Wieden+Kennedy 12.3 graduated last night. Family and friends and all former 12′ers flew in from all over the world to celebrate. The night began with dinner at the Cleaners restaurant in SW Portland.

Dan Wieden and Gregg Clampffer (12.1)

Wieden+Kennedy 12, Year 1, 2 and 3

Around 8:30 a marching band from a local high school began playing outside.The band marched throughout downtown Portland and took us back to the agency. Traffic stopped and people cheered as we passed by.

The graduation ceremony took place in the atrium. Jelly showed all the work that was done over the past year and diplomas and awards were handed out. Then it was up to the roof for food and drinks and DJ’s and belly dancers and photo booths and a pinata filled with cash and prizes.

At 2am all four years of 12 met and the new 12.4 class introduced themselves. 12.4 Starts Monday morning.

12 Year 3 is done. We wish them well.

We’ll give you an update on what each of the 12 are doing next later this week.

“April Fools” is a book featuring the photographs and thoughts by W+K employees from around the world. Cameras were given to each staff member in Portland, New York, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo and Shanghai and we were asked to photograph normally private aspects of our lives. This included everything from our bathrooms to ourselves at 3am to our refrigerators to our garbage to our favorite pair of shoes.

The W+K 25 book with slip cover image of co-founders, Dan Wieden and David Kennedy half-asleep at 3am.

W+K staffer waking up in the morning.

Portraits of the toilets of the W+K staff around the world. A few were filled with unknown objects.

And some inner thoughts written by WK staff around the world.

The book was designed by Jelly Helm, Jeff Williams, W+K 12, Chris Soli, Christin Spagnoli, Qiao Lin, Paul Levy, Olivia DeJongh, Rebecca Kading, Aaron lee and Shari Eiesland. A big thanks to Kay Zerr for handling the production of the book. No easy task.

The Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival (PDX Film Fest for short) is taking place April 25-29, 2007 at the historic Hollywood Theatre. Founded and organized by local filmmakers, the festival will showcase provocative, artistic, and firmly uncompromising films from around the globe.

Studio’s own Chris Larson, also of Antlerand fame, will be premiering his short “ISI” as part of Saturday’s Shorts Program #3 along with a selection of films by other local artists. “ISI” is the essence of a person conveyed in color, motion and sound. For those who cannot make it, we will be posting the film on this very blog next week.

(1:00 PM, $7, $40 for a festival pass)

more info: http://www.peripheralproduce.com/pdx_film_fest/2007/