I had another post all set for today, when Jim Knipper at Media Associates sent me this video.
This puppy is too good to pass up. It combines some of my favorite things — rage, humor, guitars and viral video — to fight back against the corporate impassivity of United Airlines.
Dave Carroll and The Sons of Maxwell produced a great send-up. I’ll bet UA wishes they’d honored his claim.
What do you call a painfully obsolete cellphone? It's a "Brickberry."
The LA Times’s Dan Neil (one my favorite journalists) did an article this morning on the new Cultural Dictionary, just published by the agency Cramer-Krasselt. In an effort to help their clients stay up to speed in our rapidly shifting cultural tidepool, they eavesdrop on subway passengers’ conversations, scope out text messages and jot down gems from pick-up basketball games.
Then they compile their findings into a guide for the less initiated.
Here are a few beauts:
Pinkwashers (n.): Certain companies that specifically use support for breast cancer research to promote products or services.
Freedomlawn (n.): Residential land permitted or designed to contain a variety of plants other than manicured grass, especially when containing plant life that occurs without cultivation, chemicals or cutting.
Precycling (v.): Purchasing products based on how recyclable they are.
Micro-boredom (n.): What we used to call downtime is now increasingly filled by fiddling with mobiles or BlackBerrys. Those who market these devices, or the services they use, see it as an opportunity to sell us something.
Read the whole article here.
Sunday night I went to a fascinating event: a presentation called “Awesome” about the intersection of science, beauty and magic. It’s part of an ongoing series called Categorically Not! put on by L.A. Times science writer K.C. Cole. The speakers were quite a collection:
The sheer wonderfulness of the world created for the new Prius “Harmony” commercial is astonishing. With television advertisers fighting an uphill battle for our attention as we TiVo past their expensive promotions, its things like this that will stop viewers in their tracks. How can you not slow to do see what’s going on here and try to figure out how it was done?
This video answers that question — at least a little. (It’s available in a larger size than will fit in this post, too.)
Only problem: I’m already getting a little sick of the song from watching this….
Some people think the iPhone is a mobile phone. It’s not.
It’s a tiny computer. And proof, of course, is the fact that there are now over 35,000 applications on sale (or free) in the App Store.
So it should come as no surprise that digital art created on an iPhone has hit the big time. No less venerable a showcase than The New Yorker will feature a cover painting created entirely on an iPhone. using an app called Brushes. (And yes, of course I downloaded it!)
Watch Jorge Colombo’s illustration come to life in the video below. Or read the whole article.
A nice quote from Paul Annet's enlightening talk at SXSW: "Oooh, That's Clever!"
At SXSW (South by Southwest for those normal folks in the audience) Paul Annet gave a wonderful presentation on delight. His focus was on web design. But his point applies to virtually every area of product –and even service — design.
Our job as marketers is generally to convey information and motivate action. But a truly important part of what we do — and the part that makes so much of the rest work — is to create delight, excitement and joy for our audience. Keep reading →
One of the challenges I love is designing for clients who have virtually no budget. And no expectations. It’s a chance to be creative quickly, because they can’t afford for me to spend a huge amount of time on the project… and I can’t either. It’s a chance to see something come to fruition with a minimum of fuss, and often maximum impact compared to what the client is used to.
One recent project in that vein was the identity and promotional material I created for the Santa Monica High School production of 12 Angry Jurors. The play is an adaptation of Reginald Rose’s classic 12 Angry Men that includes both sexes.
Well, this is exciting! The first little piece of our new campaign for BAI Retail Delivery 2009 is live on line! Want to take a look?
Retail Delivery is the largest conference in the retail banking industry. And this year, you can imagine how on edge that industry is, and how badly they all need to figure out how to get through this economic craziness.
Fortunately, Retail Delivery will strive to be the place where that happens. Keep reading →
I get a lot of photographers’ promotional emails. And I mean a lot. So when one of them breaks through the clutter – and my tendency to glance and delete — it seems worth sharing.
C. Taylor Crothers was lucky enough to shoot Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden. Man, would I have loved to have been there!
Instead, I get to live vicariously through a series of portraits he shot of some 40 of the musicians — a work he calls Clearwater Portraits, Keep reading →
