Cadbury Remix.

Since I did the last Cadbury post I have discovered some rather cracking new versions of the gorilla ad, and a video of Bollo from The Mighty Boosh auditioning to be in the advert. Enjoy.

Bollo's Audition


Eastenders Version


Nirvana version


Word-up version

Wiley - back to the old skool. (yep, that's a K. I'm THAT cool!)

I gotta say, Wiley's new track 'Summertime' at first really annoyed me, but now I really really like it. Can't help but boogie along (yet more evidence of my coolness. Cough, cough).
I especially like the video. It's full of great old school clothing and styles. I especially like the colour choices and patterns in it. Single's out October 18th. Now check the video and Vibe.

Esser.

Seeing as I'm on the subjects of new music Artists I like. Might as well give you another one. This one is 'Esser'. I can't get his single 'Headlock' out of my head, I find myself singing it all the time. Maybe you will too, listen below.

I've just seen his new video for his new single 'I love you', and.............it's a bit weird. He sits in a chair having food thrown at him, whilst singing along, until he throws up. Nice. Good song though.

'Headlock'



'I Love You'

Lykke Li.

Another new artist I'm liking a lot at the moment is 'Lykke Li'. Here are two of her singles: 'Little Bit' and 'Breaking it up'.

With the 'Little bit' video I really like the ghostly people dancing around whilst it fades in and out and sped up and down. Also the lighting works really well to reflect the mood of the song.



With the 'Breaking it up' video I really like the setting and the numerous random objects placed around it. And again the lighting is used to great effect. It's very 'Arty' as it were.

Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal.

I've only recently discovered Fleet Foxes music, but already I'm a big fan, and this song 'White Winter Hymnal' is my favourite. It's only a short song but amazing none the less. I find the chanting really poetic and calming, and the video really melds well with it. The style of the video is very similar to that of 'Bedshaped' by Keane, another good video (don't like the song though).
Check them out below.

Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal


Keane - Bedshaped

Kanye West.

Just saw this little gem of an image promoting Kanye West's tour with special guest Mr. Hudson and the Library. I just really like it. True.

Helvetica T's.

American Apparel; very popular shop of the moment with stores in Brighton, Bristol, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham, and Glasgow (where's the Leeds one!? Grrrrrrrrr!).
They have a great collection of clothes in different styles and loads of great colours, and a recent item of clothing they've released is The Helvetica Alphabet T-shirt. There's only a few letters available online at the moment but they're getting people to vote for the next letters to be produced. So get Voting for you favourite letter! I wonder what other typefaces would look good on T-shirts. Any ideas?

DJ DEREK.

DJ Derek is a Bristol based DJ who plays a mixture of Reggae, Ska and soul music in his sets. His choice of music and sets has made him 'an icon for many in the industry'. I've seen him perform quite a few times and he always puts on a good show, especially when he talks about life lessons between songs in his Jamaican accent. I highly recommend seeing him if he's on anywhere near you. Oh by the way, he's 66. True.

Bestival Messtival Blesstival!

I went to Bestival. It was the Best Festival. And although it was so wet and so muddy, it didn't matter, cause the music and the atmosphere was amazing. There were also so many great fancy dress costumes that you can't help but have fun. I went as an 80s Gym instructor (see above).
I love the designs of everything scattered around Bestival, like a Piano for people to play on, or the pink 'I LOVE BESTIVAL' sign which everyone perches on. I highly recomend going next year.

Tesco Compare.

I've been searching for the Tesco Compare advert with Paul Daniels, but I can't find it anywhere. However I did come across this other little video of him doing a magic trick on the set of filming the advert. It is a little advert in itself. Very nice. True.

Lynx Dry Vibes.

I'm sure you've all seen the most recent Lynx Dry advert with the crazy eyes. I love it. Cracks me up. It got me trying to remember what other ones they've used for the product. So I looked it up and came across these two gems which also amuse me. You'll probably remember them.





And the new gammy eyes one:

Orange RockCorps.

Orange RockCorps is a organisation which gets people to do four hours of community service to earn a ticket for a great gig, such as the recent one due to take place at Albert Hall with Busta Rhymes (pending the judges decision), Ludacris, The Automatic, Guillemots, Lethal Bizzle, John Legend and Feeder.

It's a great idea and has already been highly successful across USA, and the advert's not bad either.
However, there is one part of the advert which isn't the best; when the girls say their names at the end. Mainly Cassie Cassidy. What a name! Unfortunately that just makes me crack up everytime I see it. Look out for it at the end of the advert. Sorry Cassie Cassidy!

RedBullRingPull.

During a recent 'Hangover day' I purchased a can of Red Bull to nurse it better and give me energy to go out again that night. And upon downing the last few drops of it I noticed the ring pull looked different to normal. Where there is usually just an oval shaped hole, there was instead an outline of a bull (their logo). I'm not sure how long it's been like this for, but I think it's a nice little touch. Check it below.

Cajun Dance Party - Colourful life

Cajun Dance Party are a 5 piece band from my area, and they've got a new single called 'Colourful Life' which came out in July. But I've only just seen the video for it. It's simple in a rather poetic way. Have a look.

Sky Rebrand. Not a fan.

Sky have created new logos for Sky 1, 2, and 3.....and they are rubbish. They look like they have been designed by a blind monkey who has pushed two different logos together. I know Sky are trying to incorporate their main logo onto the channels, which is fair enough, but the numbers look like they have been plonked on the side with no care for the overall appearence.

This is the main Sky logo:




Its simple, modern and smooth. But look what the new logos do to it:




Here are the older nicer logos for the channels:



Although I prefer the older logos for the channel, I do like the ident adverts for the new ones much more. Here is an example:

Polaroid Nation.

In February, Polaroid announced that they would be discontinuing the production of their iconic
Film. Extremely sad news, as I love Polaroid instant cameras and the photographs they produce.

When reading the September issue of Dazed & Confused (No. 65) I came across an article titled Polaroid Nation by Sarah Fakray. It explores the death of the Polaroid film due to the introduction of Digital photography, and just how loved the classic style of photography still is.
It also includes a collection of Polaroids, by famous photographers, that they can't live without.
Well worth a read.
An online version and selection fo these images is available here: www.dazeddigital.com/projects/polaroid-nation/Default.aspx

Something really interesting the article mentions is about a photographer called Jamie Livingston. Livingston took a photograph every day for 18 years until his 41st birthday in 1997 when he died of cancer. And you can view them all on the website:

http://photooftheday.hughcrawford.com/

And if you're born after 1979 you can easily view the photograph taken on your birthday.
This one was taken on mine (1/4/1988). Why not look up yours?

Cadbury classic.....and the not so classic.

The Cadbury Gorilla. Simply a piece of advertising genius. The Cadbury Cars. Simply a piece of Sh......shoddy advertising. They should have stuck with the Gorilla and not tried to recreate the same wackyness with the cars. They overcomplicated it. In my opinion anyway.



Bad cadbury BAD!

Bubblefun.

Basically I was bored one day so I had a go at quickly designing a type. It's not the best but it's a start. Something to work on for the future.

The result is this.

I call it Bubblegum.

Treadmill Skill.

Here it Goes Again by OKGO. Alright song, amazing video. It's just so clever and looks so fun. I really wanna have a go at it myself. So very sick.



Many people have done their own version of it. Here are some kids doing it at a high school talent show.




And here's another:


And a lego version:

Evian Have designed a niiiiiiiice new bottle. True.

On a trip to Sainsbury's Local for some munch I found a bottle of Evian water which I had never seen before. It was an elegant design made out of glass, with a simple small logo placed among regular plastic bottles. (below)


It got me thinking; what other available bottles do they have? So I researched it and came across this beautiful designed bottle from 2007.



“The Palace Bottle has been designed to represent the modern vision of Evian while maintaining a strong tie to our heritage in the French Alps,” says Michael Thouin, brand manager, Evian Canada. “We also created a unique pouring instrument called the Palace pourer, the first of its kind for the bottled water industry, designed to deliver on both form and function to provide a true luxury water experience.”

The new design will be featured in select hotels, high-end restaurants, and clubs throughout the country.

There's a great article about the bottle and Evian's clever designs on this website:

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS160533+07-Apr-2008+PRN20080407

View their other available bottles here:

http://www.evian.com/us/

Fashionista.

...is a fashion web site about fashion trends, opinions, clothes, fashion photos, style, celebrities, industry gossip, and models. It's where I found out about the monopoly high-tops below. Check it out at www.fashionista.com.

Reebok's Got Game.

Games company Hasbro and sports label Reebok have teamed up to create Monopoly inspired footwear.
Great Game. Great Shoes. True.

E4 idents.

E4. Great channel. Great adverts. There are always new idents being shown for it. And every single one is fantastic. Some are pretty complicated and other ones are really simple, but all are really enjoyable.
Here's some I could find.





And one for E4 Music.

Carphone Warehouse - A Brief History

Saw this advert the other day and I absolutely love it. Not quite sure how some of it was animated, but I reckon it must have taken quite a while. It was because of this advert that I went to the shop and bought a phone there (a right bargain it was too). I hope they continue to use this style of advert for a while.

Masters of Photoshop.

I recently read on another blog about the website www.worth1000.com. It features Photoshop competitions and tutorials, and it is A-MAZ-ING! Some of the stuff these people can do is ridiculous. The people who send in their images also often send in a tutorial as well, and they're really handy for improving your skills. I had a go at following one which taught you to draw human hair. Now the person giving the tutorial said they did theirs in 8 mins, and it looked amazing. Mine took me half an hour, and it's nowhere near as good. But I guess I'll just have to carry on practicing. You can see it above, so let me know what you think.

James Jirat Patradoon.

James Jirat Patradoon is an illustrator I was recently introduced to by my mate. He makes giant colourful screenprints of comic book style characters. He's been featured in many magazines for his illustrations. I can't wait to see how his career furthers, and watch what else he'll do.
His website is http://www.jiratpatradoon.com/.
His blog is http://jiratjames.blogspot.com/

The Black Ghosts.

This is another music video I really like. It's made by Skill Wizard and Lamo, and edited by Jim Deuth. Again it seems to be filmed on a home video camera, but it really works well with the song (and I really want a lot of the clothes features in it).

The Black Ghosts - 'Repetition Kills You'

MegaForce

I recently saw a video for the new 'Late of the Pier' single 'Heartbeat, Flicker, Line' which really caught my attention. It has some unusual scenes and settings, but what really interested me was the transitions the director had used. So after searching for it on YouTube I found out it was directed by a team called MegaForce.
I found their Myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/themegaforce) and it featured two other music videos they had produced, this time for a band called Naive New Beaters. I really like how they manage to mix a seemingly cheap, Home Video style, with clever special effects and transitions. Hopefully they'll carry on to direct many more. View them below.

Late of the Pier - 'Heartbeat, Flicker, Line'


Naive New Beaters - 'Live Good'


Naive New Beaters - 'Bang Bang'

Pinch an Inch.

This is a double page spread created to advertise the TV program 'You are What You Eat'. It shows fingers 'pinching an inch'. And the pinch is exactly where the magazine pages would curve when turned over. I think this is a really clever idea, and although I would have used different type in the bottom right corner, I think the overall image is really well executed.

Brass Jobss.

A Job searching website created these posters to advertise how important the 'right job' can be for everyone. They put images on the side of Washing machines, petrol pumps, and cigarette machines. The images were of people doing the jobs inside the machines to make them work. A woman hand washing the clothes inside a washing machine. A man drilling for oil inside the petrol pump. A man rolling the cigarettes inside the vending machine. The images have been carefully planned and well photographed.

The endless tissues.

I do like a good bit of ambient media. This piece was used to advertise Kleenex's 'endless' box of tissues.

StarFighter. The Ultimate Joystick.

I was recently clearing out my attic when I came across these old joysticks for my Atari. I remember using them back in the day, but I completely forgot how wicked they looked.
They really capture the 'old school' look of the Atari decade with the simple, classic design.
The name says it all; 'StarFighter: The Ultimate Joystick'. True.

Robbie Davies.

Robbie Davies is one of my favourite designers. He designs flyers for London clubs and pubs such as 'Home' and 'The Old Queens Head'. He manages to use old photographs and give them a modern twist. Davies is extremely good at choosing type to suit each flyer. Every aspect of the images is carefully considered by Davies to create an aesthetically pleasing end product.

well I never!

I stumbled across this piece of ambient media whilst browsing an advert archive website....and I think it's glorious! Truly hilarious.
It consists of a magnet with a picture of a sachet of lubricant gel. The magnet has a hole on it so it can be placed over the boot lock of a car. And of course, the car key slips easily into the keyhole. I'm sure you get the rest. Swell.

Probably the best bottle in the world.

This a recent Bilboard advertisement to promote the launch of Carlsberg's new bottle. They spelt out the logo with a load of the new bottles. A rather impressive way of creating a simple image. I like it, a lot.

The Live Dive Vibe!

So many Car adverts can be slavishly over-produced, so something that actually happened is really welcome.

Unfortunately I didn't get to see this broadcasted live on television, I didn't even know it was happening. It wasn't until I saw later Honda adverts that used footage from the live dive that someone mentioned to me it had been broadcast live. So I searched for it on youtube, and wow. It's such a great idea. So well organised. No special effects, or camera trickery. Just a simple spelling out of the company name with people jumping out of a plane. Brilliant!
I don't know of any other live adverts, so this really impresses me. If anyone does can they please let me know so I can view them as well, and see how different they may be.

"Honda. Power of Dreams." Such a great strapline, with amazing potential for adverts.
Honda never disappoint.



The Follow-up advert to the skydive.

That's a great ikea!

Today I took a trip to ikea for some furniture and the like, and it got me thinking, what sort of things apart from billboards do ikea advertise on? So I researched it and found a recent piece of ambient media they had created in Germany. They had painted balconies on the side of a building to look like storage compartments such as baskets, boxes and drawers, with the ikea logo and the tagline "bigger storage ideas" on another balcony. A fairly simple idea but carried out with great detail and care.