Wednesday 29 April 2009

MODE Eat Your Heart Out

So, following on from the Ogilvy office I thought I would share this with you as well. You watch films like Devil Wears Prada and TV programs like Ugly Betty and they all feature these clean, crisp, modern and fantastical office spaces, you think that this surely can only be done in the movies? Well, MODE Magazine, eat your heart out...it can be done in real life, and GHD proves it can be done in the UK. Not only in the UK but in Leeds...marvel at the new GHD headquarters.


Advertising Architecture

I am just a little bit passionate about architecture. If I had been better at maths of physics I would have been an architect. Whether exterior or interior, I love it. This is one of the reasons why I am such a huge fan of cities. Sky scrapers are a particular favorite of mine, which is why New York means so much to me. Now, as everyone probably imagines, advertising agencies should have interesting, inspiring and creative interior spaces. This is true for many agencies, but not all agencies. Which is a shame. In this post I am going to show you some snaps from the Ogilvy and Mather Guangzhou Office. These interior spaces are just full of quirky, inspirational and random pieces of furniture and decoration, it would really keep your mind fresh, and your thinking fresher on a day to day basis. Companies should really learn from these office spaces and get their redesign-caps on asap! Enjoy!


Honda Take Over Vimeo

Originally I didn't bother featuring the viral advert for the Honda Insight. I personally was not bowled over by it and thought there were much better adverts to be posting on the blog. Now, Honda have teamed up with Vimeo to take their viral ad to a new level. I won't go into what happens when you click play on the video, I will leave you to find that out for yourself but I will say that it is a great way to making the viral just that little bit more engaging and interesting. I watched the viral much more closely this time around and it is actually really quite clever. Follow the link and enjoy.

Honda Take Over Vimeo


Tuesday 28 April 2009

New York HDR Photography

I was using a friends mac today and his desktop was possibly one of the most amazing and dynamic images of New York City I had ever seen. As I've mentioned before on this blog, I'm obsessed with everything about New York and this tickled my fancy no end! Apperently the technique is called HDR and it makes pictures look fantastic, it's a technique that was developed in the 1930's and is not used done easily through digital cameras and editing software. I did a bit of hunting and found some great examples of the technique used on some scapes of New York City. Sit back and enjoy. The first image is the one my friend had on his desk top.


Typography Animation For Mercedes Benz

This is just awesome. I love it because it uses typography in a really creative, and effective way. This animation is seamless and although I don't think it really sells me a Merc, it definately keeps me hooked and makes me want to watch it again. I also love that there is a clear narrative behind the animation as well, it's not just random, it technically has a beginning, middle and end. Brilliant.


Flora...Not The Butter

This is a new TV advert for Flora by Gucci. Flora is a new perfume from the fashion giants and this advert, for once, is actually interesting and not your usual mix of uninspiring, unoriginal rubbish. I think it was directed by Chris Cunningham and generally is a great example of good art direction and clever editing/film techniques. Well worth a watch.


Friday 24 April 2009

Fashion Meets Paint

Thought I would whack up this little print ad by TBWA in Brussel's simply because I think the art direction is lovely. Really makes you stop and look at the advert, if I am honest though it'd doesn't make me want to buy the product/service (as with many fashion ads). You can't even really tell what they are trying to sell...which quite a lot of the time works really well but this time I think it fails, sorry TBWA.


This One Could Turn You Green

I'm not going to give anything away about this ad, hence this post will be a short one. Watch and check your colour in the mirror afterwards. There are some AMAZING special effects at work in this one.


Nude In A Scarf

Calm down, calm down. There is actually no nudity in this video, sorry folks! This was a campaign run this week for some new bit of tech that Peugeot is starting to use in their convertible cars. A bunch of young people were sent off around London wearing "nude suits" and a blue scarf around their necks. This was a great ambient marketing stunt and really grabbed the publics attention. I first heard about it through a random tweet, showing how effective these ambient stunts can be when coupled with the effects and spread of social media. Enjoy.


Ping Pong Magic

I was shown this by a good friend of mine today. I had seen a clip of it before but the full video is astounding. Now, I would LOVE to believe that this was just a bunch of skilled lads and the tricks were all real and not faked, but there seems to be a lot of controversy surrounding it. Either way, really good to watch and if it was faked, it was done REALLY well.


Photography

Wow, well it has been almost a week since I sorted out my image issues and posted. It has been a hectic week of getting back to university, getting a load of work done and going out a few times for good measure. Tonight I am glued to photoshop working on a mock up of a website for a deadline on Monday. To give myself a quick break I thought I would get some posts together for your viewing pleasure. Here is the first.

To get todays posts rolling I have found some really good images from some photographers. I thought the execution of these particular images were amazing, the art direction is just stunning in some cases. What do you think?


Thursday 16 April 2009

IMAGE PROBLEMS RESOLVED!

Thank you to everyone who tried to help out with the images problems I have had the past week, and thank you all for your comments etc! I have now resolved the problem, I've gone through and changed the HTML coding for each image, time consuming but worth it! The problem seemed to lie with Google and Picasa!

So, posting will get back to normal asap, in the meantime check out the newest posts, now with WORKING images! Enjoy and comment!


Wednesday 15 April 2009

Pig And Wolf Stop Motion

Well, since my images don't seem to be working on most browsers at the moment, I thought I would post another mint video the twittersphere has brought to my attention, hopefully you can still watch the videos?!

This is a stop frame animation that is doing the rounds on youtube. It is really cleverly put together and really well executed, I think you will enjoy!

I will warn you now, if I can not resolve my image issues (I'm working on it right now, if you have any suggestions please let me know) I will be either moving my blog to a different blog host service OR I will go it alone and host the blog on my own! Either way, I don't plan to stop trying to bring you some of the coolest content on the web!


Tuesday 14 April 2009

Legal Street Graffiti

I love this ad. I love it for two reasons.

1. It doesn't thrust a POS or message down your throat and doesn't try to manipulate you into buying something.
2. It's interactive, engaging and a damn sight more interesting that most adverts these days.

This is a piece of technology called an "e-cast billboard". The advert is for Sharpie, everyones favorite permanent marker. The ad catches the general publics desire to deface public property, and made it into something positive. These interactive billboards have been put around a bunch of cities and allow people to experience the rush of creating their own little piece of graffiti art. They can choose colours and write any message they want on the cast. Whether it be a doodle, a signature or a profanity, the beauty of it is...it doesn't matter.

Watch Out For Them Car's

Here is a print campaign created for New South Wales Police in Australia to highlight the importance of checking for cars while walking/running with your ipod on and blasting music. Apparently the number of teenagers dying while listening to their ipods while crossing the road is beginning to reach epidemic proportions.

This ad is beautifully executed and really well art directed. It draws you in and makes you analyse what has actually happened in the image, thus giving you enough time to take in the message. Definitely a print advert that works, and hopefully it will have the desired effect and raise awareness.

Don't Look Down

You have to remember that ambient/viral/guerilla advertising can be created for a VERY low cost, especially compared to TV ads etc, and advertisers don't have to fork out out huge spends in magazines and TV commercial air time...I reckon this form of advertising really does have a better impact on an audience and creates a much bigger buzz.

Take this ad for example. This is a photo-realistic image from high above a city which has been slapped across the floor of a lift. This ad was created by Wirz/BBDO in Switzerland for a Swiss skydiving school. This stunt attracted a wealth of media coverage and is still making it's rounds on the net. Genius.

Get Them Off Your Dog

As you can see, this advert was placed across the floor of what looks like a shopping center. From above, the people walking across the floor look like fleas on the dog. Obviously the ad is for flea and tick repellent. Another quirky but successful way to advertise a product in an exciting way.

The ad was created by Saatchi and Saatchi in Indonesia. According to some passers by, the ad consistently created reactions of the likes of "Yikes" from people spotting the ad for the first time.

Flare

I came across this interesting piece of new technology today and thought I had to share it. The tech is called FLARE and is basically a whole bunch of moving metal "flakes" or "scales" which form the walls of a building. By changing the angle of the flakes in the sun light it forms a moving membrane or skin on the building. Above is a video showing FLARE in action. Really interesting stuff I reckon, towards the end of the video they actually look at the underbelly of the tech which is also quite interesting to see.


Monday 13 April 2009

Poo At Paul's

I won't indulge this advert with too many words. This is the WORST advert I have ever seen but is possibly one of the funniest! Please enjoy and comment at will!


Saturday 11 April 2009

Put Yourself In My Place

This videos follows a campaign run by LA agency David & Goliath to raise awareness for the Weingart Homeless Center. They took an ambient approach that invited people to imagine themselves homeless for a moment. The photographed 12 of the 70,000 homeless people living on the streets of LA in the places they call home, getting them to write on a piece of card board "Before You Turn Away, Put Yourself In My Place." with the website for the WHC. They then edited the faces out of the photographs and made life size, photo-realistic cardboard cut outs of the photographs and put them around the streets and shopping centers of Beverley Hills. Suddenly, the homeless could not be ignored. The results were huge increases in traffic to the WHC website and, according to David & Goliath, raised funds at WHC.

A poignant message sent through a clever and well though out ambient/guerrilla campaign. Watch the video, it is great to catch a couple of passer-bys reactions to the cutouts and also see a little of the process behind making the campaign a reality. Here are a few shots of the boards out in public.

Heres the link you need to pass this on: http://tinyurl.com/d7w6gw


Friday 10 April 2009

Benny Lava!

This vid is just hilarious. Some guy has subtitled a Bollywood song and dance with what he thinks it sounds like they are saying in English. It isn't a real translation, and is definitely not what they are actually saying, I hope anyway....but nevertheless, bloody funny!!

Heres the link you need to pass this on: http://tinyurl.com/d7w6gw


Thursday 9 April 2009

Adjust Your Volume

Here we have another one of those videos that might just make it VIRAL. Well, after all it is a viral video, whether it was intended to be or not, it is, or at least it soon will be...anyway. I like to think I'm a little ahead of everyone else when it comes to spotting these little viral gems, I get a lot of the heads up through people on twitter, and they really are ahead of the game. For example, I posted the Extreme Sheep Herding viral ad a few weeks ago and now it is taking up prime air time on the ten o'clock news over here in the UK. Now, I'm not saying I had much to do with it's success obviously but every little helps.

This viral was created by an agency called Scholz & Friends in Berlin. They must have some pretty cunning creatives on board to come up with gems like this. Sit back and enjoy.

Did you like it? Want to pass it on to all your friends? Here is the link:

http://tinyurl.com/d7w6gw

Simply copy and paste that little link anywhere you like, emails, tweets, facebook statuses, myspace, your own blog and your work there is done!


Cards That Mean Business

I recently clicked a link which took me to a cool website which had a feature on some pretty damn cool business cards. Now we all know and love business cards, some might say they make the world go round, but most would say usually, they are pretty damn boring. Well, maybe next time you have to get some new business cards printed, you will take some inspiration from my personal favorites from the selection on said website and do something a little special. I have to come up with some kind of business card soon to leave with creative directors that I meet over the next year...do I go with something small or should I be wacky and do a HUGE business card?! Or should I not do a business card at all and just do something completely out-of-the-box? We will see...enjoy and be inspired!



Tuesday 7 April 2009

Amazing Time Lapse Part 01

I have just come across some amazing time lapse videos created by an Australian artist called Keith Loutit. I have been so mesmerized by how cool these videos look that I have decided to post up my three favorites. The first installment follows the creation of a whale in the sand of a beach in Australia. I believe this was an event/stunt done to create awareness of whale poaching. I absolutely love how these videos look quite like stop frame animations, using tiny characters etc but are actually real life videos caught in time lapse. Enjoy the three videos and check out this artist using the link provided in the third part.

Heres the link you need to pass this on: http://tinyurl.com/d7w6gw


Amazing Time Lapse Part 02

Here is the second installment from artist Keith Loutit. This time lapse video follows the Mardi Gras festival and parade in Sydney.

Heres the link you need to pass this on: http://tinyurl.com/d7w6gw


Amazing Time Lapse Part 03

Here is another time lapse video...follow the link below for more information on the artist and his awesome work!

Keith Loutit

Heres the link you need to pass this on: http://tinyurl.com/d7w6gw


Monday 6 April 2009

Sticky Mines

This is a very cool ambient advert which was launched recently. It is for Unicef and revolves around land mines. Hopefully you can see the pictures, but I will explain the concept.

Self-adhesive stickers were place on pavements etc and appeared invisible. The top side of the sticker was decorated to match the pavement, and was sticky obviously. The bottom side was decorated as a land mine with poignant information on land mines, and reminding the shopper that stood on the sticker that if it had been a real land mine, they wouldn't still be walking. The sticker then had a call to action aimed at getting people to the Unicef website to donate.

Really original idea that should have had a grand effect on the passers by as they attached themselves to the sticker.

Heres the link you need to pass this on: http://tinyurl.com/d7w6gw

Saturday 4 April 2009

Extreme Sheep Herding Goes VIRAL!!

Well, you have all watched and probably loved the Samsung Extreme Sheep Herding Viral ad I posted a couple of weeks ago. When I first saw and consequently posted the vid it had only 450,000 views on Youtube, it now stands at just shy of 3,000,000 views! I knew it would find it's way to the viral top spot - congrats to all the folk involved!

Here is the official story from Adage.com:

Samsung's "Extreme Sheep LED Art" overpowered the competition for the second week in a row, nabbing the top spot on the Ad Age Viral Video Chart, compiled using data from Visible Measures. The spot -- in which LED-light-wearing sheep are herded at night to resemble a game of pong, the Mona Lisa and fireworks -- snared almost 2.9 million views, up 28% from the week before and almost 2 million more than the No. 2 campaign, T-Mobile's "Dance." New on this week's chart are Geico's version of "Numa Numa" and Ray-Ban's latest from Cutwater.


Art Meets Music

Here is a link to a funky little website, from some european country, where you make art to music. It's interactive, it's fun and it's pretty damn cool actually!! Go and check it out!

http://soytuaire.labuat.com

Even More Augmented Reality

Well, I just seem to keep stumbling across this augmented reality stuff! People are really start to experiment with this technology now which I think is really quite exciting, I doubt it will be long until some genius takes it main stream in advertising/marketing or computer games! Well, I suppose those base ball cards I posted a few days ago are a good example of taking it main stream.

Some boffins have decided to make an augmented reality tshirt which, when used with the technology, shows your most recent tweet from twitter. I think this tech is cool but there is still a long way to go.


Thursday 2 April 2009

Listen To Your Lips

Here is a short but sweet new advert for Baileys. I have posted it because I'm obsessed with the music and general sound within the ad, especially at the end after the "drop" of baileys into the glass. You will understand what I mean when you hear it!

In other news...I'm sorry for not replying to any comments/generally reciprocating all the attention the blog has been getting! I will be back on top of this next week when I'm home! Doing something really cool with a Macbook next week that I've just bought on ebay so I will have to post up some pictures when I'm done!

Finally, I have been monitoring traffic to the blog these past couple of weeks and it has been really interesting to see where people are visiting from. Some people are even finding me randomly on ebay when searching for storyboards etc which is crazy cool!