*travel related pun*
I bloody love a good print/press/whatever you can them ad. That moment flipping through a magazine when you can’t quite get past a page; you stop, turn the page and flip back to to take it all in. It’s just as good as that feeling walking past a bus stop, doing a double take and shuffling backwards to have another look. Maybe that’s just me and I’m more easily pleased/simple than I thought.
It’s why I absolutely love the ads below for Expedia with phrases made up from luggage tags. It’s so simple you can hardly believe it hasn’t been done before but that same simplicity makes me just sit and stare. Word on the street/Ben Kay’s blog is that the ads are limited run and have been made just to be entered into awards (where I imagined they’d do pretty well).
The Bon Voi Age ad is my favourite by far (despite the spelling). I actually kind of hate the ‘wish you were here’ one but thought it was worth including. You can see the rest on the Creative Review site.
a letter from LEGO
I love LEGO. In fact, I probably love it a bit too much. So, when it came to choosing a material for an upcoming project (douchebag klaxon) I wasn’t really going to use anything else. Without the pieces I needed I headed over to the LEGO website’s Pick a Brick section. It’s a really incredible idea on all fronts if you ask me. In the stores the Pick a Brick section is an amazing pick-n-mix affair with bricks sorted by size and colour. You grab a cup, fill as you like and you’re sorted. If you’re ever passing a LEGO store I recommend going in just to see how cool it looks across the back walls. The website, while perfectly functional, is nowhere near as fun or visual.
My bricks arrived a few days later with the following letter which made the excitement of getting post all the more more exciting. It’s a little formal for what is essential a toy company but I loved that they’ve tailored the letter to the customer. It’s unlikely you’re going to buy specific bricks online unless you’re a bit of a LEGO geek so it’s cool they’ve acknowledged that. It kills me that they’ve used contracted and non contracted forms in the same sentence (‘it is’ and ‘there’s) but I’m kind of arse. I’ll get over it.
a tribute to Coverjunkie
I like magazines more than is financially viable. On a recent trip I had about thirty pounds (£s and lbs) worth of magazines in my rucksack. Worst bit is that I probably read less than half the content, mostly flicking through reading a few features and perusing the glossy images. Being shamelessly attracted to magazine visuals over written content I’m a sucker for a great cover.
So in tribute to Coverjunkie here’s a rundown of the magazine content of my rucksack and a few I’ve got lying around. They’re in no way the best I’ve seen but they’re what I have access to.
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Vogue Italia
good or bad? : creepy good.
why is it good? : the ‘real’ face looks genuinely mask like (in a good way). good text distribution.
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Vogue Unique (Vogue Italia supplement)
good or bad? : pretty damn good.
why is it good? : this is what the Resident Evil movie could have been (that’s Milla Jovovich fyi).
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L’Uomo Vogue / Man Vogue
good or bad? : bad.
why is bad? : Shia La Beouf is pretty pants really. bad text colour and placement.
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The Art of Merino (L’Uomo Vogue supplement)
good or bad? : really, very good.
why is is good? : fantastic use of typography (and wool).
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iD
good or bad : really good.
why is it good? : Linda Evangelista.
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Wallpaper
good or bad? : fantastic.
why is it fantastic? : it’s the Virgin Mary, but not. modern day iconoclasm. #douchebag
graphic design
warning : the picture grid below is vaguely NSFW
I’m writing about the pictures below as an amazing piece of design. Yes, they’re advertisements and this is an adblog (I guess) but I don’t think they work that well as ads. Beyond the shock, and design, value they isn’t much happening at all.
At the risk of being crude, it’s probably the best use of a page spread that I’ve seen. It plays perfectly into the illusion and really makes you do a double take. The images are just as strong, if not stronger, however, as ‘flat’ digital images. I could be crazy but the images on the right are altogether more artistic and cerebral (yeh, I said it). As the campaign has been designed for print it’s pretty obvious why the distortion is always central. It would be great to see what they could do with moving it around a bit or using a horizontal break. I’m a big fan of this sort of skewed, hackneyed editing so I’d love to see what else they can do. I’d even like to see the distortion line even more exaggerated.
If you can’t work it out, and I don’t blame you, they’re for a lingerie ad. You probably need to click the images to really see what’s going on.
Diesel part deux/douze
I’m going to start by saying that I like Diesel’s branding. A lot. I don’t think I’ve blogged about any other brand half as much. They do cool stuff and I can’t deny that. Well, they *did* cool stuff. Their SS12 campaign was a little underwhelming but I held out hope only to end up disappointed. Their latest campaign, however, is bad. Real bad. Blog post bad. Compared to previous campaigns, such as BE STUPID or Diesel Island this season is a complete non-event. I don’t even know where to begin with just how bored this campaign makes me.
The top image below was the first I saw and it got me excited. I’m a sucker for a picture grid and Coco Rocha does a great job at being just weird enough to grab your interest. It’s a solid ‘fashion image’ (shot by Steven Meisel no less [he's kind of a big deal]) but it’s far superior to everything else I’ve seen from the campaign. The second image of the guy pretending to sing is downright painful and the pair dressed in black is so try hard I don’t even. I want to like it but I just can’t bring myself to do it.
Sorry Diesel.
london balling
I live in London now, well for a few months at least, and it’s pretty cool. I see weird stuff pretty much everyday and thought it deserved a picture grid. Two of the weirdest things I’ve seen and snapped are documented above. The first is double red lines. I didn’t even know these things existed but it turns out it’s a London (and West Midlands thing) and means you can’t stop. Not even for (un)loading so don’t even think about it. After a lifetime of yellow it’s completely jarring to see red lining the streets and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it. Watch this space.
The second is stranger and interestinger. You can’t tell too clearly from the picture but the house has had a pretty large extension (check out the dirt line on the right hand side and roof height to the left). At my guess it’s about a fifth or sixth the original width and height. It turns out that in this part of London you don’t need planning permission so there are front dormers and odd extensions all over the place. If that isn’t interesting to you then you need to care more about planning permission.
more from moncler
This could, would and probably should’ve been included in the last post. It wasn’t because I wanted to keep the last one short and feel like this is different enough to warrant a separate post. It’s more Moncler print work I love but this time with dogs instead of bears. Grounding breaking.
It still breaks, or at least bends, a few of the typical fashion brand rules by not showing the product in the traditional sense. Instead a series of specially created puffy dog jackets have been have been used. I pretty much hate dog clothing but I love these ads. I guess dog jackets are the best of a bad bunch.
grin and bear it
There aren’t enough words for me to say how much I love this ad. It’s just got so much going for it that I think is just plain cool. With all the empty space on on the left hand side and not a product in sight it’s basically a massive ‘fuck you’ to advertising expectations. Pretty ballsy really.
Never have two fake polar bears looked so cool.
a bit about bears
Remember that time when I posted about bears all the time? No? Well, here are a few phone pictures of a some Bristol-based bear-centric street art LEST WE FORGET.
Is cool, right? Real things to come soon.
a hit and a miss for GoCompare
A week or so ago I was travelling from Bristol to London. As the coach passed by St. Paul’s (the Bristol one) I saw three or four vandalised billboards. The ads in question? They were for GoCompare. I tried to get a quick snap out the window but it wasn’t to be. When I later discovered that the billboards were intentionally defaced I was a bit torn. It was glad I’d see the boards again, but I couldn’t help but feel a little cheated (the boards in question are to the right by the way). I’ve gotten over that now and can confidently say I’m a fan.
It’s a pretty clever rebrand that takes a page from the Marmite method of marketing. By being upfront about a quite obvious flaw, be that a unique taste or annoying mascot, you can disarm your detractors and give your fanboys something to evangelise. It’s also a great way to get people talking and it turns out there are people that like the GoCompare opera singer.
While I’m crazy into these billboards the TV ads switch me off (see what I did there?). Everything that makes the billboards great, mostly the humour and production values, are absent in from the TV campaign (see below). The result is grey and joyless with a cheap (yet expensive) ending. The technical aspects remind me of ‘injury at work’ ads and the irrelevant celebrity cameo leaves me cold.
Overall, a hit and a miss.
