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.
And not just because of our candidates. I just learned that Obama and McCain (well, designated people who work for them) will be participating in an online Twitter debate moderated by Time Magazine's blogger and sponsored by Personal Democracy Forum 2008 (PdF 2008). I think we're just seeing the beginning. This should be an interesting couple of months.
This Dutch retail site, Hema, has one of the most clever uses of flash I've seen in quite awhile. It's definitely worth checking out.
My only critique is it's hard to get to the rest of the site. Once the flash is over the only link I could find to the rest of the site appears only after you've emailed the flash link to someone else. A bit cocky, no? No matter how cool the flash is, it's not so economically smart to keep your customers from easily accessing the revenue generating portion of your site. If you do want to check out the retail side without emailing this to someone, here's a direct link.
As a bit of a nerdy crossword puzzle junkie myself, I found these crossword puzzle ads from Lincoln Financial Group's latest campaign amusing. The "Futureself" campaign has multiple executions, but I found this one to be the most catching and amusing. Maybe that's just because I love crosswords, but I think it has more to do with the ad and execution being specific to its media and location. I can't tell you how many great site- and media-specific concepts Megan and I present that unfortunately never make it to execution. A concept that's site specific makes it all that more tactile and relevant to the person viewing it. I just wish the help given was for a harder clue!
Google has started a new direction with their illustrations by using artists work. The art on the homepage seems to be a promotion for the iGoogle artists series where you can customize your iGoogle page to one of the featured artist. It's stunning work. Personally I'm digging the Jeff Koons, Oscar de la Renta, Mads Nørgaard-Copenhagen, and Akira Isogawa themes the most. How about you?
As an agency art director and designer, I get bombarded with direct mail from stock photo sites and paper companies. All of these mailings are always using some latest printing technology or are thick booklets filled with photos—nice and well designed, but their content is overall pretty boring and most go directly into my recycling bin after a 2-second review. Every once in awhile, however, something catches my eye. Most often it's a mailing from Veer, a stock photo and font Web site with a more playful brand than most. Nine times out of 10, if I stop to read a piece or hang up a piece in my office for inspiration (the ultimate honor), it's a piece from Veer. An exception being something like the calendar from Mohawk Paper above.
Veer's latest mailing is probably one of my all time favorites. I'm a little delayed on this since I received it a week or two ago, but didn't have time to look through it until today. It's a little Creative's Secret Handbook filled with silly, but clever copy ranging from challenging riddles that will get you discounts on the website to random entertaining bits like Creative Secret Handshakes. I have to give kudos to Veer for this mailing, it's really one of the most entertaining I've received. I haven't figured out what that key is for yet, but I'm working on it.
Sometimes you find great creativity in the most unexpected places—like this Vancouver cafe that makes their coffee a little prettier than the rest. Take a look!
Tomorrow, between 3–6pm EST, don't be surprised to ride the subway next to a pantless fellow rider. Relax and play along. It's just the annual No Pants! Subway Ride. Yes, that's right, no pants.
I stumbled across this information on Facebook, since one of my friends will be participating in the NYC No Pants! Subway Ride. My curiosity peaked, I looked a little deeper into it. Is this real? Or just some publicity hoax? Are they actually stripping down in the middle of the NYC subway? Isn't January a little cold for such an event?
As it turns out this is the 7th Annual (always in January) No Pants! Subway Ride, organized by Improv Everywhere (IE), a NYC improv group that hosts various 'missions' around the city. Their various shenanigans receive a good amount of press, and at least the No Pants! Subway Ride has inspired additional chapters around the country and one in Australia. IE's creator, Charlie Todd, claims part of his group's mission, if there is one, is to reclaim the public space and blanket the city with comedy the way corporations have blanketed the city with ads. As an advertiser, my first thought was how you could harness this type of comedic event and use it for promotional purposes. It's intriguing and unforgettable to witness. Like other guerilla and viral advertising, the big question is will it have the same effect if people learn it's an ad?
Since working in the ad industry, I've started to pay much closer attention to commercials and ads than I ever did as a consumer. I analyze them, think about their effectiveness and scrutinize the art direction and copywriting. Sometimes I mentally file away a cool technique or concept and sometime I just shake my head at the poor typography or a bad retouching job. However, some commercial spur a long train of thought, deconstructing the ad and wondering how on earth the creatives ever came up with that idea. Knowing the absurd ways creative brilliance sometime presents itself, I invent stories as to how the creatives involved in this project stumbled across the seedling idea for this concept. How did it change? One commercial that recently sparked this train of thought for me was this Skittles commercial. How do you think the concept came about?
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.
This Dutch retail site, Hema, has one of the most clever uses of flash I've seen in quite awhile. It's definitely worth checking out.
As a bit of a nerdy crossword puzzle junkie myself, I found these crossword puzzle ads from Lincoln Financial Group's latest campaign amusing. The "Futureself" campaign has multiple executions, but I found this one to be the most catching and amusing. Maybe that's just because I love crosswords, but I think it has more to do with the ad and execution being specific to its media and location. I can't tell you how many great site- and media-specific concepts Megan and I present that unfortunately never make it to execution. A concept that's site specific makes it all that more tactile and relevant to the person viewing it. I just wish the help given was for a harder clue!
Google has started a new direction with their illustrations by using artists work. The art on the homepage seems to be a promotion for the iGoogle artists series where you can customize your iGoogle page to one of the featured artist. It's stunning work. Personally I'm digging the Jeff Koons, Oscar de la Renta, Mads Nørgaard-Copenhagen, and Akira Isogawa themes the most. How about you?
As an agency art director and designer, I get bombarded with direct mail from stock photo sites and paper companies. All of these mailings are always using some latest printing technology or are thick booklets filled with photos—nice and well designed, but their content is overall pretty boring and most go directly into my recycling bin after a 2-second review. Every once in awhile, however, something catches my eye. Most often it's a mailing from Veer, a stock photo and font Web site with a more playful brand than most. Nine times out of 10, if I stop to read a piece or hang up a piece in my office for inspiration (the ultimate honor), it's a piece from Veer. An exception being something like the calendar from Mohawk Paper above.
