, it’s important that he was by my side.
Thank you Zvezdana Žujo who tormented me to finish the book Hotel Yugoslavia, not even thinking that The Best must come first.
Thank you I&F McCann Group, whose timely sponsorship enabled the project to be implemented at all.
Thank you Žare Kerin, Marjan Božič and Žiga Gliho from the Futura DDB who enriched the book with brilliant design and layout.
Thank you to Zagreb printing house Printera, which also suffered frustrations and frequent changes at the last minute, and still printed a book that I can show off with anywhere in the world. Special thanks go to Mirko Koren from the Printera.
Thanks to advertisers without whose ads we could hardly finance the production of such a complex project.
Thank you (from north to south) Janez, Aljoša, Blaž, Vito, Mare, Žare, Toni, Davor, Nikola, Vanja, Igor, Ivo, Almir, Jelena, Sean, Vladimir, Jana, Svetlana, Ana, Ivana, Žarko, Nebojša, Ajna, Bojan, Ivica and Vasilije who’s work inspired me to write the book, and who sent their campaigns.
I owe the greatest thanks to Ozren, Alma, Mersiha, Adnan, Gina, Amir and Filip who were the backbone of the team that worked on the book the whole time.
Tomorrow morning you can read how the promotion in Zagreb went.
16 December 2016.
