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.
These are some photographs I took at Kinetica Art Fair back in March. I wanted an excuse to play around with the GIF Maker on 15 Folds using my own photographs; these images were perfect because I could easily align the spheres to be the same size on Photoshop.
Another amazing new video from David Bowie! Once again, he’s teamed up with Floria Sigismondi - the same director who did the video for ‘The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’ - and this time Bowie plays a prophet. Gary Oldman co-stars as a priest and Marion Cotillard is the leading lady, portraying a prostitute who develops stigmata. The cinematography and styling in this video is brilliant – so many frames make amazing images in their own right.Love this demonic nun look – definitely doing something similar for Halloween this year!When I first saw it, I thought it was a bit of a shame that people are so jaded these days that it probably wouldn’t be recognised as being particularly scandalous. But then I read some headlines about how it had already pissed off some Catholics and I took comfort in the fact that of course religious zealots and Daily Mail readers are still so easy to shock! Normally I would post the video here, but to enjoy it in its full glory you should probably watch it on Vevo – then you don’t have to see an annoying logo, or watch it on a tiny screen. Enjoy!
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.
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.
Wacky Races IRL! Watch this cool advert for the Peugeot 208, which shows the car competing in a live action version of the Hanna-Barbera ’60s classic, Wacky Races. Made by Y&R São Paulo and Partizan, the fun 90 second spot showcases all of the Peugeot 208′s features in the context of a slapstick comedy race against the show’s classic characters.
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!
If you’re into domino effect videos, or just appreciate the beauty of some meticulous physics, then you will definitely enjoy this jaw-dropping video for ‘Tuna Melt’. Not overly enamoured with the track, to be honest, but this video is just amazing. Even if you absolutely hate electro, I’d recommend watching it.
Wow. This song appears to be over a year old, but I’ve only just heard it and it’s brilliant. I was looking for the original Bauhaus version when I discovered this one and – without wanting to sound disdainful towards MGMT – I was pretty surprised at what a good job they’d done of covering it. Don’t get me wrong, I really like MGMT, but they’re not exactly the kind of band that you listen to and then think: “Yeah, I can tell they’re big fans of Bauhaus.”
Better still, this exquisite video by Ned Wenlock really complements the track and conveys the song’s melancholy lyrics.
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 
