Caution! Pickpockets

This is fun advert by Navigator Response Advertising designed to warn users of the London Underground that there are pickpockets operating in the area. As I-pods where one of the main things being stolen the ad was designed to mimic the iconic I-pod adverts. I don’t know whether Apple where happy or not about having their designs copied but the posters are certainly amusing so you take notice and for that reason much more effective than the usual “Caution! Pickpockets” signs. This is a simple but clever idea.

Saga Joystick Advert

I found this advert on the internet advertising a joystick for Saga, which should make you smile. I some how struggle to believe that it was ever a real advert that went to press but I thought I’d point out the nice copy writing and double entendres.

Rise Recordings Logo / Album Artwork

This is the logo for Paris based electro label ‘Rise Recording’ – its nice and I can see what the designer has done but it always bugs me as I cant decide if it looks like it is rising out of the page, shrinking into it or accelerating forward. I had a look on their website (http://www.myspace.com/riserecordingz) thinking that maybe it wasn’t designed for print but to be a animated on the web but have found no indication of this.

Whilst on the site I found this piece of artwork though for one of their new recordings which really caught my eye – its one of those pictures that never gets boring to look at.

Shoplifting Sign

I recently saw this sign in a charity shop in Whitby and I think it shows an interesting side to human nature. In many high street shops you will see a sign warning ‘We always prosecute shoplifters’ yet it is not unusual to see a shoplifter getting chased through Leeds city centre by a security guard which suggests that, for some people at least, the threat of prosecution isn’t enough to get them to stop stealing. This charity shop has tried a different method – to shame criminals into not stealing from them by suggesting that if you steal from them you are effectively stealing from disabled children and surly not even the most hardened criminals could do that. This is based on a similar principle to a government advert that ran a few years ago to get people to stop smoking. Instead of the usual ‘smoking kills you’ adverts it featured a young man and a young woman who keep eying each other up in a bar, but when the man finally get the courage to go and speak to her he leans in to say something to her then pulls back in disgust and walks away. The girl looks confused, then picks up her cigarette from the table and the tag line ‘If you smoke, you stink’ appears on the screen. This is based on the idea that smokers know the potential health risks of smoking but clearly aren’t bothered by them – the prospect however that everybody else thinks you stink is horrifying.

Bostik Super Glue Adverts

Three fantastic copy based adverts which really get across the message very simply just using copy. I can imagine that the photo of the product was only put in at the request of Bostik themselves.

In case you can’t read the copy the blue one reads: ‘Sausage and chips twice please’ ‘How about dinner at my place instead’ ‘Pick me up at eight’ the purple one reads ‘Hello I’m David’ ‘Hi, I’m Angela’ ‘I love you, will you marry me?’ ‘I’d love to’ and the green one ‘Return to Nottingham please’ ‘Forget Nottingham, lets run away together’ ‘OK’. The tag line for them all is ‘Bonds in seconds’.

Star Wars Trilogy - Ambeint Media

It’s a few years old now but this still has to be one of my all time favourite pieces of ambient media – what a fantast idea!

Midland Signs Website

The Midlands Signs website is a brilliant example of what can be done with a creative imagination and a basic knowledge of Flash and a site that I think would deffentaly be worth looking at if you are starting out on a Graphic Design course. The website was created by a studio from Sheffield called ‘Something Somewhere’ who instead of throwing together the sort of website that you would expect for a signage company, they have created something unique, something that will really set Midland Signs out from other local signage companies. The site is easy to navigate and the portfolio is interesting to look at.

Visit the website at www.midlandsigns.co.uk

RSPCA Noose Advert

A rather grim but very powerful advert for the animal charity the RSPCA showing how sometimes you don’t need a clever strap line to make a advert work when you have an image as powerful as this.

Original Source Shower Smoothie Packaging

I saw this piece of packaging at my local supermarket and thought it was a really good example of a company taking advantage of new packaging technologies to creative with the way that their product is being packaged – and as a result it really stands out form their competitors on the shelf. The packaging has been designed to look like the packaging of a soft drink which ties in with the name – shower smoothie – and communicates the idea that this product is designed to refresh your skin. Even the copy is clever with a serving suggestion and best before that reads ‘best before: your skin feels neglected’.

Student Bank Accounts

Very relevant at the moment considering student up and down the country will be packing their bags and heading back to uni soon. I some how feel that this advert never actually saw the light of day though (it was an entry into the Chip Shop Awards a few years ago). It would certainly catch your eye more than an advert offering a ‘Free Student Bus Pass when you open an account’.

Developing Photos in a Dark Room

I came across these pieces of film in an old folder from when I had been at college on my art foundation and they show the process that I had been though of developing my own photos in a dark room. They reminded me of just some of the incredible effects you could create manually by going back to basics with your photography and no having to really on Adobe Photoshop to retouch all your photographs and that this is something that I would definitely like to experiment again with in future projects. Often by accident I could get some really nice, unusual or unexpected affects just by experimenting and this is something I don’t do with Photoshop (although I should).

Whacked – Sopranos Ambient Media

Another fantastic piece of ambient media from a few years ago promoting a new series of the hit American gangster series The Sopranos.

Madelene Bjork Cake Stand - Wieden+Kennedy combine art and product design

This is a cake stand created by the designer Madelene Bjork as part of Wieden+Kennedy’s W10K project in which a group of product designers where given £10,000 that the design agency had won and told to create something that could be sold and make back the £10,000. The cake stand was just one of several products that they came up with and I think it is a brilliant example of looking at an object differently. Normally a cake stand is designed so that you can cut the cake into several even and identical pieces – with this stand however if you follow the cut lines you will cut the cake into several seemingly random pieces, each of which however will have exactly the same quantity.

Another reason I find this cake stand interesting is that it seems to sit in the gray area where art and product design overlap. In reality (or at least in my opinion) it is a little too inpracticle to be strctly considered a piece of product design - if you where to use it at home you would always have to explain that all the pieces of cake where the same size, or if you used it in a cafe the people getting the long thin slices of cake might feel cheated, as if they where getting less than someone with short fat slice. However as it has a clear and obvious role it can it really be considered art either?

The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption was originally written as a short story by Stephen King, who is more famous for his horror stories, entitled ‘Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption’. The film, set over 20 years (beginning in 1946) tells the story of a quiet banker Andy Durfresne (played by Tim Robbins) who is sent to the Shawshank prison for the murder of his wife and the man she was having an affair with. Whilst in prison Andy meets Morgan Freeman’s character ‘Red’ (who narrates the story brilliantly) and film is about the friendship that build between them and how Andy learns to survive prison life by using his banking skills to help the guards with their tax and business dealings but all the time quietly wishing for his freedom. I wont give away any more of the plot but I would certainly recommend watching this film if you haven’t already seen it, the casting is perfect and you feel genuine compassion for the key characters, I was almost on the end of my seat for the last 20 minutes hoping for a happy end. The story is intelligent and engrossing and I was surprised to hear that it wasn’t a box office hit when first released.

Fight Club – Ikea Scene

Out of all the scenes in the iconic film ‘Fight Club’ the Ikea scene has to be my favourite. In scene Edward Norton’s character narrates about how he has become obsessed with Ikea furniture but it is the editing or postproduction of the scene that really caught my eye, it is designed to ‘look’ like a page from an Ikea catalogue.

Bains and Haslams ‘Type and Typography’

I recently read a copy of Bains and Haslams book ‘Type and Typography’ in which they pointed out that one of the key problems with type is that it can sometimes fail to get across crucial elements of our sound system (such as expressions, gestures, emphasis, age, accents etc) – it ‘irons them out’. Up until this point I had never really seen type as having these effects, however as I began to think about type does loose these vital characteristics that we take for granted in speech. For example we have all received an email, a text message or instant message that we have taken the wrong way or misunderstood because type has ironed expressions. It is interesting to see how the use of ‘smiles’ and expressions such as ‘lol’ have begun to be used in day to written (or typed) correspondence to get round these problems. Bains and Haslam obviously point out that as designers we are normally able to use typography creatively to get around these issues however we do need to be careful to make sure messages aren’t misread.

Another interesting point from the book is that large amounts of black copy on a white background can put a strain on our eyes – for that reason books are often printed on an off white stock.

Design and build your own typeface for free - http://fontstruct.fontshop.com

This is a fantastic new website from FontShop which allows you to design and then build your own unique typeface. Once you have created it you can then download it (both for a Mac and a PC) and share it with other users of the site (you can also search and download theirs). This is a fantastic idea – if you are working on a logo you can create a really unique typeface for a client or if you want a typeface with a really specific look that you just cant find anywhere now you can just build it yourself (and name it after yourself, naturally). I can’t wait to use it in a project!

Visit http://fontstruct.fontshop.com

En Garde Arts Logo

This is the logo for a non-profit street theatre group called En Garde Arts. I’m usually a bit cautious about designers using spray paint stencil effects in logos as sometimes they look a bit like they are trying too hard to be ‘down with the kids’ but this logo has pulled it off brilliantly thanks to some fantastic typography with the ‘e’ ‘g’ and ‘a’.

Curious Pictures

This is the logo for Curious Pictures, a production company that produces adverts and television programs. I really like the way the question mark has been turned around to make a ‘p’ – it’s what makes this logo really special and you can see that a designer has had a real ‘eureka’ moment when they realised it.

Remembrance Sunday Postage Stamp and the D&AD’s

Only two pieces of design received a nomination and none won a highly sort after ‘Black Pencil’ this years D&AD awards which was abit of a shock to the graphic design industry. This stamp to commemorate Remembrance Sunday was one (see my article below for my thoughts on the other) and I personally fell that the judges may have been a little harsh. Even in a year where, allegedly, the quality of entries was so low that only two where deemed good enough to gain a nomination I still feel this graphic was good enough to take home a pencil. It is a simple idea beautifully executed – everything pencil winning design should be. Or at least that’s my opinion anyway – does anybody else have any thoughts?