PES: Film

"Western Spaghetti" by PES

Found this video the other day and fell in love with it, so cleverly created! Definitely worth a look.
Like this? Check out more of their films at www.eatpes.com

Magazine Creation

A video by Matt Willey showing his decision making process for his page design for the Royal Academy Magazine. A well recognised procedure and a good insight to how the final project is achieved and what designers go through to get it.

Give Us A Call

Just in case you felt like jumping. (Golden Gate, Sans Francisco, CA.)

Dali's Bench

This photograph was taken outside the Salvador Dali Museum in St Petersburg, Florida. A very unique and appropriate bench design I thought!

www.salvadordalimuseum.org

A Kiss From Heinz

Heinz Deli Server Mum : Banned Ad
Agency: AMV BBDO

What is it exactly trying to advertise? - Heinz Deli style Mayo?!
And why exactly was it taken off air? - Apparently it received over 200 complaints in the UK saying that it was offensive and inappropriate, so was removed after just less than a week on air.

The basic idea of the ad is that the mom is really a lady, but in the kids' eyes and her husband, she's a dude working in a New York deli, hence the American accent. The ad was meant to come across as a humorous metaphor for great tasting sandwiches. But it seems like the British public just didn't get it.

AMV BBDO say that the concept behind the campaign is that the product tastes so good, "It's as if you have your own New York deli man in your kitchen." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/24/asa.advertising)

Is the advert too gay? - nowadays gay people can have families in todays modern society too; are people still shocked by this concept? The ads removal could be interpreted that Heinz is ashamed of their commercial and are taking a step backwards. Many might feel that this action shows an unsupportive view of gays hence reflecting a negative light on Heinz as a company.
This also raises the question if we should fully inform children that there are both heterosexual and homosexual alternatives and let them see role models and examples of each in the media?

So are we all just looking a little too deeply into a commercial which is simply taking an alterative approach trying to to be original in order to capture people's attention. It just shows how sensitive todays public market is; however it must be worth taking the risk as the response to such adverts like this one is so unpredictable; and either way seems to generate enough media attention to the brand and the new product.

It is seemed that Heinz have managed to dig itself a hole with regards to the controversial issues surrounding gay rights. Personally I don't have a problem with the ad at all; and see no reason why it shouldn't be on air. However i did find the reaction to it very interesting.

What do you reckon - should it have been left on air?

Cultural Differences

When we must wear goggles, the Italians have nothing over us.

Drink Like A Man

A recent campaign created by TBWA\London.

The aim of this campaign is to try and tackle the growing problem of female binge drinking within the UK. The ad is based on the belief that women are more likely to change their drinking habits to preserve their looks rather than to maintain good health. This is a worryingly concept but entirely believable in todays society. TBWA discovered through research that weight gain is more likely to make women reconsider their drinking habits than heart disease.

The campaign chooses to use humour and vanity to communicate the dangers of alcohol rather than the usual shock factors or preaching tactics. (Will the humour backfire meaning the message isn't taken seriously and thus shrugged off and ignored??!) TBWA claim that through making people laugh the ad will triggers conversations between friends and drive talkability, firmly rooting the campaign in popular culture, helping the message spread amongst its target audience. How effective this campaign will be its hard to say, but personally i like the new angle they've taken on this current problem; however i feel the visuals could be even more realistic/shocking, maybe through using a younger model...

The Whale Hunt: An Interactive Website

Click on begin whale hunt!

This website is amazing; it's a very complex way of telling a personal story through multiple photos ......definitely worth checking out! Produced to perfection.
A brief explanatory extract about the purpose of the website below...

"...to experiment with a new interface for human storytelling. The photographs are presented in a framework that tells the moment-to-moment story of the whale hunt. The full sequence of images is represented as a medical heartbeat graph along the bottom edge of the screen, its magnitude at each point indicating the photographic frequency (and thus the level of excitement) at that moment in time. A series of filters can be used to restrict this heartbeat timeline, isolating the many sub-stories occurring within the larger narrative (the story of blood, the story of the captain, the story of the arctic ocean, etc.). Each viewer will experience the whale hunt narrative differently, and not necessarily in a linear fashion, constructing his or her own understanding of the experience."

SCOTT KING

Whilst working on a magazine project I came across the work of Scott King.
He uses some really vibrant, impact making layouts which doesn't appear in your regular magazine. It creates a variety to the article. Perhaps a bit behind in todays magazine layouts though- personal preference though i suppose.

Typographic Music Video

by Ace Norton

A pretty surreal type video- an interesting angle.

New Building Coming Soon

Whilst visiting Florence in Italy a few weeks ago I spotted these niffy outdoor boards which try to disguise the building work which is taking place. I've heard of this before but never actually seen it about so it was good to see in real use and see just how effective it really is. I particularly like how they've placed what would be there if building work wasn't going on; trying to make everything blend in; thus making the city more visually appealing.

zzz: is playing grip

Ambient Media For Buses

Change your nose cup

Came across this niffy piece of product design, quite funky i thought. Seen something like this before so is prehaps getting a little bit common and therefore the effect is less striking, this calls for news ideas!

Play-Doh Perfume

Found this on a site the other day....how rediculous is that?? And who would want to smell of play-doh anyway? Crazy!

A City With No Ads

An advertisment for Sky Movies about taking away ads....kind of controversial? But it shows the blank spaces where ads would be, and makes those spaces seem almost beautiful.

Cambrian Organics

Cambrian organics -
Some branding and packaging designed by 'Stillsdesign' for a group of welsh farms who produce premium organic meat to sell to the major supermarkets such as Tescos and Waitrose. The design idea is to reinforce the unique quality of the enterprise and its organic credentials. It's minimal packaging utilising as little materials as possible.
The ways its been illustrated is appealing with a rough organic edge (through colours used) to it with the heavy type and bold imagery. It also comes across as quite trendy and would definitly grab my attention among the 'meat' aisle in the supermarket.

An Old Michelin Ad

The message here, of course, is "if you don't lay out the extra cash for Michelin tires, you are going to kill your own child." A strong message which gets translated across through the imagery shown. The designers here have opted for a shock approach, trying to hit their consumers with a dose of reality which really works.

Marmite Ad

Advertiser: UNILEVER BESTFOODS
Product or Service: MARMITE SQUEEZY SPREAD
Entrant Company: DDB LONDON
Country: UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency: DDB LONDON
Country: UNITED KINGDOM
Creative Director: Jeremy Craigen
Copywriter: Theirry Albert
Art Director: Damien Bellon
Photographer: Andy Rudak
Illustrator: Dermot Flynn @ Dutch Uncle
Account Supervisor: Tamsin Northridge/Jonathan Trimble

The series of ads shown above are great. They play on the marmites tagline of 'you love it or you hate it' well. Picking particular people or topics which are also a 'love them or hate them' character. This kind of advertising really appeals to me as they are using the product's key identity and adapting it to create a really clever ad, with a link thats clearly obvious.

Art For London Underground

Whilst on the topic of the "London Underground" I thought i'd post the famous advertising poster "The Tate Gallery by The Tube" by David Booth, 1987. (Agency: The Fine White Line)



The brief set for this work by 'London Underground' was to simply create something decorative to cover up the empty advertising spaces on the underground.
I like how they've created an advert for the gallery, which is designed by 'the tube' - which links in cleverly with the paint tube displayed and london underground tubes. The actual work is a photograph of real paint laid out in the style of the underground map using the correct colours for realism. Its very simple and I reckon the copy completes the the design, giving it that witty edge which makes people remember it. And remember it they did, hence it was nominated as one of the ten best posters in the world!

David Shrigley

I came across a last years free fold out tube map of the london underground the other day, noticing it was nicely illustrated by David Shrigley. The illustration follows the original design produced by Harry Beck, taking a comical or some may say an opposite perspective, displaying a present-day response to the rational certainties implied by Beck.
The design of the london underground tube map implies - "getting from A to B is a simple matter."
However as many personally know nowadays travelling via tube is not so simple, and the Shrigley's chaos probably portrays a picture closer to the truth.



When looking through his website I managed to find a small collection of work which personally appealed to me. I particulary like his style of simplistic monotone rough-edged illustrations.


The one above made me chuckle. Its so uncomplicated, almost effortless, yet witty at the same time. This particulary reminded me of the cards and products made by Edward Monkton, whos illustrations I also enjoy very much.



His illustrations certainly prove that colour and details aren't always a necessity to successful work.
Shrigley also takes photographs which can be easily viewed on his website, one which caught my eye labelled 'Giraffe', is shown below...

Halls 'Defense' Sweet

The general idea behind these outcomes is good, it clear that the illustrations fit in well with the copy "Protect Yourself", highlighting the fact that the cough sweets will protect you against illness. Even the idea behingd the illustrations is good - with the sweet steping into another defense/protect situation. I particulary like the the rollar blade one, maybe because the sweets' squareness suitably fits in. Hower one critism I would say is that maybe the style of the illustrations could be stronger, in an alternative way, something to give the idea a greater impact which it deserves.

Morrison's Revamp

Has anyone noticed the new Morrison's logo?

Apparently Morrison's is undergoing a revamp alongside getting a new chairman. So they've decided to declutter their stores (getting rid of all those market stalls), change their slogan from "More reason's to shop at Morrison's...." to "Fresh for you every day"/"Fresh choice for you" (bit confused which one is the slogan and which is for the ad campaign, anyone know?)
...They've taken away the only thing people really associate with Morrison's which is that slogan.

The actual logo on the other hand WAS awlful with the stark yellow and black M, but now with the change, its STILL alwful. Few commented it looks like the Somerfield logo a bit and I have to say that I agree. The money spent on such a drastic change in my opinion was not well spent! What do you think??

Nicholas Manion

www.nickolya.net

Nicholas Manion is a student at the Queensland College of Art, Brisbane. The work above is part of his collection "Works In Paper", which demonstrates aims "...to transform a commonplace material and create something extroadinary...".

The image shows sillohettes of cities made out of differnt currency notes.
On his website he comments... "Money circles the globe forming links between cities on opposite sides of the world. I must give them a voice and share the stories they tell..."
This line of copy is great! It has a powerful edge to it, maybe if there was a bigger link with this copy to the artwork the purpose of the work would be better defined??

Personally I wouldn't go as far as saying Manion has created something "extroadinary", but nevertheless he has discovered an interesting link between different currency and how it travels from country to country. Using a creative hand to display city outlines on different notes; I feel however something more could've been done to give it that finishing touch, what that is though i'm not sure.

Craig Ward

www.wordsarepictures.co.uk
Ward is a typographic designer and illustrator based in the Uk.

The three images above are a varied collection from his online porfolio "words are pictures", they reveal the wide range of his work.
The first called "Alphabet City// oo2 London" A typographic interpretation of London, on inspection you can notice how the arrangement of words spell out symbolic places which create the city. The vibrant use of colours and the varied sizes of the type shows creativity and adds interest to the work.

The second is a typeface called "Talking Heads". I picked this out because it amused me on first impression. The faces almost talk to one another but blend in well with the letters, creating a whole and not two parts as a letter and a face. The usability of this typeface is probably questionable, however it's evident that the pure design effect it has upon sight is worth it.

Thirdly, some protional artwork for six degrees album. This one takes a different approach to typography, using a hands on style with the rearrangemenrt of mathematical protractors. It works well with the name and is just about legible, giving the onlooker a slight challenge to discover the copys' content; however it's instantly recognisable once seen once.

Bookshelf

On the same website as below I discovered this splendid bookshelf design, which I thought looked great, very unique, obviously it comes with its problems - have to keep the same books there.
It has been designed by Mike and Maaike, the main idea is to create all the books at the same height, hence saying each book is just as important as the other, no one book reigns the shelf.

There are also more bookshelves produced by other designers including one made with a pogo stick and one that makes the books appear as if they are floating. Some great product design.

Judging Books By Their Covers

We all know we do it. Pick up a book because of its attractive, appealing cover. Assuming the contents will mirror the style of its outer self. But how often are we satifised?

Check out this nice book cover site
You can click on the covers which then leads to more details about the book's design. A great site if you were looking for book covers inspiration.

Disabled Banner

This is an internet banner produced by Mcaan Erickson (Brazil)
Can be found by clicking: Banner

Discovered this internet banner the other day, it objective is to show the difficulties disabled people have, in this case focusing on people in wheelchairs. The banner has been cleverly produced with a horizontal scroll bar, which makes a man in a wheelchair move across a pedestrian crossing, just over halfway it gets stuck trying to get over the curb. A message then comes up highlighting the charity it supports.

However would people actually be tempted to scroll along or would it be ignored? There also needs to be a call to action at the end like a phone number which people could donate too maybe to add more of a purpose to the banners' existence.

Overall though I think its a clever idea, taking a different perspective to get a cross an important message!

Beans For Thought

Client: Jelly Belly
Copywriter: Geoff Skigen
Art Director: David Swope
Photographer: Larry Kunkel
www.swopecreative.com

Above shows a series of eyecatching billboards which consist of tons of jelly beans glued together (manually by hand) to create these copy based ads. Each has a humorous catchy slogan which is attention grabbing -however also slightly controversial in the sense for example, "sharing is so overrated" implies being selfish is good, or that eating jelly bellys is better than eating a healthy meal.
Yet the tone of these ads suggest they are trying to be slighlty comical anf fun (targeting thier audience too), meaning the copy itself isnt the message which the ads are projecting - instead its eat more jelly bellys because its fun, exciting, and most of all tasty.
I think the main attraction for me from these ads is the way in which they have been produced; made from the product itself, this lends itself detail through texture and depth to the ads...which I think overall makes all the difference.

MTV2 Brand Identity

Client: MTV2
Designer: Stacy Drummond
Art Director: Jim Debarros
Creative Director: Jeffrey Keyton
Producer: Leslie Legare

This identity caught my eye the other day, its of a particular style which seems to appeals to me.
The MTV2 identity has been designed with its audience in mind - young males, fans of rock and hip­hop.
They made a radical decision to break away from the MTV logo and rebrand the network completely in order to suit their audience better.
The idea behind it... the dog is a man's best friend, adding a freaky/outrageous twist with the double heads (ties in with it being the "2nd" channel too)...ment to reflect the untamed nature of the MTV2 channel.
Unexpected, sometimes shocking, unpredictable and unruly define the new MTV2.

MY VIEW: Theres a level of wit and sophistication evidence in this identity which communicates well with its target audience. Its simplicity style (single colour and outlined shape) adds to its impact, and the type in the centre is clear an obvious- instantly telling you who they are.