Ford feeds monsters

Claim says: “Now with more space for humans”. Well, let’s just say that this is one way to illustrate that the Ford Ka has lots of space inside. I like it.

Via Nerdcore

 

May 1, 2008 | Filed Under Advertising, Input | Leave a Comment 

Iconic Photography reinterpreted

Last week I stumbled across these weird images:
Do you recognize them?

After some scratching my head, I summoned the power of the internet and a simple “where do these images come from?” brought the answer within minutes: They were made by Glaswegian art group Henry VIII’s Wives. And yes, they are aged citizens in their neighbourhood reenacting “Iconic Moments of the Twentieth Century” See how many you can recognize.

They also reminded me of Jon Haddock’s reinterpretation of iconic moments in the real world and movies that I saw a couple of years ago, where Haddock drew them in the isometric view of computer games like Civilization or The Sims.  Same moments as above:

    

He did a lot more. They are all worth a closer look, click here. (most of Jon Haddock’s work is worth the look)

I am generally fascinated by those reinterpretations. They demonstrate how original images truly deserve the term iconic. I mean, they were shot long before I was born. Nonetheless, we immediately recognize them again, no matter how sketchy the reenactment.  

 

April 25, 2008 | Filed Under Input | 1 Comment 

Account Planning Tools Workshop Day 2:

This was good. I have not seen a planning process in a team like this in action. I had exchanged mails with George prior to the workshop and he had mentioned that this was rather about “strategy being about ideas that are stimulated and confirmed by research rather than strategy being something that emerges from research”. I get what he meant with stimulation.
It really was about laying out as many potential routes as possible before deciding where to go. Getting ideas for brand values, ideas for consumer values, ideas for consumer insights, ideas for propositions and spot the route through that multitude that hums best. The hardest part about the process is probably turning off your filter that keeps trying to cut away things.

I believe this can be exciting with smaller clients and companies to produce a useful platform for communication in a day or two. It takes an experienced planner to facilitate the process, keep it running and spot the nuggets. And trigger lateral thinking.

Another nice aspect of the seminar was meeting some of the few Account Planners in Austria. I can now safely assume that there are no more than 20 people that have Account Planner or Strategic Planner as their job title. And all sit in the network agencies lik TBWA, DraftFCB, Ogilvy, BBDO et.al. or work as independent consultants.
The bad news of this: the job situation is pretty dim. The good news: there is potential for Account Planning here and especially for the agencies who embrace it.

 

notes notes notes notes George attempting to pose as a strict teacher. Me and my Baileys Group Working in groups, everybody obviously thinking hard. 

April 20, 2008 | Filed Under Account Planning, Input | Leave a Comment 

Workshop Account Planning Tools - Day 1

First day of the Account Planning Tools Workshop with George Shepherd in Vienna. The few times an opportunity for training comes up in Austria, I have to be there. Even if I pay the whole thing myself.
George, who worked with Y&R, the Leigh Agency and Red Spider, is introducing us to his Account Planning Toolkit, a blueprint and set of templates for a planning process. A lot of hands on work in groups, with a lot of brainstorming and thinking. With his templates I found you can move the results to promising routes without limiting the broadness of ideas. So far, I find this especially useful for teams that have to bring up results in a very short time.
I assume that whole thing works a whole lot better in the real world compared to five advertising people in a hotel lounge, when the client is involved and the agency has done the homework.

The LeMeridien is pretty chic, the room with the name “Eternal Black” not as dark as it’s name. Just the typical hotel conference room. No photos, yet. Hopefully, I will get around to post some tomorrow.

April 18, 2008 | Filed Under Account Planning, Input | Leave a Comment 

Recent Reading: The Arrival

Shaun Tan - The Arrival I am still working myself through the comic book canon. Along the usual suspects like Moore, Miller, Ellis, Ross, Otomo, Sartrapi or Thompson every now and then I find (in this case by a friend’s recommendation) something new and amazing.

Shaun Tan’s The Arrival is one of the best graphic novels I read so far. Without any words Tan tells the story of a man moving to a foreign country to build up a new existence. He illustrates with dreamlike images the overwhelming experience to arrive in a country where everything is new, larger and no sign or writing makes sense. Shaun Tan incorporates stories of refugees, questions like ‘What makes a home?’, friendship, loneliness to a beautiful story. All captured in simple, yet powerful pencil art.

Fantastic. Highly recommended. If you plan to grab just one comic book or graphic novel this year, make it this one.

 

April 15, 2008 | Filed Under Input | 2 Comments 

New Maps Of The World

Via the Creative Review Blog I found this interesting exhibition at the New York MoMA: “Design and the Elastic Mind” running February 24–May 12, 2008.

This exhibition highlights many projects small and large where design made data legible, turning it into information. And sometimes into objects of breathtaking beauty. Like the image above: Barrett Lyon’s map of the internet from 2003, The Opte Project.

Too bad I will not be in New York anytime soon, but there is an excellent and extensive online exhibition available. If you are in any way interested in visualization of data you should absolutely positively check it out.

View the online exhibition here. (does not work with Safari, use Firefox if on a Mac)

There are so many awesome things to be found. I hope I will have some time later today to browse through the site.

March 19, 2008 | Filed Under Input, Visualization | Leave a Comment 

Songs in Charts

Songs as information design? Here is a wonderful new thing to do with piecharts, flowcharts or other diagrams: turn song lyrics into visualized information.

SONG CHART is a Flickr Group that has originated from preserving a Live Journal meme. Many of these musical infographics posted are just brilliant. I love this simple idea:

Friday Im In Love The Cure

They are pure genius when they not only catch the lyrics but also the character of the song, like this one:

Around the World Daft Punk

More here, check it out: Flickr Group: Song Chart

I figured this would be a could drill and I added a couple of charts myself. But I couldnt help wondering what Tufte or Maeda would do for this.

heinztocotronic biginjapanlovewilltearuspart yellow

via Fontblog

February 26, 2008 | Filed Under Input, Output | Leave a Comment