Crayon Art

I've always disliked crayons, even when I was in preschool. Pete Goldlust creates art with crayons in a way that I've never seen before.

"There's a lot of empty space in this ad, but I'm just not sure that the audience we are targeting is the empty-space audience."

Adverbatisms Pay attention, professionals –or not- in Communication, Marketing and Advertising. These things happen almost every day; sometimes we don’t even notice them. But they’re here to stay. They are verbatims. And yes, they’re REAL.

Bad Design

Would you pull this fire alarm during an actual fire. Would you want to be chained to a burning building?

99 problems (the typography remix)

Typography meets Jay-Z

The Adfeed

Here's a great site pointed out by Brad Robertson that features all sorts of catagories and links to some nice advertising.
Thanks Brad.

Brand New Blog

My favorite Graphic Design site, "Speak Up", has spun off a new site dedicated to corporate branding.

It is our pleasure to announce the first official Speak Up spin-off: Brand New. A blog devoted solely to the monitoring, discussion and critique of brand and corporate identity work in all its manifestations and across all categories. With new work being created consistently – and Speak Up not being able, or willing, to accomodate every single new logo that comes out – we wanted to offer a space that would showcase this work and allow the design community to stay plugged in to the ever-evolving saga of identity work.

Really Cheap Halloween Costume

Some of us have actually seen the press operators wear these back in the good old days. The purpose of these hats, other then to keep ink out of your hair, was when your hat got blown off from the wind produced from the printing press then your head was too close to the moving parts of the press. It was time to back up before you get your head bashed in. Or so I was once told. After our 48-inch press conversion these hats don't fit my big head anymore... Bummer, I’ll have to find something else to wear for Halloween.

M&M's+fine art+dark movies

M&M's has created a little game to to help market their Dark Chocolate M&Ms. They have hidden 50 clues to the titles of "dark" movies in a painting and created a little game of solving the puzzle.
It's a great example of using the web in new ways to promote a product.
It reminds me of the Absolut poster with 82 hidden Absolut Vodka bottles...

Watching Words Move - Creative Assignment

Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar are two Icons of modern corporate art. Many of the logos they collaborated on 40 years ago are still seen today: NBC Peacock, Chase Manhatten Bank’s symbolic circle, Xerox and Mobile are still seen on trucks, copiers and letterheads. Geisman developed the roadway signage that is in use on highways in America and internationally.
In 1962 “Watching Words Move” was published, during the same era the two also were regular contributors to Playboy Magazine’s humor pages and regular prize winners in all forms of print and communication arts.
The simple, single word stories playfully express how type (the essential backbone of visual communication) had a brain and could speak, could mean; that the placement and subtle alteration of letters on a page could suggest motion, narrative‹‹just about anything.
The font they used exclusively was Helvetica. This Bauhaus inspired sans serif face was created in 1956 By Max Miedinger for a Haas Type Foundry (they actually created each of the letters in steel molds in which lead was poured to form moveable type; each variation; condensed, bold, italic, etc. had to be individually created) in Zurich and was considered a landmark in pure letter forms which emphasize cleanliness, readability and objectivity. It was a sensation world-wide and has become the most widely used sans serif typeface of the 20th century. Licensing and providing the molds made Haas Foundry very, very rich.

Your assignment is to create your own words that move. Your final piece must be just one word, black and white and Helvetica. The best one wins a prize…
Be Creative!

Thank you to Ron Linn for this project.

New Spin on Battle of the Bands

Here’s a little short film that pits album art against each other in a fight. It’s very cleaver and original.

Great use of sound in Banner ads

lubricate the bed
lubricate the playground
lubricate the fan

New Mouse Pads from Veer for Creatives

Veer's new mouse pads allow you to embrace what all those sales people think you do all day. There's buttons too.

Business want to love design, but it's often an awkward romance

Here's a Fast Company article about the relationship between business and its embrace of design.