Goodbye Yigit

An old picture of Yigit and I partying at The Fuse, Brussels

There's never a good moment to say goodbye. This was especially the case when saying goodbye to my former art-director Yigit. On Friday evening me and a group of Yigit's Turkish friends went to a movie festival in Brussels. When they left, I seemed to lack words for a proper goodbye. And afterwards, when I went back into the bar, there was this feeling of emptiness that I've experienced so much these last few years when saying goodbye to friends/family/colleagues/schoolmates.

Working together as a creative team is tough. If you work together you see each other more than anyone else. Even more than your friends, girlfriend or family. Besides that, there's a lot at stake when working as a team, so it creates a lot of tension. If you only manage to get along with each other a little bit, it's already a great achievement. The unique thing with Yigit is that besides being a great colleague, he was also a good friend. And we managed to stay friends during the course of the year even though we had our inevitable differences every once in a while. We shared the same weird taste of music and moves and on a regular basis we went out together in either Antwerp or Brussels to go to a movie or a concert.

There's a lot of things that made an ever lasting impression on me. Like the time we were dressed up as Hunter Thompson and Dr. Gonzo from Fear and loathing in Las Vegas during the Duval skitrip. Or that our teamwork resulted in good campaigns for Bongo, Hyundai, De Lijn, Bazooka and the Donor Foundation. Or the time when we were sitting in front of Yigit's laptop to check if we've won a Eurobest or not. How we cheered when we checked the very last page of the Bronze-section and saw that our ad actually won. I'll never forget when he made electropunk DJ T. Raumschmiere laugh by telling him -while standing on the stage- that the audience of that evening is lame and that his music deserves the more enthusiastic crowd in Germany. Yigit is somebody who makes no compromises in both making creative ads and in partying. And this combination worked for me.

Right now he's in Istanbul to arrange his visa papers. For Yigit a new adventure starts soon in Warshaw, Poland. His new teampartner is a young copywriter called Anna Gadecka. I was amazed by the creative level of Anna's portfolio when I saw it for the first time and I'm sure that these two will be a successful team together. An agency called Brain was lucky enough to discover these two mega talents and was smart enough not to wait until the recession is over and to hire them immediately. Goodbye Yigster! And thanks for all the good work that made my first year at Duval a successful one.