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.
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.
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.
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.
For this years Wimbledon, leading British artists Ackroyd & Harvey were commissioned to produce a unique piece of art using the medium of Grass. And the piece they created is incredible. I had absolutely no idea this could be done with grass so accurately. By projecting a black and white negative image onto a patch of grass as it grew in a dark room, the natural photosensitive properties of the grass altered to produce the photograph on the negative. The grass acted as the photographic medium. Up close the Grass appears perfectly normal, but if you back away from it the image comes together and it's hard to believe it's been done on grass at all. It mixes Art with Science, and it works amazingly.
I love ambient media. And this is a great example of it being really successful. Oreo's are the classic biscuit for dunking in milk. It's something they're famous for. And this Ambient media uses that fact amazingly. An oreo cookie and a glass of milk were stuck onto a panoramic lift in a shopping mall. Below is how it worked out.
These are some posters promoting Pro American Volleyball. It's not an amazing campaign. I just really like the photography. Well lit, well planned, well shot. The line at the bottom reads 'These girls/boys hit. Hard."
My mobile phone is black and white. Mainly cause I broke my old one and was given this as a quick replacement and can never manage to keep hold of money long enough to buy a new one (it is quickly spent on booze), but also because I have realised that I don't need all the fancy extras phones have these days. However, this advert has made me want them.
It consists of hundreds of people drawing on a huge piece of paper to create a massive illustration. I'm not sure if it's real or not. There seems to be some pretty young children doing some very good illustrations. If it did really happen then it must have been amazing to be involved in and amazing to witness. I really like the mixture of different illustration styles in the advert. And now I really want to buy the phone. So the advert works. Well done Nokia!
At any one time there is approximately 300,000 pieces of chewing gum stuck to the pavement on Oxford Street, London. Cleaning it up would cost about £30,000, but thankfully an artist called Ben Wilson. has come up with a novel way of dealing with the problem. He paints them. I first noticed his work a few years ago, round where I live in Muswell Hill, after dropping a crisp packet and bending down to pick it up. It had landed next to a flattened piece of chewing gum which had something different about its appearence. It was full of colour. And on closer inspection it appeared to have peoples names on it, as if a dedication. Over the weeks more and more appeared over broadway. And sometimes if you were lucky, you'd be able to see him on his hands and knees painting them with tiny brushes. Ben Wilson has painted chewing gums from Barnet, where he was born, to Old Street in the centre of town. Ben Wilson took some discarded waste and turned it into a canvas for beautiful art. The small size of the creations force you to really get close to them. You see people bending down on the street to admire them, which is why I like them so much. Ben Wilson makes art available for many to see, in their local surroundings, for free.
Now I'm not a big fan of those trash filled weekly magazines for women e.g. Heat, More, Closer etc etc. With their constant 'She's too skinny, but now she's too fat' stories keeping women constantly unhappy with their size and telling them how to live their lives. In my opinion they make for a terrible read. However...it seems sometimes they make cracking adverts. When this advert first came on television I was not expecting to see a magazine title at the end of it. But there it was, 'LOOK magazine'. The power of advertising; Truly amazing. Maybe I'll even buy it.
Car advertisements are always exciting. They cause a lot of people to express how much they like the adverts through word of mouth and across other medias. This is one of those adverts. It's an exciting and colourful experience with lots going on. Dropping a car onto a trampoline is something that would never happen normally, so seeing it is really special. Especially when it is set in the beautiful Great Hall of Alexandra palace. Brilliant Stuff.
The 'F' Word. Great idea. Great show. But the logo has parts which annoy me a tad.
The 'F' of the logo is extremely well produced. The way the bottom of it curves to a point like a knife, reflects the sharp food knowledge of Gordan Ramsey and his harsh attitude towards other chefs not matching his standard. The 'F' being coloured red allows it to be manipulated to look like blood for promotional material and gives it a sense of danger. So the 'F' works.
However, it is the other two words in the logo that annoy me. They, in my opinion, do not work with the 'F'. They appear as if they've been added last minute without as much consideration and time as was spent on the 'F'. The main reason for this being that the height of the letters is greater than the cross line of the 'F'. If the cross line of the 'F' was thicker so that it lined up with the other two words, then I feel it would be a more successful logo and much more aesthetically pleasing.
This short video is about a gang of female skaters and their pet rats who terrorize the boy skaters around town in 1986. Whether this is serious or filmed for comedic reasons I can't tell, but personally I find it pretty hilarious. The clever editing, timing and music work really well together to deliver a quick and interesting 'Mockumentary'. Enjoy.
If you haven't seen it, 'Dexter' is an American Drama Series based on the Novel 'Darkly Dreaming Dexter' by Jeff Lindsay. The show follows the rather complicated life of Dexter Morgan; a blood splatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department, and part-time serial killer.
As the show has such a controversial subject matter, the title sequence had to be both sly and witty, yet also posses a deeply dark overall theme. And for me, it couldn't be executed much more perfectly. The Mise en scene of each frame has been carefully considered to reflect the shows sinister storyline.
Based around Dexter's morning routine, each regular action that may be taken, i.e. shaving, cooking breakfast, and getting dressed, have been filmed in such a way that they appear very menacing and murder related. The resplendent cinematography is gloriously complimented by an unusual soundtrack. Composed by Rolfe Kent, it features Guiro, Latin percussion, Turkish saz and a vaguely reggae beat; all timed to match the opening sequence. My favourite part of which, is the final note, played on a triangle, just as Dexter gives a sneaky smirk toward the camera.
To start all this off, I've decided to post a video by an amazing artist called BLU. He produces some incredible animations that must have taken tiiiiiiiiiiime to create, showing true dedication to his work and passion. This is my favourite of them all. Enjoy.
Visit his Website to see more glorious animations. http://www.blublu.org/
