Condom copy

It's only the end of January but I think I just came across the best bit of copywriting you'll see all year.

Of course it helps if you have a great product and an open minded client.

But who can fail to love some of the outstanding tongue in cheek humour associated with the Wills & Catherine commemorative edition condoms.

Just take a look at some of these gems:

"Lie back and think of England."

"Combining the strength of a Prince with the yielding sensitivity of a Princess-to-be."

"Truly a King amongst Condoms."

Click here for more gems plus the chance to buy your very own commemorative condoms.

Window Twitter

This is the window of a United Arrows store in Tokyo.

If you're not familiar with the brand it's an upmarket Japanese clothing label.

Anyway what United Arrows has to do with Twitter is a mystery to me.

But given I haven't seen anyting like this before I kinda like it.

Bit borrowed interest perhaps. But interesting none the less.

And surprisingly straigtforwardish for a Japanese campaign.

A helping hand from Mr T

If the tips I posted yesterday from Don Draper don't help you perhaps you should talk to Mr T instead.

Wonder if he accepts reverse charge calls?

For lovers of wireframes

Being a bit of a creative free spirit I often get frustrated working with web designers who seem to have an obsession with grids and templates.

But even so I can still see the usefulness of Wirify. A new app that lets you turn pretty much any website into a wireframe.

Click here to find out more.

Don Draper's pick up tips

There are many lessons to be learnt from Don Draper.

Some good. Some not so good.

How to pick up women is one of them.

After all, if you can't learn from The Don then what hope do you have?

Godzilla meets Poland

Hot on the heels of the movie poster mashups I posted yesterday comes this fabulous collection of vintage Godzilla posters from Poland.

Pretty cool don't you think?

I found them at a great blog I just discovered called Monster Brains.

Thought for the day

Posters with a twist

I can't remember where or from whom I got these fantastic poster mashups from.

Someone sent me them during the Christmas hols and I saved them to my desktop then somehow forgot all about them.

They're pretty good don't you think?

The Harry Potter meets Trainspotting is my favourite.

Surely you jest?

Pure genius. Wonder if Sarah Palin's seen it?

Does it need a logo?

Big news in geeksville with the announcement of a logo for HTML5.

It's a bit corny if you ask me.

But regardless of whether or not I like it the big question for me is why?

HTML5 is a mark up language.

And I'd imagine it's very rarely seen by people.

At least outside of geeksville at any rate.

So does it really need a logo?

Same same in social

The grid on the left is taken from my Twitter follower list.

Whilst the grid on the right is from a Linkedin email I received today.

Kinda similar don't you think?

Perhaps a little too much in fact.

Legendary Biru

I'm a bit over try hard big budget beer commercials to be honest.

But this one from Japan is pretty sweet.

Foursquared?

Whatever happened to Foursquare?

It arrived with a minimum of fanfare.

Yet very quickly Twitter was littered with tweets telling where people were.

So I got on board.

I got addicted for a while too.

Especially with Mayorships.

But then I lost interest.

I suspect a lot of other people did too.

Now pretty much the only place I regularly check-in to is Wunderman Melbourne.

And that's only because I have a thing about being the Mayor of Wunderland.

I suspect the launch of Facebook Places may have had an impact on Foursquare too.

In fact each day I see more and more people checking-in via Facebook.

So I guess it must have.

And what does the future hold for Foursquare?

Not a lot I imagine.

But then again I could be wrong.

What do you think?

Rockin' rabbits

Don't quote me on this but I'm pretty sure that Usagi is some sort of mythical Japanese rabbit.

Quite why someone would recreate famouse album covers using Usagi I have no idea.

But damn they're cute. Don't you think?

Say it ain't so

One of the curses of being a copywriter in the digital age is everyone has a keyboard.

So everyone thinks they can write.

Not only that but they often think it's easier to rewrite a draft of copy than it is to pick up the phone and discuss things they may or may not like.

Well now it looks like the same thing could happen to designers and art directors.

Triangle Draw is an easy to use iPad app that lets just about anybody create simplistic logo devices based on triangles.

Yeah I know what you're thinking - triangles?

Trust me on this.

The designs created with Triangle Draw are very simplistic and almost retro in their triangular style.

And somewhere out there in client land a marketing manager is playing with it on their iPad and wondering why on earth they would commission a designer to do what they can now do themselves.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Timeless Packaging

Is there anything better that classic graphic design?

Of course there is. But not much!


These briliant designs for the covers of Modern Packaging date from the late 50's to the early 60's.

That means they're around fifty years old.

Yet they still look pretty fresh.


The designs are by the legendary Walter Allner.

A graduate of the Bauhaus, Allner studied under the likes of Josef Albers and Vasily Kandisky.

His motto was "Raise the aesthetic standard - the public is more perceptive than you think."

Words to live by. Don't you think?

iPhone meets Polaroid

How cute is the new Polaroid?

Well actually it isn't.

A Polaroid that is.

It's a cheap as chips decal that makes your iPhone look like a Polaroid.

Which is pretty good when you consider how many people are using apps that help them shoot old skool style photos.

If you'd like on click here.

Overt sexual innuendo

Now in chic junk food packaging. Classic!

Ancient meets modern

The more sartorially elegant amongst you will I'm sure be familar with Harris Tweed.

It's a brand from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland that's almost as old as time itself.

And now it's making a name for itself by helping to protect the products of that most modern of brands - Apple.

In a very clever twist Juliet Wilson has created a range of Harris Tweed covers for iPads and iPhones etc and branded them Harris Tweet.

Quite cute don't you think?

Click here to go check them out.

A burnt bridge

I've had several jobs over the course of my career.

Most of them I left of my own accord.

Regardless of how or why I left I never burnt any bridges.

At least none that I know of.

Someone who has done though is Ted McCacgg. He's a CD at R/GA.

Ted's just published a book of his drawings. That's the cover above.

Anyway tucked away in the credits you'll find the following gem dedicated to McCanns in San Francisco where he once freelanced:

"...without whose brain-numbing, soul-killing freelance job I would have never found the need to do something creative every day, and thus, started to produce these drawings.”

Obviously once you get to be CD at an agency like R/GA I guess you can say you've made it careerwise.

But as a wise man once said to me - be nice to people on the way up because you tend to meet them on the way down.

Click here for a peak at Ted's book.

Nuff said really

High energy shakers

Never thought I'd see the day when I posted a pic of salt and pepper pots on DNA. But how can I not when they're as cool as these?

Bra dance

My first Japanese ad for the year and it's a beauty.

It's for Wacoal bras.

Very reminiscent of Uniqlo if you ask me.

But damn cute none the less.

Interrup vs Annoy

Saw this ad on Facebook.

50 million ads a month!

That's an astonishing figure.

And surely proves once and for all that digital advertising is just as intrusive/annoying and outdated as so called traditional advertising.

LG & Morricone

I've had an iPhone for close to 3 years.

One of the first things I did after I set up the phone was create my own ringtones using songs from my iTunes library.

It takes no time at all. For Mac users anyway.

Which is why I was surprised to see the fuss being made by LG about their 'partnership' with legendary film composer Ennio Morricone.

Much ado about nothing if you ask me.

Anyway if you want to find out more about the LG Morricone deal click here.

And if you want to create your own Morricone ringtones click here.

100 things to watch

The beginning of a new year is always a good time to make a few predictions.

Espcially in the ad biz.

This gaze at the crystal ball by JWT is a particularly nice one.

However you'll need to click past the first handfull of slides to get to the good stuff.

Why do they bother?

Moments before the clock struck midnight on New Years Eve the logo for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics was unveiled to a massive crowd on Copacabana Beach.

Quite why the Brazilian Olympic Committee would choose to ruin the New Years Eve celebrations of so many people I do not know.

Of course there's nothing really wrong with the logo. In fact you could say that Olympic logos are an easy target to pick on.

But honestly. What is the point of these logos?

The Olympic logo is the five rings. End of story.

Surely the rest is irrelevant?

Well I think so anyway.

Caught in the web

Thanx Mona.

It's Chuck Norris. Again.

Does the world really need another ad campaign featuring Chuck Norris?

Apparently yes.

This one's from the Czech Republic.

Dosn't do a lot for me to be honest.

But you can read all about it here.