This is a great design book, where some of them just have pages and pages of images of creative design and ads, which is great for inspiration, this book has real chapters, its highlights different kinds of briefs and projects, talks about the problems and opportunities and goes someway to giving advise on ways to deal with them.... and then there's tons of great examples to illustrate the point. I love it, its a great addition to a designers library.
Problem Solved
This is a great design book, where some of them just have pages and pages of images of creative design and ads, which is great for inspiration, this book has real chapters, its highlights different kinds of briefs and projects, talks about the problems and opportunities and goes someway to giving advise on ways to deal with them.... and then there's tons of great examples to illustrate the point. I love it, its a great addition to a designers library.
Placement Presentation
I had to go into uni last night to speak to 2nd years who are thinking about doing a placement next year and it made me realise how much Ive developed in the past 2 years. They wanted advise on applying for placements, who to speak to, what to send, how to dress, what to ask... and I was stood there thinking, are you seriously asking me some of these questions... but then I realised, two years ago I had no clue how to answer any of these questions and I still have alot to learn and experience but doing my placement at the radio station really did teach me so much, not just about design, but about working life more generally. I am definitely a step closer to being able to go into the big wide world for real and start my career, and thats something I'm started to get really excited about.
modern language
Have you ever used the urban dictionary? It's one of those exactly what it says on the tin things... its a dictionary of modern day language and slang... some of its pretty funny...
A bit of fun
This made me laugh so much today, because its so true, This sort of thing infuriated me last year on placement and Im sure it will for the rest of my design career. I think this is somthing we can all enjoy as creatives!
CN Tower, Toronto
I did a project on work experience at Sector Light in London about skyscrapers around the world. I was helping to put together research to win the marketing of a new tower in London.
I thought at the time that the CN Tower in Toronto was a strange building, its the tallest structure in Toronto, and you can see how it towers above the rest of the skyline in the photo above. Its 553 meters high and until 2007 it was the worlds tallest free standing structure on land, but despite this it is not generally considered a high rise building because it does not have successive floors that can be occupied. I actually think its really quite an ugly building, but it definatley stands out on the skyline. It was interesting to see it first hand after having done so much research on it earlier in the year.
Lego
What a nice campaign, incredibly simple and effective, it sums up good old fashioned innocent play and utilises bold, bright, block colour beautifully. It's interesting how small the logo in the corner is, and needs to be. It is very unobtrusive and gives the design space to speak for itself.
A naughty dinner out
I came across a restaurant in NY called Pinch and S'mac, It serves pizza - by the inch - and 12 varieties of delicious Macoroni and Cheese - I've never seen such a specialised restaurant, and I didn't realise there were 12 different versions of Mac and Cheese + design your own option!
The restaurant formed when two combined, Pizza By The Inch (formerly of Park Avenue South) and Sarita's Macaroni & Cheese (from the East Village) and its branding, (name and logo) are really clever and memorable! The logo depicts exactly what the restaurant serves and how it comes, the pizza in squares and the mac and cheese in a round pan!
Just a little thing - but i liked it!
Free Money
Just saw this advertising piece for 3M Security Glass - What a great simple idea! I wonder how many people tried to break the glass!
Joy-full Advertising
I think what BMW are doing at the moment is great, they have positioned themselves on their website as "the creators of emotion" they have stopped trying to sell cars and are selling the experience of owning a BMW with their JOY campaign. It makes it feel like owning a BMW makes you part of a special club, and it's more than just a car, it's almost a way of life. The websites great too, I especially like the loading page and following copy here: http://www.bmw.co.uk/bmwuk/experience/?experienceKey=JOY
Its just beautifully put together and reflects the quality of the brand, the video is on there too, its a little cheesy if anything, but I think its a great campaign leading on from the giant paintings that were done with cars driving on canvas a while ago. BMW are doing some great campaigns at the moment. It's nice to see!
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
This film was released in 2008, in all honesty I actually haven't seen it but I thought the build up teaser campaign was great.
Billboards and buses appeared before the film was released with copy lines such as "I hate Sarah Marshall" and "you suck Sarah Marshall" followed by the URL for the film's web site.
It was meant to look as if some guy had just bought the advertisng space to get back at an ex. It created a fair amount of attention before the film was released. I think its a great teaser campaign, really simple and effective, and the handwritten type adds to the concept and makes it work.
Compare The Meercat
I know this is really old now - but did everyone realise it's an actual website?! You can search for meercats, see videos and meet the meercat team - amoung other things.
My meercat is called HELIKAT, you choose its hobbies and where it lives and the site finds you a meercat - its fantastic. I saw it when it was sent round the office as a group email at my placement last year - so as annoying as the campaign was, it created alot of talkability and became viral around workplaces. The site is obviously all branded to match the compare the market site and it's fun and entertaining, I think it was a great campaign!
Avenue Q.
Avenue Q is defiantly a musical for people who don't do musicals. I love going to the theatre, and I have laughed and cried in the past at shows, but I have never been so entertained or laughed so much as when I saw Avenue Q on Broadway. Its absolutely hilarious!! The story is played out by a combination of actors and puppets and starts when Princeton, a nieve college grad moves to New York City. The only neighbourhood his small bank balance can pay for is Avenue Q and the story plays out as he attempts to live alone with the help of his neighbours, in the real world. It's a story about real life with songs which include "everyone's a little bit racist" "the internet is for porn" and "If you were gay."
Honestly me and my friends never stopped laughing for a single second! - Go see it!
Innocent Veg Pots
I went to Sainsburys today and was horrified to see these new innocent "veg pots" because they look disgusting! In my opinion this is definitely a case of extending the brand too far, they just don't look appetising and its such a shame because we all know and use innocent smoothies as a truly brilliant example of tone of voice and branding. I've just had a look at the website too and I have to say I'm pretty disappointed, I was expecting it to be fun and friendly like the brand but it's actually a pretty standard, boring site. There's so much scope there for them to do something beautiful with it!
http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/things_we_make/vegpots/
The TV ad is on that page... again I'm not impressed, they could have done so much more with it, I really think the brand is better than this!
Mark Haddon
If you haven't read anything by Mark Haddon yet - you have to. I just finished "A spot of Bother" which is his second adult novel, and it was a "couldn't put it down" read. Infact I left my copy on a bus in America so I had to find a bookshop the next day and buy a second copy! (and the fact I was so short of money I couldn't eat must go someway to explaining how much i wanted to finish the book!) The book is written from the perspective of several different characters and goes back over the same events from each of their viewpoints, which made for an interesting read. I read Haddons award winning first novel, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" a couple of years ago, its written from the perspective of a little boy with Aspergers syndrone, and its a very moving read, similarly his latest novel deals with mental illness from the perspective of the sufferer, but does so in an often amusing way. If your a keen reader give these novels a go!
... and for those of you who are into all this blogging, Haddon has a pretty interesting one on his site... http://www.markhaddon.com/ he is a very interesting and creative individual
Moore from Henry
When I previously mentioned my love of Henry Moores work at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, I forgot that I'd seen this sculpture of his outside of an Art Gallery in Toronto. His style is so his own that his work is instantly recognisable to me without seeing any kind of plaque or info. I think thats really something to aim for, wouldn't it be nice to have your work recognised without having to sign it!
Natural History Museum
At the end of my trip this summer I was left alone in NY for a couple of days before I flew back, so one day I took myself off to the Natural History Museum. Now, I knew it was going to be impressive but I wasn't expecting to be perfectly happy wandering around there for 6 hours perfectly entertained! It's such a cool place full of dinosaur bones, a full size blue whale, beautiful natural gems and a wealth of other things. What I wanted to mention was the Journey to the Stars exhibit, its a short film in a domed planetarium, so you watch it like your under the sky, I've seen this kind of thing in the past at Joderal Bank in Cheshire but the one in NY has just been remade and voiced by Whoopi Goldberg, so Im sure you can image, its very light hearted and fun, it makes the factual stuff really interesting and keeps your attention, the tone of voice of the piece was great, a really well made little film, I was impressed!
Millions
WATCH THIS FILM! It's so good! I watched it on the plane going to America and choose it simply because it was directed by Danny Boyle, and there has been alot of talk about him since the release of Slumdog Millionaire. Anyway... Millions, it's about two boys that find a million pounds, and try to keep it a secret! and the story of what happens next! Its such a lovely little story and its wonderfully directed, the sound tracks great too!
We have all spent probably hours of our lives thinking and talking about "what we would do with a million pounds" and this film is from the perspective of the little boy who does, and he has an endearingly innocent personality, while his older brother just wants to buy the world and have his friends treat him like a king! The film is especially good at showing the conflict between what the two brothers want to do with all the money!
Running with Scissors
Running with Scissors is a 2002 memoir by American writer Augusten Burroughs. I think it's possibly the most bizarre thing I've ever experienced. The book documents the writers teenage years, and the crazy situations he found himself in. His alcoholic father leaves him with his mentally unstable mother and he somehow ends up living with his mothers therapist Dr. Finch, and his family in house with no boundaries or rules. It really is the strangest thing I've ever read... so I rented the film too! and thats just the same totally bizarre but very funny! My only issue with it is that with it being a memoir and not a novel it documents a series of unrelated incidents and therefore doesn't really have an ending as such, interesting and entertaining just the same though!
Niagara Gallery
I was wandering around Niagara Falls passing time waiting for a train, and I came across this lovely little gallery full of local peoples work. It was like an Aladdin's cave of art floor to ceiling, paintings, sculpture, photography and jewelry all done by people in the area and for sale, it was run by a charity and employed people with disabilities to give them some work experience and help them find future employment. It was a really inspirational little gallery, in one corner they had a dinosaur kids area where they ran workshops and book readings for children...
such a lovely place full of lovely ideas and projects.
Gary Toth
Gary Toth is a photographer and graphic designer whose work I saw in a local gallery in Niagara Falls. He had an exhibit up of high dynamic range photographs of landscapes and cars. HDR photography is done using specialist software and alot of his images end up having a very painterly look about them. The final images are created by combining five to seven shots captured simultaneously at different exposures, they end up showing a scene as the human eye sees it - in full detail. Many of his pictures have won awards for his unique approach, I just liked the style of this pieces, the technique he uses really makes them stand out and grab your attention.
Have a look at his other pieces here: http://it-just-clicks.ifp3.com/site/#/page/home/
Spirit of the wild
This images are from a book I picked up at an exhibition of Steve Blooms stunning Photographs. He's a wildlife photographer and has an incredible talent for capturing the personality of his "subjects". his photos are animals in their natural habitats and viewing many of them you get the feeling of seeing them as they are, in secret, without knowing they are being watched. I especially love some of his close up images of animals eyes, so many species in the world and yet seeing all they eyes together in the book somehow brings us together with the animals and gives me a sense that we all share the world and should do more to preserve that. For a photograph to give me those sorts of feelings they really must be good! I would love the opportunity to travel and take photographs... its a dream right now, but artists like this make me want to make it happen. Maybe one day it will.
We are what we do.
I first came across WE ARE WHAT WE DO, when i saw the book, Change The World For A Fiver. It's such an inspirational book, packed full of 50 simple ideas to make changes to benefit the world around you, the themes and morals behind this book really appealed to me and combined with the simple layout of each spread its a wonderful book.
I looked into the "we are what we do" website after seeing the book and have signed up to it, its a lovely website for starters but i love the whole idea and ethos of "we are what we do"
The philosophy is that SMALL ACTIONS x LOTS OF PEOPLE = BIG CHANGE
and the website is even more packed full of really simple tasks that anyone can do to make the world a better place - cheesy as it sounds - its truely inspirational!
I have also bought another book from them - it' written by children for children. It's called Teach Your Granny To Text and its again full of simple actions that kids can do everyday to change the world around them. As well as the content the layout and page designs are great examples of good design for children, so it's worth a flick through.
Please have a look at this website and join - I think its great!
http://wearewhatwedo.org/
YSP
I love Yorkshire Sculpture Park, I've been a few times now, these are some photos I took a few years ago with black and white film. For those of you who haven't made it yet it's a great day out from Leeds - its only a few miles away. It has 4 indoor galleries with ever-changing exhibits but what I love most is the vast gardens and park land filled with sculpture, by artists such as Antony Gormley, Elizabeth Frink, and Barbara Hepworth. Many of the sculptures are obvious, huge and very on-show, while others are hidden little gems between the trees and down little footpaths. It really is a wonderfully relaxing and inspirational place. 
I especially love the work of Henry Moore, I came across it first during an A Level sculpture project. Moore was one of the 20th centuries most influential sculptures and his work can now be seen worldwide. I love the natural curves and suggestiveness of much of his work, he took much of his inspiration from nature and the human form but created sculptures which were very abstract.If you get chance pack a picnic and head over to the sculpture park. A guaranteed stress-free day surrounded by art and fresh air.
The Earth From Above
Yann Arthus Bertrand took this amazing collection of stunning photographs of our Earth from the air. 120 large scale flood lit photographs make up an outdoor exhibition and each photo tells its own story about our changing planet. Seen together these images have a huge visual impact, they are inspirational and thought provoking. They definatly inspire me to travel - I want to see the world and all these beautiful things first hand. My dream job would be to travel the world, taking breath taking photographs and writing about what I have seen.
This exhibit moves from city to city so if you get a chance I'd definitely recommend it. It's in Bath City Centre right now.
Annoying Direct Mail
This came through my door the other day, and I have to admit that for a tiny second I thought it contained a £50 note and stopped to look at it. It's a difficult job, designing direct mail as we generally don't want it and don't bother to read it, so this piece was half way there, it got my attention. but on discovering it didn't contain £50, I felt stupid for believing it.
I could be interesting to look into what makes truely effective direct mail advertising.
M ployees
This is my favourite sign in the world! The second time I've been to M and M World in Times Square, and the second time I've taken this photograph! For those of you who haven't had the chance to go yet, M and M World is three stories of anything and everything M and M branded. It really is ridiculous but amazing! Very American! I just think its great how much attention to detail this sign shows, and its clever! It makes me laugh anyway!
PawsWay
PawsWay is a bizarre little place on Toronto's Harbour front, a cafe for pets and their owners, combined with a pet accessory store, amazing animals exhibit and a show room for pet shows. The exhibition itself was fairly small, but contained a lot of information, and lots of stories about amazing pets, some funny, some sad and some shocking. I think whoever designed the exhibit did a good job in combining the stories with lots of photographs and larger quotes. It made it easy to read bits and have a quick look round without feeling over faced with information. I think the layout works well, especially for kids, the stories are all short and fairly low on the wall and surrounded by loads of pictures to keep their interest.
Gender Aware Technology
I was just looking at QUIVIDI online (the company who supplies the facial recognition technology for the vampire diaries interactive street ad - previous post)
I came across this article entitled "PRESENSIA AND QUIVIDI INVENT THE FIRST GENDER-AWARE FRAGRANCE DISPENSER"
worth a quick look: http://www.quividi.com/news/090107/
New technology really has taken advertising far beyond traditional methods.
Anyone seen anything like this in use?
A second interactive ad in NY
This ad for "The Vampire Diaries" was near my hostel in NY. Like the ESPN ad (see previous post) it consists on a huge window wrap with a TV screen and camera sensor.
In this ad the viewer is shown in the screen as if looking in a mirror and text appears saying "vampires cant see their reflection.... can you?" If the viewer stands for more than a few seconds a crow flies through the screen and then clips from the show are played.
I've just been looking into these types of advertising online and apparently the camera technology has been developed by several companies including one called Quividi and uses facial recognition technology to record highly specific continuous market research.
The thought I was being watched/recorded never even crossed my mind when i saw the ad... kind of a scary thought!
An Interactive Ad
I walked past this ad in Boston and then saw it again, a week later, on 5th Ave in NY. They consist of a giant window wrap with a TV screen and camera/sensor.
This type of advertising has been termed "streetscape" and more and more examples are apparently popping up in the cities, some of which are interactive.
The video screen on this ad for ESPN shows a quarterback throwing a football which passers by can catch and watch his or her points increase on the screen.
In Boston a group of people were surrounding the screen and playing the video game, much to the annoyance of other passers who were struggling to get past!
It was definitely creating interest and I think a good idea as part of an ad campaign.
NEW YORK
BOSTON
Design It: Shelter Competition
I just came across this competition set up by the Guggenheim and Google SketchUp.
They asked amateur and professional designers to design shelters. The competition is an extension of an exhibit in the guggenheim which shows work from over 70 years by students who have taken up the challenge of designing building and living in shelters in the environment around the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architectures Arizona and Wisconsin campuses.
Nearly 600 people entered the competition from all over the world and ten finalists have been chosen by students from the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture and it's now up to the public to vote for the winner.
have a look and vote here... http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/education/sackler-center/design-it-shelter
Guggenheim NY
Last year when I visited NY I missed out on seeing the Guggenheim so I made sure I got there this summer. The building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in the late 50's and I just love the way it looks so elegant despite its chunky concrete forms.
I also think the typeface perfectly compliments the building itself.
Toronto Wave Front
This year Toronto's Harbour front has had a makeover with the addition of a series of different wooden walkways which mirror the shapes of the ripples and waves in the water and create visual interest to the harbour.The nice thing about the decking is that it is all completely wheelchair accesable as the layers of waves all sit level with the next wave at some point, creating a sort of ramp within the steps. I think this is a lovely well thought out design.
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