Friday 30 October 2009

Friday fun times with Xtra normal


This site is great. You can create really short movies really quickly. You type out your script and it says it back in a Stephen Hawkin esc voice. That alone is pretty funny, but it gets even better when you start adding camera angles, hand gestures and emotions.

Waste two hours doing it. It's worth it.

The example above is a bit of a parody on the art director. Have a go here

Thursday 29 October 2009

Friday 23 October 2009

The 200th Post


Bit of a milestone today. 200 posts since we started this blog.

Woop Woop!

So, to celebrate here's a link to a slide show called '87 cool things' from google. It's worth a look as there are loads of interesting ways people have been using google's API. It's application mash-up heaven!

Take a look here.

Thursday 22 October 2009

Someone finally hacks google street view...





... and it's a band and not a brand!

I'm quite taken back by The Editors use of google street view to promote their new album.

There are various points to click on a google map. Each position relates to an area that inspired a song on the album. When you reach a specific point in Street View a special arrow appears, and takes you to a night scene involving the band. The Street View scene with the Editors still uses the same Street View navigation to explore it, which makes the whole experience mesh together nicely. Now i'm not a huge fan of the band. But, it is nice to hear the song playing as you look around the area which it was written about.

It's about time another band challenged Radiohead for thinking of new, interesting, ideas and channels to promote an album.

I take my digital hats off to The Editors for trying something new and all the dev team that made it happen!


Good stuff.

Wednesday 21 October 2009

Get a 'go to' blog





When the idea's stop (usually just after lunch) i usually go to a blog where i can get some inspiration and a bit of a brain re-boot.

I see it like having a blogging mentor.

You admire their writing style, they inspire you to think a little bit harder or they just find cool stuff from around the world.

It's a blog that gives you an extra creative push to get you to the end of the day.

If you haven't got that 'go to' blog, there's a couple of good one's below.

Notcot - The Yoda of ideas.
Dave Trott - The Mr Miyagi of advertising insight.
Bad Banana - The Mickey of graphics and design.

Monday 19 October 2009

The most testosterone fueled film EVER!




The new film 'The Expendables' from Sly Stallone has just had it's first trailer released.

i'm not sure if the trailer is meant to be badly edited to get across some 80s action man nostalgia. It seems to give away a lot of the action, and to be honest that's all this film seems to have going for it. The plot seems to be a minor detail here.

Anyway, lets blow some more S**t up!

Wednesday 14 October 2009

The last place you want to go




Nice insight. Cool art direction and some well written copy.

The one thing we have spotted is that it could work for amazon.co.uk, kelkoo.com, pricerunner.co.uk etc.

But Dixon's did it and well done to them for having the creative balls to slag off three of the biggest department stores in Britain!

Wednesday 7 October 2009

Really good music video's



Peter, Bjorn and John - It don't move me.


Justice - Let love rule.

What's great about music videos is how creative they always are. They don't have to have too much message take out apart from...'that was cool!"

There's a great scene in Almost Famous (Directed by Cameron Crowe) where the guitarist Russell Hammond says to the young wannabe reporter William Miller "Just make us look cool."

i think that's essentially what Musicians want from their promotional stuff. Wouldn't advertising be simpler if clients were the same!

Thursday 1 October 2009

Perfectly in sync



These guys are great. They would work really well for a computer or mobile phone service that want say they could keep you life in sync. Anyone?

80s pop videos yooouuutuubed

MC Hammer - Can't touch this

Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean



These all came from a site called Yoouuutuube.

It splits a Youtube video into frames and makes a crazy mosaic pattern from them. These 80s pop videos work particularly well with it.