Rest in peace Rosie

The face of one of the most recognisible ads of all time has passed away aged 86.

Geraldine Doyle was the inspirational figure behind Rosie the Riveter.

Cultural icon, proto feminist and proud factory worker.

Her catch cry of We can do it! still resonates to this day.

Love your work LOVE.

Ask anyone who grew up in the age of Madchester and they'll tell you that Afflecks was the to place to go to buy your ridiculously wide flares.

The Manchester shopping emporium has recently been given a branding makeover by the clever people at LOVE.

I'm a sucker for a nice bit of copy.

So as you can imagine these Afflecks' posters really brought a smile to my face.

Single minded isn't working

I see so many ads like this these days.

Well not exactly like this obviously. But ads using the same device.

And by that I mean there is a strong focus on a single feature or benefit.

Nothing wrong with that you're probably thinking. But I reckon there is.

Take the ad above for Samsung cameras.

The benefit/feature shown is that the camera has a powerful zoom function.

So what!

Pretty much every camera has a zoom. So why bother to advertise such a feature?

I know it's almost impossible to find unique benefits/features these days. But me thinks it's time the people writing the creative briefs tried a just little harder.

Type on record

I'm a big fan of typography as anyone who knows me will tell you.

So you can imagine how much I love this album cover design for Shostakovich.

It's great don't you think?

No idea where the designer got the idea from.

Which is probably why I like it so much.

It's grapically really strong too.

After I found it I went surfing for some other great typographical album covers.

Of course I found many great Blue Note designs.

But I was already familiar with most of those. Unlike the following beauties.

Merry Xmas everyone

Olivetti Xmas

I'm sure I posted this beautiful Olivetti Christmas ad on the blog last year.

However someone sent it to me in an email today.

So I though it might be worth raiding the archives and reposting it.

Quite stunning. Don't you think?

Santa the brand

Santa is one of the world's best known brands.

And to ensure his brand is consistent wherever he travels he now has a book of brand guidelines.

it was developed by UK based Quietroom.


Click here to download your own copy in pdf format.

Harvey Nichols Xmas

Cute. Very cute. Cute tagline too.

Gift ideas from Twitter

Stuck for an Xmas gift idea?

Why not ask Twitter.

Xmas gift service TweeSP apparently "uses Twitter extrasensory perception to mysteriously channel your friends’ innermost thoughts into gift ideas."

Obviously that a big claim. And one they're going to struggle to live up to.

In fact when I searched for gifts for myself the suggestions were worse than the stuff my parents put in my stocking.

Still a fun idea though. Just don't set your expectations too high.

Click here to try it out.

Tough & Sexy

Years ago there was an absolutely ridiculous ad that used to run during daytime TV.

It was for a brand of pantyhose that was in essense ladder resistant.

The ad in question was the most over the top product demo come torture test I have ever seen.

A succession of sharp implements were forced into the hose.

Nail files, scissors, screws. All to no avail.

Problem was the pantyhose came across as rugged and indestructable. But sadly anything but sexy.

So hats off to the team at Herezie in Paris for what I think is one of the sexiest product demonstrations I have ever seen.

On yer bike!

Not sure what the winning poster looked like but I love this particular entry in the London Transport Museum cycling poster competition. It's pretty damn cute don't you think?

There's even an app for that

A buzzword bingo iPad app.

What's not to love?

Best of all you can network with up to 13 other players.

And it has a hide the screen from the boss button too.

Click here to get yours now.

Ghosts of folios past

When I was an aspiring young copywriter I had what I felt were two quite clever Christmas concepts in my folio.

Given I showed that folio around for a lot longer than I thought I'd have to I eventually ended up taking the Christmas ideas out.

I remember being quite reluctant to do so at the time as I thought the ads were pretty clever.

Last night I discovered that both of my ideas had been done many years before.

The first one was for a razor so good that even Santa used it.

And the other had the exact same headline for the exact same product as the ad below.

Still pretty good ideas though!

Sexy vs Dull

Is it just me or is Chaz quite possibly the worst fragrance name ever?

Perhaps that's why it no longer available.

The young Tom Selleck certainly looked the goods.

And the tagline's not bad either:

The fragrance that's almost as interesting as the man who wears it.

But who on earth would covet a brand called Chaz?

Message is the medium

Somewhere on my overloaded bookshelves at home is a well thumbed copy of The 100 Greatest Posters.

In fact now I think about it I'm sure I have a couple of books about great posters.

Yet nowhere within the pages of any of these books will you find what I consider to be a truly great poster - War is Over by John Lennon & Yoko Ono.

Like most great advertising it sells a dream rather than reality.

The art direction is so good you don't notice it.

And the use of punction goes against most guidelines of good taste.

Although credited to John & Yoko I suspect that Yoko was the creative lead on the project.

Sad thing is the message is more relevant than ever this Christmas.

Fly in style

I've always been a fan of old school airline bags.

Do airlines still issue them?

I haven't seen one for a while. So I suspect not.

Then again maybe they do.

Although modern ones probably have to adhere so some kind of boring brand guidelines.

So they'd hardly be worth looking at anyway.

But if like me you have a soft spot for the golden age of tavel bags then click here and go visit the Airline Bag Lounge.

No passport required!

Mind your manners

The Japanese have always done really strong and graphically interesting posters.

These "railway manners" posters are particularly good.


I don't think I'd ever have thought of using super heroes to get people to watch their manners on a train.

But then I'm not Japanese.

Type on the run

Love this ruuning man alphabet developed for Nike by I Love Dust.

Not sure it's the most practical font around.

But it sure works well on a t-shirt.

Please stop shouting

With the Summer now underway down under the amount of TV worth watching is even less than usual.

I've managed to find two top notch shows tucked away of the new digital channel GEM.

One is The Big C and the other is Mary Queen of Shops.

What bugs me about these shows though are the ads.

Actually not the ads themselves but the sheer volume of the GEM ad breaks.

I swear they're twice as loud at the shows.

Don't the TV networks realise that everyone has a remote control these days?

So as soon as the shouting ads come on we hit the mute button.

Which means rather than noticing the occasional ad we are in fact shutting them off completely.

Weird.

Meanwhile over in the US there's talk of legislation to put an end to this practice.

Not before time if you ask me!

Small space wizardry

I've done a lot of work with automotive brands over the course of my career.

And it gets harder and harder with each passing year to find something new to say.

Not because I'm running out of ideas but because the techological advancements are making it harder to find something to set one brand apart from its competitors.

Of course when it comes to selling your own much loved car on CarSales or eBay the copywriter is king.

Take a look at this charming example from the US if you don't believe me:


Now check out these features. Classic!

*This is the car that never dies (I wanted it to die for years, but never has)

*Tyres with lots of tread left

*Adequate trunk space for this size of vehicle!

*Manual transmission so you feel like it has more vroom

*A dashboard with the vinyl pre-cracked

*Runs but makes unidentifiable engine noises

*It's a Toyota, seriously, they go forever

Act now and I will throw in free snow chains (if they are still in the trunk) that I was forced to buy to make it over the Sierra-Nevada one late December!

Can't touch this

I think I may have found the perfect Xmas gift for long nailed ladies.

The iPad Stylus.

The ideal solution for female iPad lovers everywhere who don't want to risk damaging or breaking a nail using the iPad.

Best of all they're on special on Amazon at the moment.

Click here to find out more.

The vision of Apple

I can still remember all the fuss that was generated by the launch of the blue iMac back in the late 90s.

Although people raved about the looks of the iMac many people took issue with the fact that Apple had ditched the 3.5 floppy drive.

Looking back it's hard to appreciate how radical a step it was for Apple to stop supporting the floppy.

After all it only held about 2mb of data.

Yes 2mb!

To put that into perspective consider this:

If Apple supplied iTunes in a floppy format it would require about 46 discs.

And if Adobe Creative Suite 4 (CS4) came in floppy format it would require an astonishing 368 discs.

Given those stats it becomes clear that Apple were quite visionary when it came to ditching the floppy drive.

Which makes me wonder if we'll one day same the same thing about cd drives or usb ports?

Work isn't working

Basecamp is a very popular collaborative tool produced by Chicago based 37 Signals.

In this fascinating TED talk 37 Signals founder Jason Fried argues that workplaces are in essence less than ideal places to work.

Well worth a few minutes of your time.