Introducing "Smashing The Glass", my new blog all about cool, creative and original Jewish weddings.

In the run-up to my wedding day a few months ago I realised that there was nowhere on the web that brought together creative, individual, inventive and original ideas for stylish Jewish (or Jew-ish!) soon-to-be brides and grooms, and in particular for UK brides. 

So a few months ago that's what I started doing with the creation of SmashingTheGlass.com and I'm delighted to say that it's already getting a lot of love from brides-to-be, wedding vendors, and the press (just this month it was featured in The Times.)

The heart and soul of the site is featuring real Jewish weddings. I like to showcase weddings that have the personality of the bride and groom stamped on it and has some personal touches... so NOT your predictable hotel-kosher-catered large affair, but something with a bit more of the bride and groom's personality injected into their traditional celebration.

As well as real wedding eye candy there's lots of inspiration for chuppah ideas, decor, bridal style, ketubot, invitation and stationery ideas, save-the-dates, favours etc - everything that I hope stylish, creative Jewish couples will need to inspire and help them plan for their wedding.

I'd be delighted if you hopped on over to SmashingTheGlass.com and let me know what you think!

Karen Cinnamon's day-in-the-life on Econsultancy.com (29 May 2013)

Karen Cinnamon interviewed on Econsultancy.com on A Day in the Life of a... Digital & Branding Designer

How the world has changed: St. Peter's Square in 2005 and 2013

Oh dear, the Pope resigns with Comic Sans...

Have you seen this ad campaign for Expedia around London?

The Expedia print campaign from Ogilvy uses airport IATA codes to great effect: just don't expect to see any references to Fukuoka. It's truly creative work, beautifully executed.

The campaign was created by Jon Morgan and Mike Watson. "It all started when we saw a woman walking through Heathrow with the word FUK hanging from her suitcase," they say. "Turned out she'd just flown in from Fukuoka in Japan. That got us thinking, 'maybe there are more'."

Indeed there were – over 9,000 airports around the world, each with its own 3-letter IATA code used to identify the destination of bags.

"We trawled through each and every one looking for useable words, half-words and 'almost words'," the team say. "It's amazing what the brain pieces together and makes sense of."

So did they write the copylines to fit the available codes or vice versa? "Some just happened straight away, some we went looking for like WSH EWE WRE ERE [Brookhaven, Ewer Indonesia, Whangarei, Erave] and SUN SEA SND SEX [Sun Valley, Seattle, Seno, Sembach] as they were travel specific," they explain.

"Others came from writing all the useable codes we could find on a huge sheet of paper and just slogging away until words or phrases made us smile. Each code is real, we tried to get real tags but each one is numbered for security reasons so we made faithful reproductions to get round the problem. We designed, printed, aged and then photographed, took a long time but we wanted it to be as real as it could be.

"At one point we had 36 ads mocked-up. 9 executions eventually ran. There were some amazingly rude ones, which unfortunately will never see the light of day..."

Source: Creative Review

Classic Social Media Fail

iPhone 20 - May the Force be with you!

It’s Almost Here: Apple Media Event Confirmed for Sept. 12

The latest rumours did not disappoint. Apple’s next media event is scheduled for September 12th at 10 a.m. in San Francisco, according to e-mail invites that went out this morning.

The invite, image above, offers a subtle hint as to what the event will unveil. The text reads “It’s almost here,” with a large Calendar-style 12 beneath. There’s no direct mention of the iPhone, but the shadow of the 12 is a looming 5 — a pretty clear indicator of the focus of the event. 

The next iPhone is reportedly slightly longer than the current iPhone 4 and 4S, allowing for a larger 4-inch display. It’s also expected to feature a smaller, redesigned dock connector. According to parts leaks, the rear of the device is dominated by a large metal panel, rather than glass, as on the current iPhone.

 Source: Wired

Pantone scale humour

Are you winning?

Miss straightforward advertising?

I doubt the Olympic brand police will be amused by these unofficial London 2012 souvenir bags

An inspired bit of instore marketing by Sainsburys

A great bit of straight talking advertising from Newcastle Brown Ale

email campaign for RNIB

Love this by Elvis for Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB). Smart and powerful.

Very clever Father's Day ad from Durex

This is the best picture of a surprised building you'll see all day.

Happy Diamond Jubilee

Street installation: melting ice-cream van

Remarkable advert from Getty Images

This puts the usual back-of-dirty-van graffiti to shame

Garry Walton illustrates Ma’amite

I hate Marmite as it happens but this jubilee illustration for the new jar is great: a pair of corgis loving or hating the taste and a crown like rack of toast.

iPhone business cards

Certainly creates a talking point...

Source: The Cool Hunter

In case of fire...

Proof you don't need clever words to make a clever ad

Ad for the Toronto Jewish Film Festival

A Macbook, an iPhone, a Kindle, an iPod and... A BOOK!!!

Source: The Cool Hunter

ASPCA: Dog Collar Interactive Press Ad

By students at the School of Visual Arts, New York, USA

Keep calm and make the logo bigger.

The BBC have outdone themselves with this year's April Fools joke

Karen Cinnamon judges 2012 Freelancer of the Year awards

Karen Cinnamon was Creative judge last night at the 2012 Freelancer of the Year awards

The awards – the brainchild of recruitment company Xchangeteam and trade body the PCG, the voice of freelancers in the UK – recognise the best freelance talent in the UK media and communications industries.

Judges from the marketing, media and communications community selected six category winners and one overall winner. The categories were: Digital Excellence, Creative, Marketing, PR and Communications, and Agency Client Services

Judging the Creative category, Karen Cinnamon applauded “the proof that an inspired freelancer not only exceeds their brief, but can add value in ways their clients hadn’t even envisaged.”

With live tweets throughout proceedings under the hashtag #FOTY, the Freelancer of the Year awards were presented in Holborn House, WC1. 2012 was the event’s eighth year.

Suite pillows

A lovely gift idea for the design nerd who has everything... And the entire Creative Suite is only £50. Available here.



Source: Whiskey Tango Fontbook

Bus wrap fail

Excellent ad for The Spectator that made me chuckle.

Is this the Worst QR code placement ever?

On a TfL poster telling you to keep valuable items like smartphones hidden away.

Ben & Jerry's are using the power of delicious ice cream to back a campaign to legalise gay marriage in the UK

Great Personal Ad for Heinz Extra Strong Garlic Sauce.

DVF and Diet Coke

What could possibly possess you to pay $30 for 4 bottles of Diet Coke? Bear in mind that the bottles do not contain Diet Coke either... The answer might be these limited-edition bottles covered in snazzy designs by Diane von Furstenberg.

If designer Diet Coke sounds a little too decadent for you, this collaboration does have its angelic side: 100 percent of the proceeds go to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) in support of The Heart Truth program for women's heart health research.

M&S launches online outlet shopping

Marks & Spencer has launched an online version of its discount outlet stores, as part of its multiplatform strategy.

&S Outlet will offer up to 40% off M&S clothing ranges including menswear, womenswear, lingerie and children’s wear and will feature items from recent M&S collections from its brands including Per Una, Autograph and Collezione.

M&S currently operates 50 Outlet stores in the UK, but has never been available online.

The M&S Outlet site stands alone from the core M&S website and is operated by http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifAmazon, meaning customers can use Amazon accounts on the site, but they cannot return items to M&S Outlet or high street stores.
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A spokesperson for M&S says that while the online Outlet store is not fully integrated with the rest of the business, it has been designed “to cater for the way customers are shopping now” and is likely to be integrated with the new M&S ecommerce platform due to launch in 2013.

CEO Marc Bolland set out his long-term plans for building a multiplatform business last year, including ending its partnership with Amazon, which currently provides M&S’s main ecommerce website, to develop a bespoke and fully integrated online platform due to launch in 2013.

Source: Marketing Week

Life & career of an average designer

Perhaps the most shared piece of content this week...

This is how Google created the "Chrome" Logo...

A look back in time: "thefacebook" homepage when the site first launched in February 4, 2004

A look back in time: "thefacebook" homepage when the site first launched in February 4, 2004, only available at the time for students and alumni from Harvard University.