A while back Creative Review featured Mr Chicken. He’s the chap who designs all the Fried Chicken logos in London. Amazing stuff.
Coke continued their branding resurgence with these great summer special edition cans. Big corporations listen up: THIS IS HOW YOU DO BRANDING.
Michael Bierut tweaked the Guitar Hero logo. There’s an element of ‘you couldn’t make that up’ isn’t there? Looks great though.
Another example of ‘how to do branding’ from a designer at the top of his game. I could easily have mentioned The Oak Room or continued work for MAD.
London went a bit logo mad including the dreadful experience of trying to create a Brand for London. When will they learn, the city doesn’t want or need a logo. Michael Johnson has a good round up here.
Of much more importance to London, the Olympic icons were launched. Just as I really like the 2012 logo (sorry David) I really like these icons. Actually, I don’t really like the black and white ones, but I love the colour ones and I really like the way it links in with the tube lines thing. Colourful, interesting, different. Exciting. Well done Someone.
I designed the Newspaper Club logo which you all hated and the Noticings logo which you all loved. (Actually lots of people love that one, not just you lot.)
And then right at the end of the year, because we all know heavy metal bands have the best logos we asked Christophe Szpajdel to design the new logo for RIG.
Month: January 2010
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I don’t envy this cyclist today..
Sent from miPhone
Incredible innovation.
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Famous YouTube videos as art
Who says YouTube videos are for the uncultured? YouTube enthusiasts can raise their nose with the best of them with “Without You, Baby, There Ain’t No Us,” the cool, cultured art project by Comenius Roethlisberger and Armir Jahic that took popular video clips and immortalized them in colored-pencil drawings. The exhibit covers hundreds of YouTube frames, among them our favorite and most memorable. For diehards, the prints are apparently for sale.
With all the technological advances we’ve seen in recent years, if there’s ever been a sign that said “welcome to the future”, it’s the N Building.
This commercial building in Tachikawa, Japan, has a QR code designed on the outside panels allowing cell phone users to take a picture of the 2D barcode (similar to Blackberry Messenger & other apps) and be directed to the building’s website.
Furthermore, users with an additional app installed on their device (only available on iPhone right now), can aim their camera towards the building and be greeted with an augmented reality layer over the building, showing a more interactive display of the the building’s stores, their sales/promotions, and even showing tweets from within the building.
If you’re confused – or amazed – just watch the video below.
Welcome to the future 2010:
N Building is a commercial structure located near Tachikawa station amidst a shopping district. Being a commercial building signs or billboards are typically attached to its facade which we feel undermines the structures’ identity. As a solution we thought to use a QR Code as the facade itself. By reading the QR Code with your mobile device you will be taken to a site which includes up to date shop information. In this manner we envision a cityscape unhindered by ubiquitous signage and also an improvement to the quality and accuracy of the information itself.
December 15th, 2009 we held an opening which included the limited release of an iPhone application made specifically for N Building. If a QR Code is static, what could we do with a dynamic device like the iPhone? Our proposed vision of the future is one where the facade of the building disappears, showing those inside who want to be seen. As you press on the characters their comments made on online appear in speech bubbles. You can also browse shop information, make reservations and download coupons. Rather
than broadly tagging, we display information specific to the building in a manner in which the virtual (iPhone) serves to enhance the physical (N Building). Our goal is to provide an incentive to visit the space and a virtual connection to space without necessarily being present.
Project by teradadesign+Qosmo.
Music by Airtone.
via flickr.com
So here’s the first in what should be a long and plentiful line of beauty. Here I’ll give a Pass or a Fail to ad campaigns, gadgets, film reviews, anything really.
Without further ado, I love this ad even though it looks to be unofficial seeing as I found it via Flickr. Rayban should hire him and make it official!
The Litm(us)an Test 
:
Pass or fail?
PASS.
PS. All intellectual property and future royalties for coming up with the concept are owned by @maxicom for his immense brain power and play on words (or surnames in this case)
It was hilarious. People kept staring up at it and then ran into each other. Samsung definitely has the biggest balls in consumer electronics
Beardyman has a quite extraordinary talent. I saw him at the last Google Retail Conference and he brought the quite corporate masses to their feet. Impressive stuff.
The social web has created a hyper-word-of-mouth platform that has tipped the balance of power away from brands. As a result, brands are now beginning to realise that engagement is the new communications. In order for a brand to achieve engagement with its stakeholders, it needs to consider the value that their content will deliver, or to frame it from the recipients perspective – what’s in it for me.If the content has high value then not only will the recipient be more likely to engage with it, but they will be more likely to engage in conversation with the brand, compelling them to pass-along the content to their friends because it has social currency.I have identified 5 core types of social currency value; Useful, Entertainment, Monetary, Information and Personal.
Before giving some explanation and examples for each area, it is worth pointing out that they are all channel agnostic, so for example ‘events’ are particularly suited for entertainment. In fact, an event like Barcardi’s B-Live can in itself provide a rich stream of social currency for the digital channel e.g. twitter announcements, flickr photostreams and YouTube channels.1) Useful value is more commonly referred to as brand utilities, so although Nike+ is held up as the ‘daddy’ of brand utilities, there are also a huge numbers of mobile apps that would qualify for this category.2) Entertainment value is more commonly referred to as branded entertainment and it’s interesting to note that typically this is the approach that an ad campaign concept would take. The ultimate proof of social currency is when your content is being remix ed and parodied, as happened with the Cadbury’s gorilla campaign.3) Monetary value is the social equivalent of the conventional sales promotion or PR activity. So it could be a simple voucher like the infamous Threshers’ discount voucher or a competition run in conjunction with an influential blogger.4) Information value, in the form of knowledge and thought leadership, can be produced in various formats e.g. video interviews, slideshare presentations and blog posts (like this one ;). More superficial forms of information, like gossip and conspiracy, can also be adopted.5) Personal value is a particularly interesting currency, as it often provides social currency that is extremely compelling. The global success of reality TV shows, such as Big Brother, and the talent shows such as Pop Idol and X-Factor demonstrate the importance of fame.As the above Venn diagram suggests, there are opportunities to blend various currencies together and if done correctly, produce in a more potent piece of currency. An example of this would be a game (entertainment) which has a leaderboard (fame).It is possible to capitalise on social currency that has already gained momentum by adopting the concept in your campaign – maybe we should call this meme-riding? T-mobile did this very successfully when they rode the flash-mobbing meme with their ‘Dance’ campaign.Key to successfully producing high-value social currency is setting out with the right mind-set at the planning stage and get the right multi-disciplined team together to work on the social currency idea.
Brilliant venn diagram and equally great write up by Steve Sponder.
Yesterday Landon Donovan tore up the right flank of the pitch at the Emirates Stadium and helped his new club Everton secure a draw against my beloved Arsenal. This morning one of the soccer blogs I follow showed this great visualization of Donovan’s impact on the game.
The graph shows Donovan’s completed passes in blue. If you roll across the dots you can see when he passed to which team mate.
The graph is built with the Guardian’s interactive chalkboard which has apparently been around for almost a year. I have to say that I am ashamed that I only found out about this fantastic little tool today. OK, I have been living in the US now for 6 years and I have started to refer to the beautiful game as soccer (mainly because I discovered the other beautiful game of American football). And coverage of soccer in the US media is spotty at best. But that should still not be an excuse for not knowing about this amazing interactive visualization tool.
It uses data collected by UK company Prozone who record all Premier League matches and use that footage to code all data on passes, shots, tackles etc for every player on the pitch. The guardian then build this very easy to use application that allows every aspiring Arsene Wenger (who was one of the early Prozone adopters) to analyze the patterns of the game.
What is probably most impressive about this little application is the ease with which one can share chalkboards with others. This makes it a potentially powerful social media tool. And with most of the coverage of soccer in the US happening on social media, it could be a great tool to educate the US audience on the tactical aspects of the game. Nothing gets America more excited about sports than stats and analysis!
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67 Incredible Typographic Portraits
I won’t link to them all to save you endlessly scrolling but it’s worth checking them all out here without a doubt. Some truly amazing typographic portraits.
A rather fantastic deck this.
Designer Karim Rashid’s latest product aims to make the task of preparing a baby bottle much easier. The Iiamo Go is a self-heating bottle that allows parents to serve body temperature milk to their baby anywhere without the use of electricity for warming. The bottle uses a new patented organic cartridge made of dehydrated salt and water. Milk is warmed by a reaction that takes place when energy is released from the salt becoming re-hydrated.
Rashid wanted to modernize the bottle and bring a new emotional and aesthetic appeal to the product. The bottle is molded from 100 percent BPA-free polypropylene.
Children love reflective shiny colorful surfaces and materials – I do too – maybe I am still a child. So it was time to make a baby bottle a wild interesting sculptural colorful animated object so the baby actually gets excited about being fed.
[via dezeen]
via psfk.com
Firstly, here’s an interview with Adam Brown, Head of Social Media @ Coca-Cola.
About that social media policy, it’s only 3 pages. It doesn’t have to be 100 pages long and cover every last point under the sun. It should be an addition to existing company policy–you don’t need to start from scratch.
As Coca-Cola introduce their Social Media Policy:
Every day, people discuss, debate and embrace The Coca‐Cola Company and their brands in thousands of online conversations. Coca-Cola recognizes the vital importance of participating in these online conversations and are committed to ensuring that they participate in online social media the right way. These Online Social Media Principles have been developed to help empower the Coca-Cola associates to participate in this new frontier of marketing and communications, represent our Company, and share the optimistic and positive spirits of our brands.
Interesting to see are the 10 “Principles for Online Spokespeople” Coca-Cola has created:
- Be Certified in the Social Media Certification Program.
- Follow our Code of Business Conduct and all other Company policies.
- Be mindful that you are representing the Company.
- Fully disclose your affiliation with the Company.
- Keep records.
- When in doubt, do not post.
- Give credit where credit is due and don’t violate others’ rights.
- Be responsible to your work.
- Remember that your local posts can have global significance.
- Know that the Internet is permanent.
All in all Adam Brown has set a nice standard within one of the most loved companies in the world
Download the full policy here: Coca-Cola Online Social Media Principles
Treehugger reports on an intriguing cell phone concept design that’s powered by sugar. Daizi Zheng’s mobile phone runs on a battery that can generate power using soda, or any other kind of sugary liquid. It’s unique idea, and a potential solution to the environmental problems that come with disposing traditional batteries.
Zheng explains:
Through my research, I found that phone battery as a power source, it is expensive, consuming valuable resources on manufacturing, presenting a disposal problem and harmful to the environment. The concept is using bio battery to replace the traditional battery to create a pollution free environment. Bio battery is an ecologically friendly energy generates electricity from carbohydrates (currently sugar) and utilizes enzymes as the catalyst. By using bio battery as the power source of the phone, it only needs a pack of sugary drink and it generates water and oxygen while the battery dies out. Bio battery has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium batteries and it could be fully biodegradable.
via psfk.com
via Treehugger
Taken from ‘At the Top’ on the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world.
Photos courtesy of Alisdair Miller
via thenextweb.com
Play the piano on YouTube! It’s an interactive video by Kokokaka.com.
Wallpaper*’s excellent City Guides to London, Berlin, New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Milan, Rome and Tokyo are now available as iPhone apps. The Berlin one is currently a free download; the others are £2.39 each.Via Notcot.
