Beer, bars & books

It's punny.

The book's a couple of years old already.

But how can you not love this cute DM promo for Bavaria?

Like all great Bavaria work it's by Kessels Kramer of Amsterdam.

Wish I could get me a sample pack!

Pantone Credit

Big thanx to Mona for tipping me off to the Pantone Credit Card. If you're going to get yourself into debt you may as well do it in style.

Attention to detail

I was chatting with an art director today who had recently sat on the jury of a major awards show.

He told me that the category he particularly enjoyed judging was the art direction / craft section.

This pleased me immensely as I often see work that is good but could easily have been great with just a little more attention to detail.

Turns out that attention to detail was what he was looking for when it came to craft.

As such he had a couple of potential finalists downgraded as they had small flaws that he felt should not have been overlooked.

Obviously some people might feel this being picky. Possibly even pedantic.

But if we as an industry are going to award our work then we need to ensure that our work is perfect.

Because close enough is very rarely good enough.

What is good design?

Life or death

Sound advice from Hugh.

Where are books headed?

Very interesting look at books and where they may or may not be headed by the innovation consultants IDEO.

Really got me thinking about the possibilities of what is supposed to be a dying medium.

Barcode or bottle?

I bought a can of soft drink in Bali.

Can you tell what drink it was?

Wisdom of Weiden

Found that quote amongst a wonderful selection of Weiden & Kennedy wisdoms.

Words to live by me thinks.

Over the course of my time in adland I've always worked with people who've helped me get better at what I do.

That's get better. Not look better.

Theres a big difference.

Choose your collaboraters well and they will help elevate you to heights you never expected to achieve.

Linotype the movie

I'm a fan of all things new and technologically advanced.

Always have been. Always will be.

But is there anything more rich in warmth and charm than stuff produced the old fashioned way?

Like linotype.

It's simplistic charm gets me every time.

Can't wait to see the upcoming movie by Doug Wilson.

Brands & Value

I see that renowned brand consultancy Interbrand has just released their 2010 Best Global Brands list.

And as you would expect Coca Cola is perched on the top of the list.

Somewhat surprisingly Apple is way down the list at number 17.

That's better than last year when they were ranked at 20 but much lower than I would've expected.

Not that I'm any kind of an expert on the ranking of a brand's value.

But why on earth is IBM ranked at number 2?

I don't think their name has ever come up in any meeting or conversation I've had over the last year.

Possibly longer.

I would have though IBM would have loss some of its lustre in recent times.

Especially since it made the decision to let a Chinese company manufacture and sell IBM laptops under the Lenovo brand.

Weird.

The boys are back in 3D

The Wonderbra 3D billboard in the UK has generated plenty of press coverage.

Or has it?

I reckon most of it is PR thinly disguised as press coverage.

Of course I like the idea of a 3D Wonderbra billboard but I can't help thinking it's a hell of a lot of much ado about nothing.

It's just one billboard.

Although at just 6m wide it's more of a poster than a billboard.

But really it's more of a PR driven stunt than a poster.

And I very much doubt that people will talk about it in the same breath as the original Hello Boys poster many years from now.

Goodby on Gossage

Great interview with Jeff Goodby talking about the legendary Howard Gossage, who he describes as "The most influential man in my life that I never met."

Art vs Scam

I absolutely love this series of photos by French photographer Alain Delorme. They're from his current gallery show in Paris called Totems.

Thanks to a little help from a Babel Fish I worked out that they're meant to represent migrant workers who transport enormous piles of stuff across Shanghai.


I have to admit I was surprised by the explanation because whenever I see images like this I immediately assume they're destined for life as scam ads with a tiny logo and tagline in the bottom right corner of the pic.

Which is a bit sad when you think about it.


For more info (in French) on Delorne's show click here.

Around the Blogosphere

Once again I forgot to post my Around The Blogosphere column to its dedicated blog. Need to set a reminder me thinks. Anyway click here for this month's ramble on privacy and sharing of info on the web.

Future of screens

We all love our iPhones and iPads but in the future the screens of these devices may become far more flexible as this video from TATmobile shows.

George Lois at home

I discovered The Selby on the weekend. An absolutely wonderful site.

It features loads of fabulous photos of all sorts of creative people in their homes.

My personal favourite is adman extraordinaire George Lois.

Click here to go take a look.

Dylan's in the basement

I always imagined Bob Dylan would have a decent amount of money stashed away for his retirement.

Maybe not given his fondness for the advertising dollar.

After last year's (or was it the year before) TV spot for Apple along comes this (admittedly fabulous) product demo for Google.

Enough quibbles. Click play and emjoy!

Far from creative

Although I've not seen his folio I had no doubt whatsoever that Jetpacks is a mighty fine creative person.

In fact I'd put money on it.

So I'm not surprised to hear he turned his nose up at what sounds to me like the most uncreative writing gig ever.

And I do mean ever.

Ciick here for a look at the job description.

It's all about me!

Yours truly is all over the internet at the moment.

In fact I'm edging periously close to over exposure me thinks.

Anyway if you're interested in a bit of BrandDNA behind the scenes click here to check out my profile piece in the GeekChic Project Blogger series.

I also share a ramble or two with Karalee from Amnesia/Razorfish on her personal blog. Click here to read that.

GeekChic / Six Questions

I like it, but...

Banish bullshit

I have made it my personal mission at work to stamp out verbal cliches and corporate buzzwords.

One that pops up all the time is moving forward. Which I really hate.

So tomorrow morning I will be sending all our staff a link to Unsuck It.

A fab new serivce that translates bullshit buzzwords into plain English. Brilliant!

Do I know you?

When I first started on Facebook I spent time searching for people to add as friends.

But after a while I stopped actively looking as I figured I'd added pretty much everyone I knew.

These days I often get friend requests from people I don't know or people who I may have just met.

Sometimes I accept them. Sometimes I don't.

But I'm pretty sure most of us have one or two Facebook friends who we don't know very well.

Don't believe me?

Then click here and put your friendships to the test.

World without Photoshop

Photoshop is 20 years old. And like most things we take for granted these days it's hard to imagine what we did before it was invented. Can you imagine a world without Photoshop?

Hello

Thanx to Hugh.

Don Draper unmasked

I'm reading this book at the moment.

It looks at the changing of America it's culture and of course the ad industry through a Mad men tinted lens.

My favourite bit thus far is the chapter about Draper Daniels. The real life Don Draper.

I'm not sure if the book is available down under just yet. I got mine off the internet.

Here's a great little article about it in The Paris Review.

The iPad orchestra

I've lived with the iPad for a while now and I love it.

However based on my experience it is not yet a replacement for my laptop.

I'm sure later iterations may be. But not in its present format.

What the iPad is doing though is helping popularise the touchscreen interface pioneered by Apple with the iPhone.

And what better way to demonstrate the marvels of touchscreen than an iPad orchestra.

Shame about the choice of tune though!

Now this is spectacular

It's Spring Fashion Week here in Melbourne. And there are catwalks and pop-up stores happening all over town.

At lunchtime a couple of the kids in the agency went to watch a show in a plastic marquee in the City Square.

All very cool but not a patch on the recent Autumn fashion launch in New York by Target.

Yes Target!

The show was conceived by Mother NY and to call it a show is a seriously huge understatement.

It involved more than 60 dancers, a visual program created by the lighting designers for Daft Punk, original music and over 155 rooms of New York’s famous Standard Hotel.

Believe me when I say the pic above doesn't do it justice. Neither do many of the videos of the event posted to YouTube.

But this video doesn't do too bad a job. Click here to go check it out.