Nike photid

Nike photid is the latest mobile phone based piece of design for creative culture addicts, the idea is that your out and about and see a colour scheme you like any where where its a piece of graffiti on a wall or a poster on a bus stop and you might just happen to think "that would be a really cool colour way for a pair of shoes" but how do you find those colours again?, well now with nike photoid all you have to go is take a photo of the colours and send it too your countrys special number and you will recieve a reply with your custom colour matched nike and a code to enter online so you can buy them.



I think that the idea is great and it might even be abit late arriving with the idea of colour matching sice we have been able to do it with paint and kitchen furniture colours for a while now and this makes it accesable to everyone, the idea really makes nikes custom shoes that have been around for a while more well known, and it makes it accessible the idea of custom shoes by word of mouth sounds very expensive and so utilizing mobile phones makes peopel realize its not at out of reach as they thoght because its been aimed at people with phones which is almost everybody now, the advert isnt aimed as celebrity's who can take a pile of fabrics into a shop and leave with a pair of overpriced shoes it is universal and so doesnt alienate people.

I also think the advert is very effective the beat boxing soundtrack adds to the customizing image and it gives the feeling of that anyone can do it to and makes you think "i could do that" and this feel is shown in the demonstration of how it works it just looks the easiest thing in the world to do they don't try to make the process more impressive than it actual is the just keep the feeling that its something quite special that you can have a pair of one of shoes but that it is for everyone not just people who can afford it, because the last thing you want to do it create a hugely sort after product that everyone can have and then give peopel the impressionthat it's out of there reach with the way you advertise it.

Coca-Cola identity

The coca-cola identity re brand by turner Duckworth of London and San Francisco has the ideas to strip on eof the worlds biggest brands to its core essentials. and i think this is a statement on how company's that have become world recognisable by just a logo are relying to much on how much money they can throw into a project and get the greatest piece of motion graphics imaginable and this project is about finding the true image that is coca cola and what they were all about and how they got where they are today without the money and endless advertising possibilities.
This design it a huge stack of coke bottles with gaps to build the classic coke logo.


I think that what they have created in this campaign is extremely powerful and have captured exactly what coke is about as far as a brand and this is the amazing font and design of there logo along with the classic bottle shape which is something that for a while i would say is something that wasn't a prominent part of coca cola in this country and to me was something that i personally related to holiday as it was the only place i would see the classic bottle and not a can.
I would say that the coca cola logo is possibly the best piece of type design ever created and making it once agaain the most important thing about the design and not just something stuck oin the corner of a over the top piece of cgi and for me personally it works, the first thought when you see this capaign in coke the drink not how impressive what you are watching is and think its a movie trailer and the simplicity of the design are very classy adn represent the style that is represented in the coke logo.

My favourite image from the campaigne is the truck designs, the simple idea of painting a part of the truck to look like a pickup truck dragging a huge bottle of coke whic i think while stil keeping in the minimal clean theme it still coneys both mesages of coke that they are a serious brand with a timeless classic look that dont need to be overly impressive, adn it is also a design that brings a smile to your face and gives the message of happiness and that coca cola bring this happiness even if there dragging it behind a truck.

Nokia Vine

Nokia's new vine application is the next level of social networking that does all the work for you the idea of nokia vine is that it will document the actions you do one a journey much like on twitter how you can update anyone in the world with what you are doing at any time you want to, vine on the other hand is more multimedia based and gives people an extra insight in what you want to show them because as you are on a journey if you turn on your nokia phones music player using gps the phone documents where you are when you start listening to your music and upload a path of your route onto your online profile which will end when you stop listening to music, other features it has is when you take a photo or a video it will automatically upload the photo you have taken to the website with a tag on your map for where you were at that moment in time so people can see where abouts what you have taken a photo of is.


I really like this idea about it uploading pictures and videos for you and documenting a specific journey with all the things you have done, and it reminds me of the research methods Damien Gascoine talked about in his lecture that we should always be researching and be taking notes through out our daily lives and i think this is a very interesting way to document things that we have been doing and it also takes down the risk of actually documenting something and losing it but with vine you will always be able to find out where you or a particular item was in the world.

Syrup

After finding the hope.act.change website i found out it had been created by a company called syrup so i decided to do some research into them to see what there other work was like and if it was as successful as that one.

The company are based in New York and Stockholm i had to do some digging to find out about them and who they were because this kind of information wasn't available on there website but when i did eventually find some information that they had written about them selves in a bio, and i can defiantly say that it sounds like a great nice place to work, they describe themselves as ''Our business is not run like an office. Syrup is a live/work loft'' and "We have jam sessions in between brainstorming, soccer games before coming to work, and the best espresso machine money can buy."and this makes the place sound like a lot of fun and a really creative environment and i think this is something you get the feeling of in there website which is a simple flash site with ten thumbnails of work on a background of cartoony drawn items like tennis and football and there is a cool feature that as you scroll to the edges of the screen the website moves with your mouse which has no real purpose but on this site it feels right and it lets you explore all the drawn items on the background.

There work ranges from web design and online campaigns to television advertising and is all very clean and minimal and there is never a screen that feels overpowering or in your face all the information in the work is very subdeued in a well thoguht out and calssy way that doesnt shout at you to look at it it almost is so refined and classy that it expects you to take a closer look, one thing i have noticed about there work is that they have a theme of using shapes such as diamonds and patterns built up in this way especially when creating buttons for a website and i think this looks really good because the buttons dont stand like they sometimes can on a website so do not take away from the page that is often putting emphasis on a photo in the picture. there diamond theme also can be seen in there graphic work in the following photo where the lights have been made into a the distinctive diamond pattern and is definatly a interstign thing to keep running through different campaigns.

Zoo York Roaches

I dont quite know how to describe this particular promotion form New york based urban clothing company zoo york the videos started of as a viral which eventually became a full campaign of adverts all based around cockroaches which i assume is to go along with the zoo york slogan which is "unbreakable" and i guess the only creature that would survive a nuclear war is pretty unbreakable, what i think is great about this campaign is that it is the kind of advertising that is just unleashed on the public wether they want to be a part of it or not and what they have done is so random and strange that people on the streets cant take notice, what the company do is spray paint the company logo onto hendreds of cockroaches adn there bmx and skate team go out into new york and jsut realease them onto the public which while is a very cheap form of puttign the company logo out on teh streets with the roaches working as little walking advertisements adn aslo get the company a huge amount of the publicity for thrownign roaches onto un suspecting new yorkers which would have no doubt be nothing nice said about what they did nut then againtheres no such thing as bad publicity.

Harvey Nichols sale posters

Out of the whole creative review annual 2009 I found myself being constantly drawn too this set of posters no matter how many times i flicked through i found my eye was caught by them every time and there was something that i just found extremely captivating about them and i feel they are one of the best sets of design for advertising i have seen for a while and i think that its the fact that one of the reasons is they are only advertising a clothes store sale and are not part of a huge campaign by a big corporate company they seem like they are more about an idea than how much money has been put into making the most impressive thing ever.



I think that the idea to use manikins is really effective and very different approach because it would have been much easier to hire some models and tell them to look scared, i think they have been really successful to make you feel that the manikins are fearing for there safety from the onslaught of shoppers coming at them because of the careful manipulation of there body's in the way that the poses are not just hiding they actually look like they are terrified and trying to defend themselves, there physical form also looks very human due to the fact that the manikins have some features specially altered like the red dress manikin has an outstretched fingers in a stop hand gesture, i think the fact that they are not human works to make you get the emotion feelings because they have no faces and so rely on body language even more and in these posters it is very strong.

I also think the choice of type holds the posters together well and the choice not to have a slogan or line about how good the sale is and keeping the information minimal makes the image stronger because the info isn't taking anything away from the manikins. the colour scheme is perfect as well by have the dark background with dark takes really makes the bright clothes on the manikins pop out and immediately make the manikin the focal point.

stolen design ideas?

After being drawn to a series of posters in creative review created by DDB London for the Harvey Nichols sale, the posters featuring manikins diving for cover and looking scared at the prospect of a sale and i decided i wanted to write about them for my blog and went online to find abit more info and i came across the following site which is a french advertising site and someone had posted this piece about pieces of design that they think are just copy's of other pieces of design.

http://www.joelapompe.net/category/print-outdoor/retailers-furniture/

The article in the site does feature the Harvey Nichols posters and while they are the same with the use of manikins in a state of self defense and terror i have to say that i feel the Harvey Nichols posters are much better as the other company's posters the manikins have faces and i think that they just make it over the top and don't have the same emotional feeling the Harvey Nichols poster give of so personally i don't think they are a direct copy but may have been influenced and actually done much better, and this made me think is anything really 100% original anymore and what do we have to do for someone to not to accuse us of stealing an idea for example my fmp can be said to be similar to the Audi rhythm of lines project but i have put my own spin on the idea and the only reason i have done something similar is because i was so impressed by it in the first place so on the issue brought up by the website my own opinion is that there is stealing in design only designers trying to be like the the people and work that has inspired them and that is what keeps the creative industry going and getting people involved when they see something that impresses them so much they have to have a go.

Damien Hirst takes on skateboarding

World renowned artist Damien Hirst has teamed up with exclusive new york based skate label 'supreme' to create a extremely limited collection of skateboard decks.

Supreme are well known for producing limited numbers of t shirts and other clothing items that people pay huge amounts of money for to add to a collection they will never wear and this latest project is no different, they are releasing 3 skateboard decks designed by Damien Hirst who is best known for his part in the sensations exhibition and putting animals in boxes as art, the boards he has designed are extremely colourful and psychedelic and look great but what i find strange about his approach to the skateboards is that while the underneath of your average skateboard is a carefully designed image and logo that will be part of a series for that particular company with nothing on top other than maybe a small logo as it will be covered by grip tape to skate it, but hirst has flipped this on its head while his designs are quite striking, they do just look as though he's thrown some paint around and see what came out of it but the tops of the skateboards on the other hand seem to have more thought put into them, each board has a individual piece of design on top and this part that would be covered up seems to be the most unique and therefore part of the board you would want to show of.

Either way i don't think it really matters where he writes his name because i very much doubt the lucky people to get there hands on one of these boards are going to skate them because now just because his name is on it it would be like taking a painting out of a gallery and smashing it to pieces, and this just goes to show how much difference a name can make when added to a piece of work no matter what it looks like.

nike sb Chalk

I found this on youtube while just searching for skateboarding videos, it is to promote themselves as a company that is new to the skateboarding world, but with this being nike and the huge brand the already are outside skateboarding they have had no trouble in paying for a very well designed and creative advert and also being able to afford paul rodriguez who is one of the best skateboarders in the world to be in there advert helps too.

Nike SB chalk
Uploaded by omerone -

The advertisement was created by wieden and kennedy who are an independant creative advertising agancy responsible for nikes biggest campaigns, the advert is quite simple we have a birdseye view of a road and skateboarder comes into shot and draws the outline of stairs on the road and then goes of screen only to reapear riding the chalk line and kickflips the stairs and rides out of shot and then reappears skating on the road as normal again.

What i like abou this is not really the concept because while it is clever you see it coming straight away so theres no real surprise to it but what is good about it is that there are endless possibilities for a series of similar adverts, what i think is the most effective feature of the advert is the feeling it gives of, first i really like the look of the street it is filmed on, the colour is very subdued with a monochromatic colour scheme that is nicely lit to give a calm , quiet look and this works really well with the fact there is no music and only the sound of a skateboard rolling and the chalk line being drawn and i feel that the sounds are quite soothing against this look the advert has, at the end of the advert when the skateboarder comes back into shot i think that the way he travels ties up the advert well because of the fact he doesnt go end to and in a straight line he takes a smooth mellow turn to go around the chalk staris and i just feel liek this oiece of movement emphasises a calm feeling once again.

Overall i think the advert is very well done and has a really classy feel to it by not doing the obvious of playing some rock music having huge amounts of action adn throwing big logos everywhere.

Hope Act Change

www.hopeactchange.com

While reading creative review i found out about this website created by the company syrup,the website is a political one around the election of barrack Obama and the theme of change peoples belief that he will change the world and the idea of Hope.Act.Change. is a community of people empowering one another to create positive change in the world.
Now it is not the actual message of the site or what it is about that drew me too it as i cant really say i am one to follow everything about world politics it is the piece of video that the site is creating and the idea behind how it works and its representation of the sites ideals.

What the site is building is a incredible music video, and it gets stronger as more people become a part of it and it actually incorporates the people into it backing up the idea of people coming together and supporting them are recognised as an integral part of the bigger picture. when you join the site to show your support you add a photo of yourself with your name and where you are from, and this picture is added to a huge mosaic of the people at the forefront of this change for example Barack Obama from the magazine all i saw was stills and this still looked amazing and the idea of it building as more people join really intrigued me, but when i got to the site i was really blown away by the fact that the Mosaic pictures are actually moving image to accompany a specially created music track by 'will i am' and what is a very effective touch to the video is that when you hover over the video and hit a thumbnail it gets enlarged so you can see the person making up that part of the picture and i think this really does give a feeling of community and that you are apart of something your not just a name on a list it makes you feel like you are apart of change and this is why i think the website has been such a success.

smith & foulkes

I found smith & foulkes when i discovered the production company "nexus" and i found that i was a huge fan of the work they had been doing but i just didn't know they were the ones behind it until now, so i decide to do some research iinto them and where they came from to get where thay are in the industry.

Smith & Foulkes graduated from the Royal College of Art animation course in 1997 and then teamed up with producers Chris O’Reilly and Charlotte Bavasso at nexus studios, they have won coutless awards for there commercial work including a grand prix award at cannes lions, an ITV Award for Best Commercial and two Golds at the D&AD awards. in 2006 they were the most awarded comercial directors in the us and europe.

The work they are well known for is there cgi for huge brands including coca-cola, motorola, robinsons and honda, what first drew me too there work was when i was shown there coca-cola advert entitled "video game" which is an adaptation of grand theft auto whic his a well know game for violence, car theft amongst other things, but what they did was flip the game on its head to work with the coka-cola message, the advert starts of much in the way of grand theft auto with a car tearign down the street almost hitting people and then a thug like looking character leaping out and heading into a shop where the shop worker throws his hands up only to be handed money for the bottle of coke the main character picks up and this is where we start to see what the advert is about, the main character carrys on his journey doing various good deads along the way but what is nice abou this is the little details that they have put in on what is typically quite a cliche idea of the bad guy doing good things, the details that make it stand out is the little details that show they no the game they are parodying well for example as the chartacter walks down the street we hear the sound of a gun beign drawn only for his to pull out a fire extinguisher and put out a fire and, the character looks as if he's going ot car jack someone only to get pull them out of there car to hand them a bottle of coke and its little details like this that make the animation come to life and show that its not just someone tryign to use the success of a videogame to sell there product.

Another thign a really like about ther work is the detail of what they create its all very clean and it looks as though there are no corners cut and that there is somethign to see anywhere but your not going to get a chance to take it all in in just a few viewings, for example in the coke video game advert the character models are liek that in the real video game, they have similar characteristics but only they are even more detaield and every character in the animation looks different to another, and the city is incredably detailed all the textures look perfect and are incredaly detailed down to the torn piece of a poster left on a wall adn it just makes you want to have the enviroment there infront of you to explore every inch of it.

nexus productions

Nexus productions are a motion graphics company from London, they work in 3d, 2d live action and even use live puppets in there animations they started work in 1997 when they produced a piece for U2's pop mart tour world tour where they created an animation for the worlds largest tv, since then they have built up a large list of clients including paramount, boddingtons, dream works, ben and jerry's and Honda.


The company works by having a large list of directors, animators and illustrators all under one roof, so they have a extremely wide range of work on offer and this shows that they can take on pretty much any brief that a client has to offer and they dont have the image of a regular company, they have specialists for every medium so its hard to see why any one would go anywhere else because there work is all extremely impressive from the the most minimal piece of flash animation to the biggest cgi piece. on the website there is a very useful feature which is in there work section of the website, instead of having a list of different pieces of work they have a list of the directors and the projects they have worked on so you can narrow down the style of work that is interesting to you by the people that made it.


What i noticed about the work by nexus as a browsed there portfolio was that i had seen nearly everything, all there work seemed to be those adverts that stand out on TV and you remember over any others, my favorite directors from nexus are 'smith & foulkes' they are the big cgi directos on the site there work is always on a huge scale with the most going on in an advert, they dont just create a cgi character and they create a whole world that is perfect down to every detail and has a incredable look to it that imediatly draws you into the world they create, some of there most notable work is the coke adaptation of the hit video game grand theft auto and the honda advert 'hate something' which shows the journey of diesel engines through a dreamlike world to the strangely catchy hate something song.

Fingerindustries

Fingerindustrys are a animation and illustration company from Sheffield, they work in a wide range of mediums including editorial work, character design, concept design for TV and art direction to name a few, there work is quite well know as they have clients such as the guardian, royal bank of Scotland and Lloyd's tsb, they pride themselves on being distinctive, original and useful which looking through there portfolio and recognising there work from television they certainly are.

The most recognisable characteristic of there work is there character design in 3d, most notably the beautiful Lloyd's tsb adverts that feature the strange characters and the fantastic world they live in, there other design work is very similar there designs all have a strange take on reality, the characters they create all are recognisable as humans but they have strange features notably the long noses and they look like something out of a story book or something from doctor Seuss and this is what i really like about the work, there take on reality and twisting it into something that looks like a wild dream of a child much like Tim Burton's nightmare before Christmas featuring wonderful characters that can be terrifying in there own right depending on how a story is told.



Another thing i really liked about the company was there website which is an interactive flash site that takes you on a little journey through a stylized cartoon world with little interactive characters that can be clicked to make them animate as you go from page to page, and this works really well to get more of an insight to what kind of company they are because they have not put together a generic website to hold there work they have made it personal to the company's style and it gives the message of fun, creativity and that they do things a Little differently and see the worked in a different way and there website puts this message across just as strong as there animations do.

contact phone call with flame digital

Due to not going on the trip to London i knew that i had to make sure that i got my second portfolio crit and i didn't want to go through the long process of e-mails as this would put me much further behind than the rest of the group, so i decided to call flamedigital in Manchester to see if this would have better results.

FlameDigital:0845 226 0766

I contacted Flame on Thursday march 12th.

When i got through I introduced myself and explained that I am a 3rd year multimedia design student at Stockport college and that i am looking for feedback on my work and trying to visit some company's and get an insight into the working world and see how things work in the professional design industry, an asked if it would be possible for me to bring my portfolio into flame and show someone there my work, to which the woman i spoke to replied saying it might be possible and to hold while she would ask some of the designers there and so i waited and she returned to tell me that there head of design would be willing to see me if i was available on march 16th to which i replied that i was and so the meeting was arranged for 2pm and i thanked her for taking the time to speak to me and ask the designers to see me.

motion graphics inspiration

www.motionspire.com

motionspire is a website that showcases the latest in motion graphics making hte rounds in the design community and also offers designers a chance to showcase there own work adn uploads videos stating "its OK to show off".

The website is extremely simple to use due to the fact it is very nicely designed with a very clean layout that makes it easy to navigate, on the home page you get a selection of video thumbnails of what are the most current.
there is also a list of catagories down one side of the page that let you narrow down your selection to such subjects as 2d, 3d, typography and idents to name a few and while this is not a new feature to a website but the fact that this site is dedicated purely to motion graphics the catagories are specific to video so you get much more specialized catagories than you would find on other websites, so you get options such as stop motion, short film and commerical work. there is also a list of back dated material that goes back 7 months.

One downside to the website is that they dont provide any information about the videos that you are watching like the brief but you do get a link to the creaters of the piece of works company or personal website which is helpful as soemtime on video hosting sites you find a video someone has posted but then ahve no idea who was behind creating it so this feature really helps to discover more companys, and also to research into more videos from that company.

Simone Legno

Simone Legno is a Italian artist and illustrator who i found out about in computer arts magazines special on character and toy design when asked to describe his work he uses one word 'japanisme' due to him originally being from Rome but having an fascination with all things Japanese, he works under the name 'tokidoki' which means 'sometimes' in Japanese and this represents his belief in hope and the hidden strength in everybody.

His work is extremely popular and since his illustrations became so well known he has started the hugely popular vinyl toys 'cactus Friends' done, worked on countless collaborations and has also branched into a clothing line and skateboard decks amongst other products turning tokidoki from a personal blog and portfolio into a world wide business.
What i like about his work is that is is a take on Japanese art through the eyes of an Italian, i really like the Japanese style of art but the subject matter has always seemed aimed at the Japanese and is something i have never been able to relate to and not found interesting, the fact that his art is looking in from the outside makes it more rateable he gives the strange characteristics of Japanese art characteristics that make allot of sense and relate to real feelings we all have for example his cactus friends series are based on the cute Japanese characters but he has dressed them in cactus suits to protect them from the world, which i think is a really nice view on how to voice opinions on the world around us that can be quite taboo subjects to talk about of do a piece of art work around.


Other than his ideas about his subjects i love his style of illustration, like most work that catches my eye it is very clean using strong lines and strong block colours to create simple characters that all have a personality of there own using a limited colour palette that can be quite contrasting but they also work together to create something that stands out, and not because it is a huge mess of colour and shapes but because his compositions are all balanced perfectly, there is always so much going on but everything sits on the canvas perfectly where as some illustrators throw a huge amount of elements and different colours on a page and it just looks like a busy mess where someone has tried to throw everything on a page to grab your attention which it probably will be then when you really look there is just to much going on, where as in Simone's work he balances a piece by using different sizes of elements on the page for example there will be one large character surrounded by 10 smaller characters and the way they are positioned makes it all balanced so when the full own attack of imagery and colour catches your eye you look deeper to find a perfect composition and i think this is what makes his work appeal to me, the fact that he creates these mad compositions that still give of the feeling of simplicity and balance.

Nick Veasey X-ray photographer

Nick Veasey uses x-rays to take photographs and his work is like nothing else, the way he describes the ideas behind his work is a cliche we here alot but he has put his ideas into a working practice, he says "we live in a world obsessed with image. what we look like what our clothes look like, houses, cars... i like to counter this superficial appearence by stripping back the layers and showing what it is like under the surface" and while this sounds like the plot to a hollywood movie his work truly shows the inner beauty in anything the idea that there is so much more to be seen thatn what is on the outside is obvious but when you actually see the results of his work it is quite impressive to see what is actually there and how the inticity of of a flower or an insect, one of the things that i think looks particularly cool is an x-ray of a shirt which looks really nice with the all of the thread patterns and the way the creases in the materials are emphasised and its not just how it looks, the idea of x-raying a shirt is something i thought wasnt really possible so i decided to find out exactly how he creates these x-ray photos, and the way he does it is so much more that pointing a camera and shooting.

First of all he doesnt have a normal studio, he has a solid structure built in the middle of no where that to people just looks like a big black box, but it is actually specially constructed to hold in the radiation from the x-ray machines, the most incredable thing about his work is that all his photographs are life size becasue of the way that they are taken, subjects are placed against a lead floor with shets of film placed behind them in front of x-ray head units, he then goes outside his studio to where the controls for the x-ray machines are and he then sets the exposure settings depending on the subject and once this is set the head units send x-rays through the subjects which then leaves an image on a film strips.

Honda advert

Let it shine

Honda Insight - Let It Shine from Honda on Vimeo.

I recently came across this advert from Honda who are constantly innovative with there add campaigns and once again it is the same high standard and quality we have come to expect from Honda whether its a elaborate domino effect sequence of car parts or a amazing cgi animation with a catchy tune.
The advert is a part of Honda's going green initiative and this advert is for there latest hybrid car and was created by the company Wieden+Kennedy, the idea is that we see an animation that is showing the good in everyone, and we are supposed to be seeing feel good images, now what is amazing about this advert is the way it has been made, what we see is a series of moving images that are constantly changing and animating and seem to be made by either a car fully set up series of lights and l.e.d's or possibly made in a program such as after effects, but actually what you are looking at is hundreds of cars carefully lined up in a grid pattern that have been set up so that that each cars headlights can be individually flashed from a computer that is 60ft in the air with a camera mounted to it and the computer has been programed so that the right cars flash at the same time to not only create a static image in the lit and unlit headlights but to flash on and off in sequences to animate the images and i personally think the concept is brilliant, i watched the making of video and they said how it had never been done before, i would have loved to see more into how they programed the computers and the planning of the sequences because to think about how to choreograph something like this is incredible and i would love to know the process for that part of the animation.

The making of:

Honda Insight - The Making of "Let it Shine” from Honda on Vimeo.

I'm a mac

I have always been a huge fan of the mac vs PC viral adverts from apple both the U.S version and U.K version starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb and I have noticed something about these adverts while doing my research into virals and that is that these adverts have sparked of a series of copycat adverts and homages whether there series of just home made by fans putting there own spin on the concept and i have been wondering how has apple done this in these virals what is it about them that makes everyone want to make there own version, even Microsoft themselves launched a advertising campaign titled "I'm a pc" which seems awfully familiar, in which we see lots of people introducing them selves as "a pc" and they explain about all the fun and creative things they do with there pc's adn by hiring a huge list of celebrites and an appearence by bill gates himself to hit back at the macs advert where they poke fun at the pc's lack of creative programs, operating problems and how much better a mac but in a humorous way.



So what is about these adverts that has prompted all these imitations form south park cartoon style versions, " I'm a ps3 and I'm a wii" adn strangest of all a religious adaptation titled "i'm a Christ follower" which copies every detail down to the clothes the two wear in the advert, and the reason they are so successful is that they are exactly what a viral was created to be, a short inexpensive simple video, the fact that they arnt impressive with cgi or camera effects makes them extremely personable the fact that they look like something anyone can make with whatever equipment they have to hand just pick up a video camera and go, and that is why they work and this is what makes a succesful viral is that its not a huge budget video that when people watch it they might be put of by the over the top thing that they are watching, so the trick seem sot be to make the viral something that the viwere can assosiate with and not have a warning or message thrown at them in huge red flashing letters.

Ray-ban viral advert

Catch

While doing research for my viral idea for pro-tec safety equipment so i decided to look online into successful viral adverts to find out more about them and how company's use them, while doing this i came across a list of the ten best Internet virals that someone had put together and this list included a video that i somehow had never seen but 2.7 million other people had and this lead me too a video on YouTube titled "guy catches glasses with face" and this is the viral for Ry-Ban sunglasses and i absolutely loved the video, it consists of two guys playing catch using a pair of sunglasses and only their faces in a series of bizarre situations for example one guy throws the sunglasses down of a roof and the other guy catches them on his face in a kind of sport.
As the advert goes on the situations in the game the two play get even more impossible whereas the first few look as though they could have been done in about 100 tries but you still know there fake but the video is so intriguing to watch that even on the most insane throw where one guy drives past in a car and the other guys throws the glasses through the window onto his face which is impossible you forget that its fake and are just amazed and this is what works well about the advert its a original take on the many faked basketball and football trick shot videos.

One thing i noticed about the the viral is that there is no in your face strap or logo to say ray-ban or to ruin the illusion that someone has gone to the trouble to make this and that its just an advertisement, until i did more research into the company and i found out ray-bans company slogan of "never-hide" and i noticed that it is written in dust on the car window in the end shot which i hadn't noticed first time because i read it but didn't know it had anything to do with the company, and i really like this idea of putting logos and slogans in other advert instead of just adding them later.

Flame digital portfolio crit

On Monday the 16th of march 2009 i went to flame digital in Manchester to have a meeting with Nicky who is the head of design, i was quite a bit more nervous about his critique compared to the last one as this was the first that was not meeting with a friends relative who happened to run a company, this was my first time presenting myself to someone in a completely professional way, and so i was expecting this one to be less relaxed and possibly much more critical but on this front i was also looking forward to it and the feedback i would get.

i arrived at flames office which was a large open room with a large raised area where several people were all sat around a large table all working at there computers, this was immediately different to storm as there was three times the amount of people there and i was greeted by a receptionist who introduced me too Nicky who then took me to another part of the room away from where everything in the office was happening which i was quite relieved about as i would have felt quite awkward to have been sat with a group of professionals while talking about my work which was the case at storm even though there were only 3 people at the time it still made me more nerous at the time, but fortunatly this wasnt the same at flame.

I sat down with nicky and begain to explain about the multimedia course and how i cover i wide area of mediums but have a paerticulare interest in graphics design and film, and started of by showing my 3d lynx can and explained how that was the first step of learning 3d and then showed my kerrang ident and explained how i had been constantly coming back to it to make it what i originally wanted it to be and explained to her about how i had handed in something i wanted to explore more and that it was slowly becoming what i wanted it to be and she thought it was a good thing that i had this feeling towards my work and wanted to carry soemthing on instead of just finishing with it when a deadline came around.

Next i showed my concept studies work and talked about my love for graphics work and how i like to play around woth compostion adn the way something looks on a page and how i was influenced by vince frost and this was something she releted too and talked about the importance of practising exerceises for things like composition and not to just be constantly learning the new programs becasue its the core design skills that are important to understand before you can start anything else, next i showed my own illustrations that i do in my own time and i think this was the work she enjoyed the most and said she really liked the style an d the minimalism of them along with the minimalist colour schemes and thought they worked well as a series and were something that are very current in design.

The final piece of work i showed was my advert for personal safety that i made for my self directed project and this is where i think i had learned something from my last crit i had decided to bring some headphones along becasue the speakers on my laptop wernt great and the office sounds at the last crit made things hard to hear and so in this crit i wanted to make sure the person got everything from the advert, and i also didnt go into detail about what it was about so they could draw there own conclusions from the advert and see what it is about an di think this worked really well as nicky understood what the advert was about and my concept for it and she liked the advert but what she was really interested in and comented on was how real the voice overs were and i explained how i had had trouble with scripting and so got people to just watch it and make comments with no information about what they were watching an dshe reall yliked this approach and thought it worked really well.
After showing her the video she said she sould like to see what kind of work i could come up with working for a specifically film brief as this one was i open brief and i just ended up in the direction of film and so thought it would be good for me to see what kind of thigns are involved in this kind of brief and said she would try to get a example of a film brief and send it too me too see.

After i showed my work nicky asked if there was anything i wanted to know about there work and i asked about there viral advert with paul kaye and explained how that had drawn me two them and she explained the process of makin git and how it was a new outing for them to make a viral and that itis something they are looking forward to doing more off, i asked about there appproach to research to which nicky took me to another part of the office and showed me a huge wall that had been turned into a huge mood board and explained it was all for a new website and people just have to stick up there ideas and how they will all gather o discuss what they have added, which is just like at college which is some thing i am noticing in thses crits that proffesional offices are not to dissimilar to how my class works.

On a whole i really enjoyed this crit and felt that i got enven more out of it than the last one i felt i got much more opinion on my work and felt more confident about what i was showing and defintly feel more confident about meeting people, and comparing the two different crits and thee way the companys were different i can say i would definatly like to work in a place like flame as it had a pleseant atmosphere and they way they worked was really nice and the way they researched and compare ideas seemed like a good enviroment to be a part off and being part of a large group seems to make a big difference in how they office feels as a place.

peugeot 407 advert

The Peugeot 407 created by perfectionists, i recently found myself thinking about this advert whilst trying to think of adverts i had seen on TV that i thought were clever and had something different about them, after having a discussion with friends about adverts.



What i really like about his advert is the way that it makes fun of being a perfectionist and how insane people can go into alterations on a piece of work because of the technology we have to hand, the advert starts of like any other car advert until we here i director call for the action to stop and everything pauses and he asks "what is that on the headlight?" and this is when we see what the advert is about when all the editing software appears on the screen and the screen zooms on on the cars headlight to reveal a small fly which he asks to have removed and so it is deleted out of the shot which in its its self is a humorous poke at the extent of editing because there is no way the fly could have been seen, but then when he asks "whats that in the background?" the camera zooms out for miles into the background to reveal a small carving in a tree which is editing to an insane degree and really emphasizes the fact that you can change just about anything if your that much of a perfectionist even if it makes no difference what so ever and i think this perfectly represents the ideas the car maker was going for, that there car is perfection and has had people like this meticulously scrutinizing every detail and comparing the editing of videos to the design of a car i think is a perfect metaphor.

The Lick

The Lick

I found this piece of work which is an advert for a urban music and lifestyle show on MTV base, i noticed this video while looking through the design company mainframe's website and i was instantly drawn to it amongst the many thumbnail images of bright, colorful, busy CGI animations in there portfolio page, the image was a simple very clean black and white frame of the show title, the text that has been created for the advert and conveys the feeling of movement even in a static image, to me what is really interesting is that it seems to have a contrast when you look at it, it looks 3d while also looking flat, the style iscartoony yet sophisticated in design.



The actual animation in the advert is extremely effective is holds its simple look but is very strong, it is made up of different shapes and flowing patterns and line that build up across the white canvas background behind sir trevor nelson who is doing the introduction to what the show is about, the movement of shape has a cath me if you can style in the way that it flows in 2d space branching out from one shape into another and at some point the pattern almost looks like a trail being left by sir trever as he makes his way across the screen.


Another part of the animation that i noticed and i think is a key point in the flow of the design that stands out is when the flow goes from behind sir trevor to infront of him, although they are only three drops of white ink and are very minimal they really stand out it makes the animation seem like its interacting with the characters and not just be a nice pattern that has had a piece of live footage placed on top because that would still look good becasue of the effort put nto the animation but once again like i have noticed in so many other pieces of work its the littl edetails that count.

Sour Bones

Nick Carroll or sour bones as he is better known is a illustrator from Leicester who says he has a simple goal in his illustrations which is to create an illustration that look as good in a book or magazine as they would on a skateboard deck or t shirt, i came across his work in computer arts magazine and was really drawn to his style and so checked out his website.

www.sourbones.com

He has a really clean style to his work that use allot of strong black outlines and are very minimal but have a very strong yet subtle colour scheme often only using 3 or 4 contrasting colours that is very carefully matched with large amounts of white space which is really effective and this is something i can relate to as i enjoy creating simple work and trying to make the most of a small image with placement on a page to make it balance perfectly. in his brief interview in computer arts i noticed something he said and it really made me think about my approach to work, in regards to the cat illustration above he said " the spatter i am particularly proud of as i splashed some ink around and scanned it in to help make it look life like" and while the technique is nothing new or innovative it just made me think more about the attention to detail and how i am sometimes lazy in my work and instead of experimenting with inks and scanning in my own textures i Will just look for a photoshop brush, so in the future i wan to spend more times on the little details just to add that extra personal touch that cant be re created by anyone else to my work.

His particular style is something i personally notice in design, his illustrations remind me of japanese cartoon style but mixed with a urban graffiti look which is something i always associate with kid robot vinyl toys which is a design style that i find always catches my eye amongst others.


While i enjoy a lot of his work there are some that i think can look a little tacky specifically these pieces are the ones where his alias "sour bones" is featured in them as they look more like tags than a piece of thought out design and the wording is always very prominent and take away from what is a interesting illustration and when i see this i really think why have you done that?, and it reminds me that you can add the tiniest thing to a piece of work and it is ruined but personally i like to think that this is something that i can notice when doing work but also can find myself constantly going back to pieces and tweaking bits and making small alterations and this is something that can make the most difference which is not always a good thing.