Eco Forest

This flyer is used for the Bradford Climate Offset Programme, where they endeavour to plant trees according to your carbon footprint. They are a non profit organisation and deliver direct action on climate change in their local environment.

What caught my eye initially, was the graphic and how even without the copy you got a firm sense of what the flyer would be about. The concept of having a tree inside a light bulb suggests to me an idea for forest protection, or maybe represents the fight against deforestation. Also the copy fits snuggly at the bottom and appears to be the driving force behind the programme given its positioning. The play on words adds another element and ties in with the image of the light bulb, however without the graphic i think it would be a little out of place and trying too hard.

Carlsberg

This is an interesting idea of viral marketing from Carlsberg beer. The company promoted their “Don’t do litter” campaign by dropping £5000 in £10 and £20 notes randomly around London. Each note was slapped with removable stickers that noted “Carlsberg don’t do litter. But if they did it would probably be the best litter in the world.” I am guessing that the company hopes anyone who’s lucky enough to pick up the notes may head to a local market and get a six pack of beer.

Now on the face of things, this seems an expensive marketing campaign especially for a small niche area of London but considering the old saying, "I told two friends, and they told two more friends" it seems to make more sense. It, as most viral/guerrilla marketing tactics do, will ensure a massive audience and them prove to be a highly effective marketing tactic. The exposure that Carlsberg will receive from this ad will me pretty widespread i am sure.

Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, London, UK
Executive Creative Director: Kate Stanners
Creative Directors: Richard Denney, Dave Henderson
Creatives: Rob Porteous, Dave Askwith

Thornton's Chocolate Billboard

I heard about this piece of ingenuity a few days ago now and decided to investigate further, as the concept behing this ad simply amazed me. It was a record-breaking Easter publicity stunt that helped lift sales at the chocolate specialist Thorntons.
After a "difficult start to the year", the company unveiled a pure chocolate edible billboard in Covent Garden in the run up to Easter.

A world first, Thorntons’ creation was made of 390kg of chocolate and measured 14.5ft by 9.5ft. In a trading statement, the chocolate manufacturer and retailer reported that "the billboard was a well-worthwhile investment". It was expected to last a week, but chocolate lovers managed to eat it in three hours. Mr Davies said the recent sales increase was encouraging, but there was a "long-way to go yet".

All in all the idea behing this advert was what made it such a success. The fact that the billboard becomes interactive with the public makes it carry more weight and also more importantly makes it memorable - the key to any good advert. Also the amount of exposure that the advert has received made a huge contribution to the adverts publicity. This is all down to an inventive, creative and different way to advertising a product.

Texas Toilet Paper

I recently aquired this toilet paper from Texas for various reasons and was amused by the concept of the design. I think this is a great example of taking something that is generally a mundane, common thing and giving it a personality so that it will sell. The characture and the typography seem to both work in harmony together along with the word play of the strapline. A great example of creating and bringing something to life that is normally a common house hold item, that lacks personality and only serves a single fairly boring purpose.

Dorset Cereals

This box of cereal had been hidden in the back of the kitchen cupboard for some time, until the other day when i thankfully discovered it. In short it's a purple rectangular box, that serves no other purpose than to hold and stop the cereal inside spilling everywhere. At least that was my immediate reaction when it caught my glance. However, after having examined the box further, it quickly became apparent that there was much more to it, that ought to be given credit and exposed.

Firstly a bit about Dorset Cereals.

Dorset Cereals is a Dorset-based company, producing award-winning premium breakfast cereal since 1986. Under a new entrepreneurial management team since early 2005, plans are now underway to realise the full potential of the business and the brand. A passion for the simple, honest pleasures of life and a commitment to quality and taste lies at the heart of the business. Feedback from consumers is welcomed to help Dorset Cereals develop and improve, providing the tastiest recipes possible.

Uncompromising in the dedication to finding the very best in quality, the ingredients used are sourced from the four corners of the world. For example, the recipes don’t just use raisins, they use Chilean jumbo size 'flame' raisins, which are believed to be the most flavoursome and have become Dorset Cereals’ signature ingredient. The ingredients are then carefully blended and balanced to ensure the right amount of fruits, nuts and seeds for the perfect taste in each recipe. The special blending process keeps the ingredients as whole and with as little ‘dust’ as possible in the pack.

It is quite apparent from this little introduction that a lot of time care and personal passion has gone into making this cereal one of the leading competitors of the market. Obviously there has to be a lot of key preparation and fundamental issues have to be put right, before this product was to take off and really make its statement. They needed to decide from the start what this product was going to be about, what i would say if it could talk and in what tone of voice it would be speaking.

If i was on the board for this products birth, not only would i be full of anticipation and excitement, but i would also be somewhat nervous. My reasoning is simple: this product has got the potential to work very effectively if executed in the right manner, but the more concerning factor, is that if it is not done properly a great chance for success would be thrown awry .

For me there were 4 factors that were crucial to its successful marketing. First and foremost, was the quality of the product. If the product wasn't authentic (especially important with natural foods), then it wouldn't sell, simple as that. You will never get anywhere when trying to market something if you aren't selling a genuine article. Moreover, if you are selling something that boasts it is unique, genuine and different from similar products, then you ought to be exploiting this fact and using it to you advantage.

This is the first tick in the box. When you look at the container from the top, this is one of the first things you are forced to realise through the products meaty and punchy strap-line: 'honest, tasty and real'. The product is already telling you that the contents inside are no-nonsense cereal made from unmodified ingredients. This side of the box is for me the real essence of what the brand is about. The well balanced leafy logo, accompanied by the bold brand name and the hearty strap-line really convey the character of the brand in a modest and up front fashion.

The second factor is the products aesthetic appearance, both in terms of catching its audiences attention and also persuading them that this product is in a different class from its competitors. Imagine walking down a supermarket aisle, this product wouldn't necessarily jump right out at you, as the colour palette isn't blindingly striking, and so it shouldn't be. This product is organic and natural, therefore a its palette ought to reflect this. In this case the cereal flavour is berries and cherries, so what colour would you really use other than a deep red or purple?

The copy is another aesthetic element that adds to the appearance of any packaging design. It can either become a feature, be neatly tucked away or just become a visual eye-saw and conflict with other graphic elements. For 'Dorset Cereals' the copy becomes a definite feature and compliments the overall design. On the front of the container, the copy serves to remove some of the awkward negative space, that would be found underneath the logo and the brand name. Instead, it becomes an informative and well balanced section that conveys the bare but essential facts to its audience.

What does this product say to you? 'False', 'cheap' or maybe 'run of the mill'? I think not. This product is proud, has stature and a dignified voice to go with it. Part of this is owed to its visual appeal and design, and the other part is not. The language and wording used represents the major bulk of the tone of voice of the product. This is the chance for the product to communicate on a personal level - you are the only one reading this, you are the only one who will judge what is being said to you.

When i read all of the spiel, i felt content. I hadn't even tried the product, knew little about it or bought anything. The language is very straight forward, playful and genuine. You feel like you are being spoken to you by the man in the fields that makes this stuff. For this reason, you as the audience already feel subconsciously, that you have made a connection with the product as it becomes more personalised hearing it speak.

Lastly i must draw attention to the transparent panels, that again add another dimension to the container's design. Yeah alright, i have blown the trumpet of this product somewhat and stressed its honest and authentic brand values. But to have this little bit of design genius right on the front of the container, really shows off its design and why shouldn't it. After all this product subtly praises itself for being made from real stuff so why not really convince us all and show us what is inside? Job done, it's in the trolley and off we go!

Designed by Big Fish

Guinness Birthday Card

I just wanted to throw this one out there to see what you guys and girls thought. Would be grateful if you could give me any pointers, as to how you think i could improve this birthday card. (please click for an enlarged version)

It was my Dad's girlfriends 50th birthday not that long ago, so i thought i would design her a birthday card she would remember. She was born in Ireland and has a soft spot for Guinness funnily enough so i thought this theme would be appropriate. Have also posted the original image, which i photographed myself having stolen a pint glass from the pub. The pub will remain unnamed!

Blue Screen Website

http://b-l-u-e-s-c-r-e-e-n.net/streamscape/

This website is a must see. A friend sent me the link and was interested to see what I thought. The concept behind the website is fairly easy to explain, however, the programming that must have been used to achieve this is far from easy and out of my league so I will have that up to you to decipher.

The concept is to produce a hybridization of images from 15 web cams scattered all over the world. Every minute the streams from all of these cameras are captured on a server and then incorporated with the help of a very progressive dissolve, resulting in the landscape visible on this site. The aim of the website is to give birth to a landscape that lives from the inside, an inhabited landscape, which has a particular life form and is nourished from the flow that inhabits it. This landscape is timeless or at least not subjected to a specific timeframe, and shares some of its time with the viewer, the time that it lives.

The web designers have attempted to create such landscapes by substituting the image with the stream from live web cams. A still image by definition fixes time, a moving image captures, contracts or extends it; live display of camera stream has for its part the particularity of placing the viewer and what is to be seen in the same timeframe: the time in which we are living. The landscapes one is able to see are composed with the help of a special program, which was specially developed for this project and devoted to the manipulation of this sort of image stream from distant web cams. The resulting landscapes originate from the re-composition and live hybridisation of the stream from sources located in different places all over the world. What is projected and what we observe is no longer a singular, immobile, stored image, but a transitory state resulting from the orchestration of a multitude of streams, a sort of network of fragmented landscapes, rendering and simultaneously mixing distinct views of spaces sent by the web cams. This kind of mental landscape incessantly rebuilds itself from views that arrive instantaneously from different distant places and spaces.

In essence this is an interactive piece of media that allows the viewer to become part of a global cycle. Can you see this concept becoming something that will be developed further, I think I can.

BMW TV Ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Ny5BYc-Fs

This video ad combines the engineering genius of Theo Jansen to reflect upon and associate the values and innovation of BMW.
In fairness i think this link works well and certainly puts BMW in good light, as we are cleverly left after an awe inspiring video with BMW's strapline - 'BMW Defining Innovation'.

I have to say i can't blame them for picking such an eccentric and talented man such as this guy. However, i do feel that this guy is way ahead of BMW, and that they are somewhat flattering themselves by associating there company with someone of suc ingenuity, creativity and outright brilliance that this man possesses.

This man's ideals also scare me a little for the future!

Concrete Poetry

As illustrated in one of my previous blogs about Thomas Allen's 'Pulp Fiction', books can take on many shapes and forms, both 2D and 3D. Here again is another interesting and inventive example of how works of poetry, can become interactive and take on a different form.

The Artist Book "Concrete Poetry" was designed & printed in the Edition + Artist Book Studio in 1996. This book has a sculptural figure that resembles a book, which has a surreal feel about it but still opens and shuts like an everyday book. Its triangular shape can still open out like a normal book, but can also change its structure to resemble shapes. The artist book is not meant to be handled as a normal reading book, but instead with white cotton gloves in the presence of others, i think you can see why.

Play, interaction and movement often disrupts our common experience of reading, as does non-linear text. Bernadette Crockford’s Concrete poetry 1996, with its origami-like folds, opens like a flower to reveal text that follows the paper creases. The reader must turn the book to read, playing with different combinations of sentences along different folds, and making up a different poem each time the book is read.

To come to some sort of conclusion, i think that the subject matter of books ought to determine the design of the book they are inscribed in. In this case, poems are emotive, generate feeling and reaction, so by designing a book where the shape generates a similar response seems to work well with its content.

'Type The Sky'

I found this work by Lisa Rienermann on the web a couple of days ago when browsing through various sites and it immediately instilled in me some curiosity. What really appealed to me was the combination of where photography and typography intersect. When you think of these two disciplines being combined, i am fairly sure the large majority would think of letters being photographed, but Lisa Rienermann's perception was sightly different. For her project, 'Type the Sky', she didn’t take photos of letters, but rather she looked up (for weeks on end) and captured the letters formed by the spaces between buildings.

“It began with the Q “.
"I was in a courtyard in Barcelona, looked upward and saw houses, the blue sky and clouds. With the longer i looked, the area from the houses above formed the letter 'Q'." Once Lisa had found the letter 'Q' she thought to herself that she would be able to find the rest of the letters, given that they are relatively simple in their construction. Hence the project 'Type The Sky' was born. After weeks of hunting around and a lot of neck ache, she managed to find all the letters of the alphabet with just a very miniscule amount of help from Photoshop.

Once she had accumulated all the letters she decided to create a published book showing off all her work and findings. Although i haven't had the chance to look through the book myself, i can imagine that some of the images appear very abstract in their form and are a great inspiration for any typographer/designer.

All in all, a great way of interpreting letter forms so that not only do they become of typographical interest, but also of photographic and visual stimulus.

Hidden Typography, Guggenheim NY

As far as great architecture goes there is of course the Guggenheim in New York, one of the great artifacts of American architecture. In 2006 the museum was being renovated, the scaffolds were up, and paint and surface stucco was being removed. When this was being removed there was a little surprise found beneath the surface paint which had been hidden from us for a very long time. Some years ago, some poor sign installer went to put the first letter of the name of the museum up on the wall, and someone screamed, "No, you idiot! Lower! Much Lower! Get it down close to the edge. And a quarter-inch to the right." Given that the building is the Guggenheim Museum, and that the architect was Frank Lloyd Wright, this photographic detail becomes especially interesting.

Tying letterforms to the soffit edge — emphasizing the horizontal line — was in my opinion Wright's intention early on, as evident in his drawings. I could be wrong, but I don't think he ever floated text. Wright tended to use text in an "active" way to emphasize building lines and datums; or packed in a square panel, expressing a planning module. 
Guggenheim Museum, perspective drawing by Frank Lloyd Wright, 1951.
I'm not sure that it was Frank Lloyd Wright who art directed this correction. It could have happened years later. As they say, though, design is in the details. These are the kinds of little decisions, one at a time, hundreds cumulatively, that make a great building great.

Stephanie Levy

Stephanie Levy is an American artist/illustrator and is a native of Memphis, Tennessee. She no longer lives in America and has now been living in Germany for the past 11 years. She studied art at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and at the University of the Arts in Berlin, Germany, where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Arts degrees.

After travelling widely in Europe, Stephanie settled in Munich, Germany in 2005 with her husband and daughter. She works as a freelance artist and illustrator and teaches English to ambitious Germans in her spare time. Stephanie has exhibited her work in galleries and cultural institutions throughout the world. Her work can be viewed in private and public collections in the USA, Canada, Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Japan.

What i think appeals to me most about Stephanie's work is the variety of materials that she uses. For example in some of her collages and paintings she incorporates materials such as Japanese origami paper and gold leaf. All of her works are originals and predominantly use handmade paper, canvas, or wood as supports. The main subjects of her work are interior settings, and often to source ideas she gathers images from, IKEA catalogs to old issues of Better Homes and Gardens.

If you briefly scan over some of her work that she has produced it is immediately apparent that an interior theme occurs quite repetitively. One of the reasons i discovered for this particular theme is related to her personal history. Her grandfather was a descendent of four generations of Irish carpenters, and the house that she grew up in was designed and built by her grandfather. One of her favourite acitivities at night, was to sit at the dinner table and draw house plans for imaginary or “fictional” houses. It may be no surprise then, that now as an artist she still create images of fictional ones.

I especially like the lightbox image with the translucent materials mounted on the lightboxes. It is surprising how much the collages can be transformed when placed in a different environment. Compared to the rest of the images these light box images appear to have a very unusual but modern feel. This i find interesting, as it goes to show that the placement of art or if you like its environment, has a very profound effect on its aesthetic appeal and has it is perceived by its audience.

Belles Will Ring, 'The coldest Heart'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkClzqa6WDY

This innovative animation music video really hld my attention so i thought it would be worth bringing it too yours. It was created for The Coldest Heart by Belles Will Ring. The company responsible for the animation is called WeBuyYouKids, who are two people strong and live in Sydney, Australia and as they put it on their website they 'draw things for a livin'. They make artwork for posters, albums, tshirts, magazines, the internet, the magic of YouTube and many other things. Occasionally, where possible, they hand-screenprint these things.

What captured me about this animation was the sense of movement that you feel as it is played. This movement is timed with the music so that when the beat quickens so does the animation, and together they work in parallel. Besides the constant movement, i really enjoyed the washed out monotone cityscape, that features as the main back drop throughtout the animation. I think it fits well with the skeleton man who seems to be running from something as it gives a eerie and empty feel, which reflects the nature of the song. Good transitions, mixed with well timed movment help for me make this piece work well with the song.

'Walden', Nils Moormann

I stumbled upon this interesting alternative the other day when flicking through the Arts section of G2. Nils Moormann is a German furniture designer and is the man responsible for the concept behing this 'different style of living'.

He calls these dwellings 'Walden's, and they are somewhere between a garden shed and a mini-home, standing 6.5 metres long and about 1m wide with specified compartments for garden leisure. These include a watering can, wheelbarrow and barbecue utensils. The upper storey consists of a bed and a sitting area.

Portable architecture has really been the focus behind this design, and that isn't anything new. However, having broken free from the restraints of conventional building, i believe that this particular design suggests a shift in the relationship between nature and architecture - if you like a re-negotiation between the space we enclose for ourselves and the 'outside'.

The question which really sticks out in my mind is 'How much space do we really need?'

Noodle Slurper, Ambient Media

What a great idea for an outdoor form of ambient media advertising, was what i thought when i first saw this. These massive 'ship-side' ads were done for Mondo Pasta, and were created by the German agency Jung von Matt. The large heads that you see in the images were nicknamed the 'Noodleslurpers', a suitable name i feel. It may also come as no surprise to you, that they were finalists in the 'One Show' ad contest (Innovative Use of Media: Outdoor Category).

The concept behind this campaign i find uniquely clever and appealing. The sentiment behind the strapline 'So Good You Can't Let Go', seems to fall into place with the idea of a ship being moored by an extremely large noodle, and only makes it quite obvious that these noodles 'simply must' taste amazing!

The one thing i would like to know about this advert is, who its target audience was. If the port that they choose to advertise in was solely industrial and just for fishermen and sorts, then i am inclined to think that they may have missed out on other potential customers and audiences. If they had done this in a harbor or port where there are amenities and attractions for visitors to come and see, then its exposure would be far greater and the advert more successful. However, this is what they could well have exactly done, who knows?

Pulp Fiction, Thomas Allen

As far as making books a really interactive form of media, i think Thomas Allen has hit the nail on the head. Thomas Allen's photographs are inspired by his childhood experiences with pop-up books. He begins his process by cutting figures and images out of illustrated pages of old books and vintage fiction novels. Allen then cleverly rearranges and juxtaposes the forms to create three-dimensional scenes. Next, he carefully lights his subjects and photographs the scenes.

When separated from their original stories, the figures take on fresh roles in entirely new situations. Yet they retain their intended purpose of storytelling. Characters and objects originally created as two-dimensional illustrations are raised from their pages and given new life in three-dimensional space. The figures return back to two-dimensional objects, this time in the form of a photograph.

As a director would stage actors, Allen stages his cut-outs in ways that create humor, tension, mystery, and drama. A boxer fights his own shadow in Spar, and in Bookend a gunfighter stands over his recently fallen opponent. Although the characters are freed from the closed pages of books, the books themselves still remain present in each photograph. A turtle and rabbit bounce and crawl over the centre foled of an open book. In Cover, a gunman finds safety behind the spine of a book. And in Recover, a worn paperback acts as a life raft to three weathered shipwreck survivors.

The work combines the humor of children's pop-up books, the nostalgia of dime novels, and the drama of the stage. Allen's inventive and evocative photographs capture characters and events in mid-action. And the viewer is left to wonder what will happen next.

An interesting and unique interpretation of how books can really be brought to life.

Robinson's Cordial Advert

When you think of Robinson's, it to me triggers memories of hot summers, being a kid, running around playing games, getting grass stains and being generally naughty. I saw this ad the other day in the Culture section of the Times, and thought it was a good example of what i am sure many people associate with the brand, being represented as an advert.

It has that child like appearance which is generated through the simple almost hand drawn imagery. The copy for me is what makes the advert a success. A lot of time not only from a typographers point of view, but also from the copywriters has been taken in order to get the text to fit snuggly into the jug. There is also the crafty bit of word play (intentional or not i don't know)between the message of 'caring what goes into the product' and the fact that agency that designed this ad, obviously cares what goes into their product as well. A good little ad really representing the values of the brand well i feel.

Gillian Blease

Gillian Blease works as a freelance illustrator mainly on editorial work, such as books, magazines and newspapers. However, she has also done some advertising illustration and logo design. Some of her clients have included Barclays, The Guardian, Sainsbury's, Nestle and Tesco just to name but a few. Her work is a familiar, yet a fresh alternative to the glossy special effects that have bled into most realms of design. She tends to see things in a simple boiled down light, which in my opinion is an admirable trait, as it is so easy to look at things and then start to over complicate them.

This first image is an editorial job she did for a restaurant magazine. When i first looked at this image, the thing that jumped out at me the most, was the bottle opener and what appeared to be pound coins entwined around it. It immediately made me think of food and drink, as the bottle opener stands out as the dominant feature in the graphic, due to the fact that it is the only element which is coloured white. Whether the use of coins is to convey the sense of good quality wine, or that most people associate wine and money with a restaurant i am not too sure, i personally think the latter. However, the point being she has communicated the idea of a restaurant through a moderately simple graphic, that not only is easy on the eye but divides the artwork up nicely allowing for the easy addition of copy.

The next illustration is a book cover for '21st Century Small Holder', which discusses property prices and how to get on the property ladder. This illustration really caught my attention as the bold colours are very strong and vibrant which in turn, draws you in and holds your interest. At a first glance the copy is clear cut and bold which makes it easy to read. The subtle use of imagery on the graphic is merely representative of the tone of voice on that particular page. The snails, in my opinion echoe the fact that it is a slow process to get onto the property ladder. With regards to the other page, i am fairly convinced that it will be full of suggestions of how to get established in the property ladder, given the graphic of the light bulb. I also like the reversing of colours she has used for the two pages, perhaps to indicate the two different tones of voice.

Here is an example of some advertising work Gillian did for Nestle. Again its a flat two dimensional illustration that isn't over glamorous and doesn't try to show anything off. This really is an example of how simple, simple can be. Nestle as i am sure everybody knows does several types of cereals - what simpler a graphic can you communicate this with than a spoon with grains of corn placed into it? This image to me also conveys a very organic, natural and soothing feel due to the placid colour palette she has used. An interesting interpretation.

This logo was designed for a record company called 'Porcupine'. For me not only does the supporting graphic make the logo work, but the typeface used fits in well and compliments the logo on the whole. The circular shapes that litter this logo make a link explicitly to the shape of a record, but also give the logo a sense of form and pattern. What i can't make out is what appears to be a magnifying glass on the eye of the porcupine, maybe this is intended to represent the intricacy of the brand? Anyone got any ideas?

Lastly is another logo, this time done for 'Marmalade'. At a first glance this immediatley made me think of mornings, but good positive mornings. This logo is full of energy and ouses life, which i think is due to the vibrant colours that have been used and also the range of different shapes. What really makes this logo for me is the combination of the shape of the orange segments with the half risen sun. This association with early mornings, having marmalade for breakfast and the sun slowly rising is a strong element that people can associate with the brand and it is all contained within a sinlge logo, not bad.

I think that Gillian Blease's work shows a very basic and simple way of communicating ideas and concepts. This is not to say that her work lacks depth, it doesn't and the reason for this is that the images she produces often have signifificant meaning and presence but without the over complex additives. This isn't easy to achieve. Why should she make things more complex when she can communicate so well in a simple fashion. Surley this is more effective?

www.gillianblease.co.uk