Brilliant series of adverts from Uniball which highlight the merits of sending a handwritten letter and cleverly illustrate what misused fonts say about your message. An advertising campaign which is all about communication and implicit meaning – so meta!My favourite one is ‘Pappy Is Dead‘, which makes fun of Comic Sans (the underdog of all fonts) and there is also quite a camp skit deriding the Broadway font, too. The ‘Bust You Out’ version is probably the most effective, because obviously slang sounds so ridiculous when it’s read out in the Queen’s English! It reminds me of the time when James Blunt had to read out some Sean Paul lyrics on Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
I know that this new iPhone advert is supposed to be poignant and heartwarming, but I actually find it a little but creepy and unnerving. I’ve probably watched too many episodes of ‘Black Mirror’, because this advert just reminds me that we’re under constant surveillance.
Everyone wants to take pictures of everything! I don’t like to think about it too much, but it really freaks me out to think that there is a very real possibility that a complete stranger has taken a picture of me either passed out or wearing a badly-chosen outfit, just so they can upload it to Facebook and get a few derisive ‘Likes’ at my expense. It’s even worse when you think about how this kind of attitude can escalate – like in the recent Steubenville rape case. It’s definitely got to the point now where taking photos all the time hasn’t just become mundane and disposable – like the scenes in the iPhone ad. Gawking and voyeurism is so deeply embedded in contemporary society that it’s become quite disconcerting. Especially because, to some extent, we’re all guilty of it.
With the recent introduction of Google Glass, a campaign group called Stop The Cyborgs have called for the gadget to be banned in certain areas – something which I am definitely in favour of. The BBC article covering the story raises a lot of interesting questions. While it’s definitely true that technology and innovative design makes our lives faster and easier, these new inventions are also shaping our attitudes in ways that very few could have predicted.
Really nice adverts for Lego Technic by J and L. I automatically assumed that they were done by Todd McLellan when I first saw them, but no, they just look quite similar. Well, really similar, actually…Still don’t see it? How about now?I guess that imitation is the highest form of flattery…
This wry GIF, by New York-based illustrator Beomyoung Sohn, is part of a project called ‘Dummymen‘. The repetitive animation shows our mindless addiction to brands and consumerism as well as, presumably, our loss of individuality as a result. The project, which is still a work in progress, has got a really dark, nihilistic humour to it that reminds me of work by Banksy and Jake and Dinos Chapman. It’s amazing how many brand logos have been squeezed onto all the faces of each block; every time I think I’ve spotted all of them, I’ll see one that I haven’t noticed yet – like the ones for CNN and FedEx, which are partly hidden.
If you like this, then you’ll probably like the hilariously horrible cartoon by Steve Cutts that I posted previously.
“Women of the future will make the Moon a cleaner place to live.”
Damn straight we will! Radical sixties feminism, yeah! Future women – fellow pioneers of space travel, improving another planet through green energy and innovation. Exciting!
Hang on a second. I just re-read it. You mean that women are just expected to clean stuff on the Moon, like we’re expected to on Earth? Oh, shit…
Aww. This video for ‘Careless Teens’ by The Bilinda Butchers is really priddy and makes me yearn for a lazy sunny day where I can just do whatever I feel like. I discovered this band a couple of months ago when I first heard ‘The Lovers’ Suicide’, which also made me think of the weather. It was March and still snowing a lot in London, so it felt strangely appropriate to be listening to the lines: “Like a flower can’t bloom in the snow / We can’t hide, we can’t grow!”
Don’t you think that this video is almost like a lookbook for some kind of hipster fashion brand, like Wildfox or Cheap Monday, or something? When I saw it, I felt that it evoked a real girly ‘Tumblr’ aesthetic. Hopefully the maker of the video, Vanesa Capitaine, won’t be offended by that description – she does seem to use Tumblr a fair bit!
Believe it or not, those delectable looking treats in the picture above aren’t dark chocolate macarons. They are actually black pudding macarons by Jane Russell, of Jane Russell’s Original Irish Handmade Sausages. I adore macarons, and I probably love black pudding even more, but I’m just not sure about putting the two of them together! It’s such a bizarre combination; I’d definitely want to try it if I got the chance.
Another microsite from Coca-Cola – not as fun as Happiness Islands, but thankfully not as patronising as the Work It Out site either. This time, Coca-Cola have decided to create a game called, umm…Cat Or Not. Basically, everyone on the internet loves cats, so it strikes me as a bit of a lukewarm crowd pleaser. The game is harder than you’d think, although ultimately it’s fairly pointless. It never seems to end, nor is there any logical conclusion to it.
Come on, Coke, cut the bullshit. When are you going to just roll out more of those free money ATMs? We all know you can afford it!
Perfection, by Studio NL. Imagine how great it would be to just crawl into this little nook when that dreaded 4pm energy slump hits you. It’s like a narcoleptic’s dream.
Brilliant series of adverts from Uniball which highlight the merits of sending a handwritten letter and cleverly illustrate what misused fonts say about your message. An advertising campaign which is all about communication and implicit meaning – so meta!
My favourite one is ‘Pappy Is Dead‘, which makes fun of Comic Sans (the underdog of all fonts) and there is also quite a camp skit deriding the Broadway font, too. The ‘Bust You Out’ version is probably the most effective, because obviously slang sounds so ridiculous when it’s read out in the Queen’s English! It reminds me of the time when James Blunt had to read out some Sean Paul lyrics on Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
This wry GIF, by New York-based illustrator 
