A month or two ago, a coworker sent me a link to a designer Camdon Wilde's Periodic Table of Typefaces. It was a little project he just did on the side and posted on the Behance Network to get some feedback. Well his feedback was overwhelming.
Unfortunately, the original image was small and there was no link or capability to purchase a larger print or file. I emailed the design, apparently along with many other designers, and he has now posted a large jpg, a link to Squidspot where you can order a poster of it. In true collaborative style, Wilde has also made the working file available for others to refine and tweak if you email him.
All I can say is I love it! I absolutely love it. :)
Sharpie has a new social media campaign site, Sharpie Uncapped, encouraging people to use their Sharpies to create art all over the place, from shoes to soccer balls to Barbies. It seems to be a permanent extension of Sharpie's Write Out Loud campaign from earlier this year. The big idea is great, but I don't think it's really working yet.
For one thing the home page is a little confusing. It seems to be mostly an aggregator for everything referencing Sharpie on YouTube or Flickr. If you venture over to the Uncapped Gallery area of the site, it invites you to submit your Sharpie art and promises the possibility of being featured in the gallery. It took me much longer than it should have to figure out that would be in the gallery's Sharpie Showcase, mostly because 80% of the gallery page is more aggregators like we saw on the home page, just organized slightly differently. If you click on these you get a Flickr page key word searching 'Sharpie' or their YouTube channel.
The Sharpie Communities page really just reiterates what the Sharpie Gallery showed, but tagged a Facebook fan page and Twitter account in there for good measure. This page makes sense. What doesn't is why it's confusingly repeated in the gallery section.
The Sharpie How To section is abysmal. If you're going to even have a how to section and I'm going to take time to watch one of those how to videos, I do expect them to have some information that goes beyond a fourth grade art class. I realize we're dealing with markers here, but come on, Sharpies must do something slightly cooler than just draw on book covers and t-shirts, which I could probably figure out how to do without a video.
The site does have a few merits though. The look and feel of the site is great. It's clean with bold color accents, hand lettered headings and fun Sharpie doodles throughout and it works well. The banner ad inviting you to play around with the Sharpie twin tip marker—which really just translates to a fun little drawing widget—is fun and engaging. On another site, this banner ad would have me hooked—on this site, I really thought it needed it's own page to play and have fun with. And why don't you give me the option to draw on some shoes or other objects while we're at it?
Overall, the idea has some merit. Uploading your Sharpie Art will get Sharpie lovers involved, but for a simple four page website, the organization and user experience is not very good. Sharpie is a great, well-known brand and is such a widely used product it will naturally have a presence on social media sites like YouTube and Flickr, but this site isn't yet working to bring them together. What do you think? Did you get as lost as I did trying to navigate through the site?
Sometimes ad photoshoots are glamorous and include celebrities and sushi buffets. Other times they're not so glamorous and require trudging around in the rain, ankle deep in cow crap.
Apparently Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo is a big fan of the Snuggie, the imfamous infomercial blanket with sleeves, and he's partnered with the company to create a special Weezer Snuggie that they're calling the Wuggie, the difference being the Wuggie has Weezer's name on it. That, and it apparently comes in rockstar leopard...
I'm still never going to buy one, but if you're into Snuggies, it's the perfect attire for your next Snuggie Pub Crawl.
I'm loving this clever and poignant Public Service Announcement from Big Ant International. I've only included one of a few different executions of the concept that you can see here. It's so simple and brilliant it's no wonder it picked up a Gold Pencil for Public Service Campaign at the One Show last week.
Johnson & Johnson revisited their First Aid Kit packaging and I love it. It's reminiscent of the classic first aid kit blending retro with a new, unique modern shape that's also highly functional since it allows the kit to stand upright or lay flat for storage. It kind of makes me want to go out an buy one. Great stuff.
Chipotle recently rolled out a new logo and while it didn't get the greatest review from Brand New, I'm digging it. I do agree with their comments, mainly critiques on the new font and pepper illustration, but think the new logo is a big success anyway.
One of Brand New's comments is that the new font doesn't represent industrial feel of the Chipotle restaurant interior as well as the old, Bank Gothic font. The new font is friendlier, and I do like it in the horizontal versions of the logo, but on the medallion, Bank Gothic was working well and didn't really need the change.
On the other hand, the pepper illustration is a vast improvement. Brand New commented that it's too close to clip art to work well, I disagree. It's basic design is a little cliche, but the design itself is both aesthetically pleasing, quickly and easily to read and understand even small or at a distance. The old illustration, while closer to a real pepper's shape, looks far too blob-like to function well in a logo. There are few other illustrations that go with the new pepper that are very nice as well.
The color swap is also a nice touch. While subtle, softening up the black to a dark red and swapping the dark and medium tones in the logo really work. The dark red behind the pepper makes it pop even more.
CP+B is in the news again with a new sexualized ad for Burger King that plays off Sir Mix-a-Lot's classic song Baby Got Back. The commercial has spawned a lot of controversy—is it funny or is it inappropriate? Everyone familiar with the song (in other words, my entire generation) knows the song centers around Sir Mix-a-Lot's admiration of large female butts. This isn't the first time Sir Mix-a-Lot's famous one hit wonder has hit the commercial waves, but this particular commercial is aimed at kids.
The BK spot features Sir Mix-a-Lot and Sponge Bob since BK is offering Sponge Bob toys in their kids meals. The controversy comes when the images of Sponge Bob are mixed in with music video like images of Sir Mix-a-Lot and women in tight mini dresses with phonebooks shoved up them. Sir Mix-a-Lot consequently sings about liking square butts.
I was very undecided on where I stood on this commercial. On the one hand, it's funny to an adult audience, but I can definitely understand concerned parents as well. Sponge Bob is one of those cartoons, beloved by children but also capable of being genuinely entertaining to adults as well. Believe it or not, Sponge Bob has some adult fans—I've even met a few that didn't have kids. The problem is that this commercial is clearly aimed at children. It's on at times when kids would be watching tv and advertises Sponge Bob toys.
I'm a bit delayed on this post, I know. There have been many news reports and blogs discussing the issue. I was very undecided on where I stood and felt ill equipped to say anything without being a parent myself, so I solicited opinions from friends and relatives who are young parents. Not completely surprisingly, I got responses on both sides. Mothers who were disgusted by the commercial and others who shrugged their shoulders and laughed at it. There were a few stuck in the middle though too, finding the commercial funny themselves, but not quite appropriate for their children. I suppose the main consensus, however, was that this spot is not really child appropriate.
But where did CP+B cross the line? The concept is funny and oddly appropriate. Who cares that it's about butts? I mean kids talk and laugh about butts all the time. But one of the responses I received nailed the problem I have with this commercial on the head:
... as the father of a young daughter, what I do find to be troubling are the sexual images of young women. (They should have been consistent and had a row of people dressed in SpongeBob mascot outfits, quite frankly.)
Exactly! Would the commercial have lost anything to have both men and women with phone book butts in slightly looser clothing? I really don't think it would. I realize the original song is very sexual, but it could be just as humorous to adults while staying appropriate for kids. After all they are marketing a kids meal. I think the real humor of the concept is playing off Sponge Bob's square butt. He has one. It's funny. They half mention the fact in the title of the show—Sponge Bob Square Pants.
Overall, I think the concept of the spot was brilliant, but the execution was off. A tamer version could have kept the integrity of the concept while quelling the concerns of parents, but then again maybe all the media attention was exactly what CP+B and Burger King were aiming for. What do you think? Would a tamer version be capable of walking the line between funny and child appropriate?
A month or two ago, a coworker sent me a link to a designer Camdon Wilde's Periodic Table of Typefaces. It was a little project he just did on the side and posted on the Behance Network to get some feedback. Well his feedback was overwhelming.
