Great examples of infographics

For more inspiration I recommend the following infographic books:
- Information Graphics: Innovative Solutions in Contemporary Design
- Information Design Workbook
- Visual Function: An Introduction to Information Design

Tampon-makers can't mention the V-word. Period.

For years, advertising for tampons and "sanitary products" have been shrouded in euphemism. So what happens when a US tampon-maker drops the coy messaging and goes straight for the jugular (so to speak)? Its ad gets banned by the major US television networks for mentioning the word vagina.



Even when the company substituted "down there" for vagina, two of the networks still wouldn't run the ad, so the company was forced to drop the idea altogether. That provoked Amanda Hess, author of The Sexist blog, to observe: "Now, the commercial contains no direct references to female genitalia – you know, the place where the fucking tampon goes."

An executive for Kimberly-Clark, the owner of Kotex, notes that US TV networks have no such compunction about references to "erectile dysfunction" in prime-time ads for Viagra and Ciallis.

The amended ad – produced by JWT - shown above, "How do I feel about my period?", has a series of images parodying the stock images used in sanitary product advertising, and concludes: "The ads on TV are really helpful because they use that blue liquid, and I'm like, oh, that's what's supposed to happen." The ad debuted on US television this week.

Source: Richard Adams's blog

Geek friendly jeans

Sanja and Pedja, two Web enthusiasts living in France, have created WTF Jeans.

The ultimate gadget accessory, these jeans have pockets especially for your iPhone or iPod Touch with microfiber protection so they don't get scratched, as well as extra padding where it counts for guys. They also have a hidden memory stick pocket.

Low in the front and high in the back, they feature snazzy “twitter bloo” stitched pockets to accentuate those geeky butts!

According to the site, the jeans are still in beta stage (whatever that means), and the first pairs are expected to ship on May 2, at 59 Euros (£53).

The New Dork - Entrepreneur State of Mind (Jay-Z ft Alicia Keys Spoof)

It's the year of the geek baby!

Beautifully crafted parody of one of my favourite songs."Social net-works-what-dreams-are-made -of"... Love it!

Amy Winehouse to design a collection for Fred Perry

Fred Perry, the sports label favoured by mods, and Northern Soul fans, has collaborated on a new collection with soul singer Amy Winehouse.

Although Winehouse is best known for her disheveled outfits, massive beehive hairdo, and exaggerated eyeliner, the singing star is adding fashion designer to her credentials with a womenswear collection that will be based on her own 1950s-inspired style and will comprise of 17 pieces, including polo shirts and skirts.

What to do with all the books you'll never get round to reading

From Paul Octavious's book collection

Apple airs first iPad ad during Oscars

Apple screened its first TV ad for the iPad during last night's Oscars coverage, while the company's founder, Steve Jobs, was spotted at the event.

The song playing in the ad is "There Goes My Love" by a Danish band called The Blue Van, from its 2008 album "Man Up."

The spot was aired immediately after the motion picture "Up" from Disney/Pixar won the Best Animated Film award. Jobs is on Disney's board of directors and used to be Pixar's Chairman before Disney bought it in 2006.

Google Threatens To Kill Users

Comedy.com recently asked Google if they would like to address the public backlash over Google Buzz. They responded with this.

Thanks to Tal Jacobson for directing me to this very amusing piece of video.

Review of 'Decode' at the V&A. Go see!

Take a walk in a field of digital flowers that light up as you move through them, interact with Thom Yorke on screen, create your own artwork triggered by sound and take five minutes to sit in front of a camera that will record your photo in a ghost like image before superimposing it with that of someone else.

These are just some of the wonderful exhibits at Decode an exhibition of digital media currently showing at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

While the opening pieces just inside the entrance aren't terribly provoking to anyone not too interested in programming or open-source code, the installations get gradually better as one moves through the Porter Gallery. In retrospect, this is probably a strategic part of the exhibition's intent - it lures you in by filling you with the false sense of reassurance that you know what it's all about, only to jump out and surprise you with a shout upon turning the corner.















Decode inspires by reaffirming the relevance of art, its exhilarance and absurdity, in our ever more digitalised, technologised, informational-ised world. Highlights include 'Flight Patterns' by Google digital design heavyweight Aaron Koblin, a beautiful, simplistic visual stylization of flight data recorded from aeroplane journeys over North America throughout a 24-hour period, and 'Tree', an interactive projection piece with branches blowing in response to wind directly outside the museum and shedding leaves that move along the ground as visitors walk amidst them, by Dutch artist Simon Heijdens.

There is a sense of wonder about these pieces were created in the first place but then questions are forgotten as you create a painting just by moving or you make the leaves on a virtual tree fall off just by walking up to it. You also end up having random conversations with strangers - a virtually unheard of phenomenon in any London gallery.

Decode: Digital Design Sensations on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL until April 11 2010.

Crowdsourcing: Getting others to do your work for you

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be an alien researcher with SETI or an investigative reporter for The Guardian in the UK? Well, now is your chance. Both are turning to the public for help with a project - one that is better performed by thousands of amateurs rather than a handful of experts. This is part of a growing trend by companies of reaching out to the masses for help with their projects and for advice about their products and services. It is also something that marketers should start thinking about for their own business.

What is Crowdsourcing?
Crowdsourcing means outsourcing tasks that are traditionally performed by employees to a group of people or community through an “open call.” It is using the collective intelligence of many to either find the best solution to a problem or help perform tasks that would be overwhelming for a handful of people. A perfect example of crowdsourcing comes from the source of this definition, Wikipedia. Thousands of volunteers collaborated to produce over 14 million articles – and turned the encyclopedia market on its head in the process.

How can I benefit from it?
Generally speaking, there are three areas where crowdsourcing can benefit you: developing ideas for new or existing products, engaging consumers with an activity related to the brand, and generating creative ideas for advertising.

Generating creative ideas for advertising
If you’ve had enough of working with ad agencies, then this option might be for you. In this type of crowdsourcing, you bypass your ad agency and have consumers create your ads. This usually takes the form of an open competition where the winner(s) gets a cash award for either generating the concept of the ad or actually developing the completed ad. Doritos has been successfully running a Super Bowl Ad competition for years. Their crowdsourced ads consistently rank in the top five of Super Bowl ad polls and have earned the creators up to $1 million in bonus money for their stellar in-market performance. If you are apprehensive about the time and effort required to create a platform to run a crowdsourced project, don’t worry. There are companies who specialize in setting up these types of campaigns that can get you running in no time. Companies such as crowdSPRING and Idea Bounty will run the campaign right from their website and they generally receive more than 100 entries per campaign.

Why not give it a try?
The next time you have a project that you think could benefit from some fresh ideas, consider crowdsourcing. The collective intelligence of the masses may just bring you a great product idea or creative concept that you never would have discovered on your own.

Edited down from Ogilvy Digital Labs

Hung Like A Billboard

HBO’s show HUNG has now made its New Zealand debut on TVNZ’s Channel One.

Auckland-based ad agency Colenso BBDO was retained to promote the show and to generate some buzz. They have definitely created a buzz with their risqué billboard, recently erected on Victoria Street in central Auckland. Whether you like the billboard or not, and whether it draws you to watch the show or not, you must admit that the old, tried-and-true subjects – well-endowed female and male bodies – never seem to fail to draw attention...

From The Cool Hunter

Curiouser and curiouser...

As the designer of a fair few e-marketing newsletters, I'm always interested in the e-tail designs that drop into my inbox and today's Alice in Wonderland-themed offering from Selfridges.com was, I thought, jaw-droppingly beautiful (Verdana body-copy typeface aside).

As the Verdana text wasn't live, why oh why did they choose one of the world's ugliest typefaces (designed especially for Microsoft) for the body copy?

How nice is this? A sketch of a cat drawn from a single line.

Found on the homepage of the Design Museum's website.

Where to find London's best hot chocolate

Nothing to do with design, but so very important.

The best hot chocolate will banish all memories of milky bedtime cocoa - it's rich, complex and made with quality raw ingredients. London is starting to wake up to the idea of hot chocolate as a serious drink - here's Time Out's pick of some of the best purveyors in the city:

Artisan du Chocolat
89 Lower Sloane St, SW1W 8DA (0845 270 6996/www.artisanduchocolat.com)
The all-white ‘chocolateria’ at Artisan du Chocolat may be oddly reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's milk bar in ‘A Clockwork Orange’, but thankfully the similarity ends there. You can pop in for hot chocolate to take away (£2) and if you drink in, the £3 includes your choice of three fresh, handmade truffles. The intense espresso hot chocolate will blast any cobwebs from the brain or you can go for the gentler matcha white hot chocolate made with Japanese green tea.

Carluccio’s Caffè
www.carluccios.com
The Italian caffè chain does hot chocolate better than most. Its specialites include bicerin, a concoction from Turin which lets the drinker mix their own preferred combination of espresso, Florentine chocolate and cream from little jugs. Branches throughout London.

Mélange
184 Bellenden Road, SE15 4BW (07722 650 711/www.themelange.com)
The hot chocolate served up by self-taught French chocolatiere Isabelle Alaya in her colourful little shop has become something of an obsession among posh Peckham-ites. The recipe is a secret, but it’s based on high-quality Belgian chocolate; rich and aromatic, it’s thick but not cloying, with a good balance of sweet and bitter flavours.

Melt
59 Ledbury Rd, W11 2AA (7727 5030/www.meltchocolates.com)
Chocolatier Chika Watanabe creates Melt’s hot chocolate with Madagascan vanilla-infused double cream and a drop of peppermint oil. The result is an intensely dark and rich drink enjoyed in tiny cups.

Paul A Young
33 Camden Passage, N1 8EA (7424 5750/www.paulayoung.co.uk). Branch at 20 Royal Exchange, Threadneedle St, EC3V 3LP
Former pastry chef Paul A Young makes different strengths of hot chocolate according to the weather forecast, and mixes it only with water to preserve the complex flavours of the beans. Slip into his tempting brown-and-cream basement atelier in Camden Passage and try the warming Aztec blend, made with Ancho chilli.

Princi
135 Wardour St, W1F 0UF (7478 8888/www.princi.co.uk)
This buzzing Soho bakery and caffè is a branch of a stylish Milanese coffee shop, and imports its chocolate from the house of Mussetti, which has been blending coffee and chocolate in Piacenza since 1934. Accompany your drink with one of the great Italian savouries or cakes and enjoy the buzz.

William Curley
198 Ebury St, SW1W 8UN (7730 5522/www.williamcurley.co.uk). Branch at 10 Paved Court, Richmond, TW9 1LZ
William Curley’s original shop is in Richmond. The second shop, in spacious new premises in swish Belgravia, opened late last year, giving the husband-and-wife team of William and Suzue more room to develop new ideas, including a breakfast and dessert bar, and a new teaching area/demonstration space downstairs. The hot chocolate tends to be light and frothy, rather than stand-a-spoon thick. The house blend is 70 per cent Amade, but there’s also Gianduja, with hazelnut praline and Aztec, which has a clean, clear flavour, with a spicy sting in its tail. Just try to resist the range of Viennoiserie and ‘fancies’ on offer, from raspberry delices to Bakewell tarts and yuzu cakes, flavoured with Japanese citrus, or the range of handmade truffles.

The Wolseley
160 Piccadilly, W1J 9EB (7699 6996/www.thewolseley.com)
Hot chocolate is considered to be a proper, grown-up drink on the Continent. Accordingly, this European brasserie serves a few types, including the espresso-sized fondant, versions with whipped cream, and a truly decadent rum version that’s scrumptious.

iPad Keynote in less than 180 Seconds: Incredible, Beautiful, Amazing

Apparently no scene has been repeated and everything was uttered as is on this keynote (with even a few 'amazing's taken out).

Thanks to my 'Mac buddy'. Avishay for this.

Google splashes out $5m on Super Bowl with a beautifully simple ad

Google's aversion to advertising its search engine on TV ended with a bang on Sunday night as the company paid an estimated $5m to run a commercial during the Super Bowl.

The minute-long spot marks the biggest venture into mainstream advertising for a company that has become notorious growing almost exclusively through word of mouth and online exposure.

Google's "Parisian Love" commercial, which featured a variety of plugs for the company's search engine played out as a virtual love story, was aired during the game's third quarter and lasted a full minute.

As one of the world's most-viewed TV events, the Super Bowl is a opportunity for advertisers to reach huge audiences in one swoop - and a notorious cash cow for the NFL. With companies charged around $2.5m for a 30 second spot last year's game, which lasted just over three and a half hours, made $213m from advertising alone.

While is not the first time that Google has ventured into mainstream ads – in recent months the company has promoted its web browser, Chrome and run an international campaign to publicise its web-based software - it has done little or no external marketing of its search engine for most of its life.

Indeed, such has been the antipathy towards promoting its basic products through traditional channels that senior executives have even launched attacks on the company's rivals for using advertising.

In an interview on Fox Business News last summer, Schmidt railed against Microsoft for trying to spend their way to a market-leading position.

"You don't buy it with ads," he said. "You earn it, and you earn it customer by customer, search for search, answer by answer."

According to advertising experts, Google's Super Bowl debut was a hit: Tim Calkins, a professor of marketing with the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Illinois, said Google's advert proved the most successful during this year's event, according to their tests.

"The Google spot laddered up to the emotion but maintained function," Calkins said.

Latest Work: branding for the new generation of kidswear for Marks & Spencer

Logo, branding and web site landing pages for 'Rock Royalty', the new generation of kidswear for Marks & Spencer.

See the branding live here and the design for 'Behind the Scenes at the photoshoot' here.

Brilliant stop motion: Oren Lavie Grammy Award nominated music video

JUST BRILLIANT: Oren Lavie, the Israeli singer, has just won a Grammy Award nomination in the Best Short Form Music Video category. His video is showing a girl in bed using stop motion technique. It was made of 2,096 still photographs, which you can now buy for $250 each. Is it worth it?

Nice envelope design

Great idea by Beste Miray. Design it, then post it from your exact location

What a great ad: Honda do it again with their latest 'Everything we do'

The TV spot was created to support the British-built Honda Civic launched on 17th December 09. The ad showcases the breadth of Honda's engineering experience; from ATVs, to marine engines, motorcycles, and the humanoid robot ASIMO.

Another winner from Wieden + Kennedy

Supermodels Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Lara Stone on eight separate covers for LOVE magazine

Condé Nast has produced eight different covers for the latest issue of its fashion and lifestyle magazine, Love, featuring naked cover stars including Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Lara Stone.

Each is photographed naked in an identical pose by photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggot and feature in a 40-page shoot.

The other models who will appear in the magazine, published on Monday next week, are Natalia Vodianova, Amber Valetta, Jeneil Williams, Kristen McMenamy and Daria Werbowy.

Katie Grand, the Love editor, said the magazine had chosen the women who are generally acknowledged to be the most beautiful in the world for the "fashion icons" issue of the bi-annual magazine.

"For this issue of Love, we took eight women who are generally acknowledged as the most beautiful in the world, got them to show off their bodies – widely regarded as the most perfect in the world – and photographed them in exactly the same position for the cover," Grand added.

Alas said: "It was interesting to study them naked, all in the same pose, as they are all so different, but all so powerful-looking."

The new Macbook

What's in a name? The iPad mocking begins...

Are there too many men in Apple's marketing department?

That's what droves of women on Twitter and other social media sites are wondering as they consider the name of Steve Jobs' new lust object, the iPad. The name sits uncomfortably close to those cheesy commercials promoting the light and breezy features of feminine hygiene products.

The mocking goes along the lines of: Yes, the iPad is small, lightweight and slim. But can you swim with it?

And right now iTampon, Apple, iPhone, and Steve Jobs are all trending topics on Twitter but iPad isn't. Go figure Apple marketing department...

Mac in a Book: BookBook Got You Covered

The BookBook is a hardback leather carrying case for your MacBook or MacBook Pro.

"Zip it closed and your baby is nestled between two tough, rigid leather hardback covers for a solid level of impact absorbing protection. The rigid spine serves as crush protection for an additional line of defense."

In addition to the sleek and sturdy design Twelve South boasts that the "BookBook is the perfect disguise," providing "superior security" by masking your laptop as a "vintage piece of literature"

Though it might provide the extra security for your laptop it also might tempt the crooked bibliophile; for many a piece of "vintage literature" has more value than laptop.

I could see it now. Someone leaves their BookBook covered Mac on the table at the library. A book thief sees it, swipes it and is utterly disappointed when they get home, open it, an find they have been duped.

Thanks to Avishay for the pointer.

What Type Are You?

Always wondered what typeface you are? Now Pentagram can help give you an answer...

This site was originally set up as a Christmas message from Pentagram, but those clever folk at Creative Review have realised that the password works for anyone, so decided to share it with us.

Visit the site here, and simply type in your name and the password 'character' and off you go. A psychiatrist figure will then ask you a number of questions about your personality before diagnosing you with a typeface. A short film about your type will then play.

I was diagnosed as 'Letrees Ornees', below, a decorative typeface... Lovely!

Lady Gaga's getting creative for Polaroid

Polaroid are hiring 23 year old Lady Gaga as creative director.

Her role will take her behind the scenes of the 70-year-old company, which retired its analogue camera last year, where she will design and invent speciality projects.

According to Polaroid’s product pipeline, those projects will aim to deliver an easy-to-use or access digital experience, designed for instant fun and gratification…. Hhhmm

She said: "The Haus of Gaga has been developing prototypes in the vein of fashion/technology/photography innovation - blending the iconic history of Polaroid and instant film with the digital era. Lifestyle, music, art, fashion: I am so excited to extend myself behind the scenes as a designer, and to as my father puts it - finally, have a real job."

Latest Work: Valentine's branding for Marks & Spencer

Latest project is now live: Valentine's Day branding and landing pages for www.marksandspencer.com.

See the live designs here.

The most irritating ads of 2009: is being irritating a successful marketing strat­egy?

They may grab our attention and then worm their way into our subconscious, but some commercials are memorable for all the wrong reasons.

While 2009 may have been a tough 12 months for the Advertising industry, it was a vintage year for irritating ads.

The end of Kerry Katona's contract with Iceland did remove one regular fixture from the annual list, but a host of other brands has joined the fray. The morbidly obese opera singer of the Gocompare ad propelled the brand into the top spot of this year's annoying ads.

It was closely followed by Cash4Gold - a company that has become one of the beneficiaries of the recession by encourag­ing impecunious consumers to trade in their trinkets for hard cash.



As ever, many of the brands that top the list relish their most-irritating status. Nicholas Hall, head of marketing at Gocompare.com, says that, because the campaign is ‘not vanilla' it has significantly boosted the price-comparison site's profile. According to Go­com­pare's own consumer research, there has been a 200% increase in awareness of the brand since the activ­ity started in August.

One of the oldest truisms about market­ing posits that the bigger the brand, the harder the fall. Those that have the biggest budgets and shout the loudest also run the greatest risk of offending consum­ers. However, while McDonald's, Gillette and T-Mobile all make an appearance on this year's list, smaller brands are punch­ing above their weight when it comes to annoying consumers. Of particular note is the fact that three of the top 10 most-irritating ads were produced in-house by relatively new brands - Confused.com and Webuyanycar.com as well as Gocompare.com.

The question remains whether being irritating is a successful marketing strat­egy in itself. Proponents of this approach suggest that, like any strong response, irrit­ation equates to aware­ness - the ultimate aim of all ad campaigns. However, Simon White, joint man­aging director of ad agency Grey London, points out that brands that have been accused of irritating consumers in the past - such as Cillit Bang and Radion - achieved a short-term spike in sales, but struggled to maintain this performance in the long term.

This view is echoed by Richard Hunt­ington, director of strategy at Saatchi & Saatchi. He says that while these irritating ads are clearly memorable, whether they can form part of a sustainable commun­ication strategy remains to be seen. Put simply, once a brand has done its best to irritate consumers it is difficult to see where the creative approach goes next.

Given the sharp rise in complaints to the Advertising Stan­dards Authority, it could be argued that consumers are less tolerant of brands on the whole. Not so, according to Huntington. ‘People have become less tolerant of interruption but this is more to do with the entertainment on-demand culture,' he says.

Yet, there has been a shift in advertising strategies during the down­turn and many brands top­ping the list appear to have attended the Alan Sugar school of marketing; by asking their agen­cies to ‘work harder' to help them stand out from the crowd they are effect­ively causing brand­ing overkill, often through the medium of the jingle.

Andy Nairn, executive planning direct­or of ad agency MCBD, believes that it is not enough for ads simply to raise aware­ness if they are not well-liked. ‘Most peop­le have an awareness of Josef Fritzl, but it doesn't mean they want to spend time with him,' he says.

Nairn points to the success of brands such as Hovis that have fostered a genuin­ely emotional connection to consumers rather than focusing on direct response. ‘The standard of advert­ising has dropped as marketers increasingly believe they are working hard through excessive brand awareness,' he adds.

The last word goes to Gocompare.com's Hall, who clearly believes it is better to be on the list than forgotten about. ‘I'd say that the campaign has performed exactly as we'd have hoped so far, and, I'm sure, better than many of those campaigns that weren't memorable enough to make it into the list,' he says. ‘However, as much as you'd like to, you can't please all the people all of the time.' Whether his brand's activity pleases any of the people any of the time remains a moot point.

From brandrepublic

Badly placed advertisements

The result of placing advertisements on billboards, websites and newspapers in unintentionally the wrong place...








Credit: theprodesigner.com

JBW 2010

For the 6th successive year, Cinnamon Creative has created the complete branding programme for London’s largest literary festival – JBW – including the 64pp programme, signage, posters and nationwide advertising.


The new programme launches online tomorrow, 7th January. To book for sessions for the capital's most exciting 'literary extravaganza', visit www.jewishbookweek.com

Obsessive iPhone disorder?

Do you eat, breathe and sleep your iPhone?

This may be taking your obsession to the extreme.

Thanks for this, Avishay! Not that you have OiD of course...