October 2011
1 post
WatchMarius Watz - Eyeo Festival 2011 (by Eyeo Festival)
December 2010
1 post
April 2010
1 post
2 tags
Magnum asks contestants to sing its brand's tune →
Magnum, Trojan’s specialty line of large condoms and the frequent stuff of rap lyrics, is launching its first ad effort. Dubbed The Magnum Live Large Project, the multiplatform campaign is focused on an online contest in which users are asked to write lyrics for a song about Magnum. The grand prize includes $5,000 cash and a trip to a hip-hop festival to meet Ludacris.
October 2009
1 post
A Life of Light and Shadow
When Laszlo Moholy-Nagy fled the Nazis in the 1930s, he lugged this bizarre contraption through customs in country after country. The Light-Space Modulator looks like a mad-science experiment and sounds like a time machine, but it helped pioneer digital design.
January 2009
2 posts
Best Viral Videos of '08
The Washington Post’s Monica Hesse rounds up the year in viral videos. Among her picks are a Scientology promotional video featuring actor Tom Cruise, Will.I.Am’s “Yes We Can” clip in support of then-presidential contender Barack Obama and footage testing whether cell phones can actually pop corn.
01.03.09 | Best of the Web 2008
3 tags
2009 trend to watch 1: Agencies start their own...
Bartle Bogle shop Zag is staking out new ground in the agency world with entrepreneurial efforts such as Mrs. O, a fashion blog that offers users the chance to purchase fashions just like those worn by incoming first lady Michelle Obama. Zag’s strategic director Ben Jenkins said, “Zag is about creating the properties ourselves from scratch and having 100 percent of it.”
...
“Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.”
– D.H.Lawrence
December 2008
18 posts
Happy 4th Night of Hanukkah
“Matisyahu deployed what may be the only large, mirrored, rotating dreidel in show business — a Jewish answer to a disco ball — at Webster Hall on Sunday night, the first night of Hanukkah. It was also the first of eight New York City shows for Matisyahu in his third annual Festival of Lights series, bringing different opening acts and guests each night. A large menorah was set up for a...
Top 10 Spec Ads of 2008
“Spec ads, unofficial, proposed advertisements to ad agencies, restore our faith in the little guy in the big bad world of advertising - the creative, “regular dude” who actually sits down to his or her computer and bangs out an ad so much better than anything the suits could dream up.”
12.29.08 | Top Ten Spec Ads of 2008 - Urlesque - Internet Trends, Viral Videos, Memes and Web...
Too Much Information
“The glut of news leaves people overloaded and thus no better informed, a study finds. “The irony in news fatigue is that these consumers felt helpless to change their news consumption at a time when they have more control and choice than ever before.”
12.18.08 | Overload! : CJR:
It’s not a Wonderful Life
“It’s a Wonderful Life is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams,” according to one of the most-emailed stories on the NY Times site today. The writer also argues that George Bailey is mean to his wife and Pottersville is much more fun than boring old Bedford Falls.”
12.19.08 | James Stewart and Frank Capra’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’? It’s a...
On Notice: Romantic Comedies
“A new UK study shows that fans of romantic comedies have unrealistic expectations of relationships and often have trouble communicating with their partners. Rom-com fans are more likely to believe that love is predestined, that if a person is meant to be with you they will know what you want without you telling them, and that sex with the right person will always be perfect. John...
The Medium is Still The Message
Four books released in the 1960s and 70s changed the way people saw our soon to be media-obsessed world. Penguin’s re-released them for a new generation, and they’re just as relevant as ever. YES Design took on the job of redesiging them, using a popular 60s font that reminds one of New Directions’ books of modernist poetry. “They manage to look very smart and slightly...
“Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.”
– Susan Sontag
Joshua Prince-Ramus: Burying Frank Gehry
I’ve never been comfortable”—he grabs a sheet of white paper, uncaps his pen, and starts whorling in black ink—“doing Frank Gehry. I would never suppose that someone would look at my sketch and go, Aaahhhhhhhhhh. No wonder architecture’s dead—because that’s what everyone thinks architecture is now. When Calatrava and Gehry die, it’s...
We're Recycled from an Earlier Universe?
Most cosmologists believe that our universe emerged from a singularity during the Big Bang. But now physicists are exploring the possibility that our universe was created by the death of an earlier universe.
12.12.08 | Did our cosmos exist before the big bang? - space - 10 December 2008 - New Scientist
The Brothers Bloom
“A month or so ago, The Brothers Bloom trailer charmed me with its Dirty Rotten Scoundrels or Shooting Fish caper by way of Wes Anderson feel, because I’m a sucker for that kind of movie. Somehow I forgot to post it then, so here it is now, aged but still worth spending two minutes with, like grandma. It’s by the guy who did Brick! I was so ready to let this movie kiss me...
More Fun With Creative Commons
Meet Jeremy Keith. He took a picture and posted it on Flickr. He receives a few emails, and just says “use what you want and credit me.” Next thing he knows, 3 minutes into the Box office hit “Iron Man” movie is the picture he took being used as the background.
Read the whole story below.
12.11.08 | Adactio: Journal—Iron Man and Me
Quit Your Day Job
Cory Williams, who counts about 180,000 subscribers to his videos, said he was earning $17,000 to $20,000 a month via YouTube. ”Williams, 27, a YouTube producer in California, agrees. Mr. Williams, known as smpfilms on YouTube, has been dreaming up online videos since 2005, and he said his big break came in September 2007 with a music video parody called “The Mean Kitty Song.” The...
Bill Murray, Random Party Crasher
Bill Murray has taken to crashing random house parties in New York City, showing up unannounced and offering fatherly advice to guests. ”When a young man was walking through Union Square Park. He suddenly felt someone behind him, their hands over his eyes. When he turned in surprise, there was Bill Murray, his creased face leaning in close. Bill whispered, “No one is ever going to believe...
A Cold Steal
“Rock guitarist Joe Satriani has sued British band Coldplay, accusing the Grammy-nominated stars of plagiarizing one of his songs. Satriani’s copyright infringement suit, filed on Thursday in Los Angeles federal court, claims the Coldplay song “Viva La Vida” incorporates “substantial original portions” of his 2004 instrumental ‘If I Could...
Mecca 2.0
Norman Foster and Zaha Hadid have been hired to redesign Mecca. “According to sources, the scheme for Islam’s holiest city could create a huge new structure around the central Haram mosque that will eventually be capable of holding three million people, making it the ‘highest occupancy’ building in the world.”
12.03.08 | Foster and Hadid to redesign Mecca
The End
“From his ultra-plush pleasure pad in hyper-exclusive Snedens Landing, New York, the reclusive genius photographer Rodney Smith has spent the last two years directing his army of graphic designers and master printmakers in the production of ‘the kind of book that will set the tongues of the artistic community wagging for a thousand years!’” Now that’s how to promote...
Dear Zachary
After Andrew Bagby was murdered, a friend set out to make a documentary about Bagby’s life for his infant son, Zachary. But Zachary’s mother is also the prime suspect in Bagby’s murder, making this a very complicated story to tell — and the ending is just heartbreaking. Dear Zachary has been making the film festival and art house rounds, but it airs this Sunday at 9 EDT on...
November 2008
8 posts
Myth of The Mad Genius
“The romantic idea that madness heightens creative genius is wrong, an article says. A psychologist who studied the output of the manic depressive composer Robert Schumann says mania ‘jacks up the energy level, but it doesn’t give the person access to ideas that he or she wouldn’t have had otherwise.’ Rather, genius is discipline.”
11.21.08 | Psychology Today: Genius and...
Putting the Science back into SciFi
Warning, science-fiction buffs. Hollywood and scientists have hatched a new accuracy initiative to give the latter “less to cringe about when they go to the movies.” Place your bets on which will come first: quibbles about “An Inconvenient Truth” or a “Family Guy” episode about multiple universes.
11.20.08 | New project aims to unite science and Hollywood - science-in-society - 20 November...
A Very Different Signature
“NY Times’ Nicolai Ouroussoff on Frank Gehry’s remodeled Art Gallery of Ontario, with slideshow. Also - Blair Kamin on Renzo Piano’s soon-to-open Art Institute of Chicago addition, with video.”
11.20.08 | Architecture Review - Art Gallery of Ontario - Frank Gehry Puts a Very Different Signature on Toronto Museum - NYTimes.com (Via DesignObserver)
On client management
”We have to educate the client, and explain what their role is, which will help them understand each step and also contstrain them.”
11.20.08 | FOWD: Paul Boag of Headscape: Educating clients to say yes
Hey America - We Get A Puppy!
Technically, Obama only promised a new puppy to his two kids, but it felt like a promise to a nation. The whole country has gone crazy debating appropriate breeds.
11.06.08 | The Search for the First Puppy - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com
DailyShow Clip - Road to the Dog House
“Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out...”
– Maya Angelou (1992 Clinton inauguration)
"I Didn't Vote For Obama Today"
Boyd Reed has a confession to make:
“I did not vote for Barack Obama today. I’ve openly supported Obama since March. But I didn’t vote for him today.”
Read what did happen below:
11.04.08 | eastside93’s Blog | Talking Points Memo | I Didn’t Vote For Obama Today
CGI Aging and Face Transplants
Ever take a closer look at all the tiny old man baby stills from David Fincher’s new backwards aging tale The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button? Did you find yourself remarking at how the little old man resembled the younger (looking) bigger and taller version that Brad Pitt plays? That’s because new special effects technology allowed the filmmakers to put Pitt’s face on that...
October 2008
22 posts
the original Frankenstein?
“Mary Shelley created a monster out of her “waking dream,” but how much of the original “Frankenstein” was actually written by her husband, Percy? A new edition of the earliest recoverable manuscript of this much-altered novel shows his writing and editing were substantial.”
10.31.08 | Who wrote the original Frankenstein? Lynda Pratt TLS
Red Sex Blue Sex
“Why do so many evangelical teens get pregnant? The New Yorker looks at what “no sex before marriage” actually means in the Bible Belt. Abstinence, it turns out, is not 100 percent effective.”
10.31.08 | Dept. of Disputation: Red Sex, Blue Sex: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker
Obama has great design - continued
“I thought I had seen enough “Obama has great design” stories, but Michael Johnson has put together a terrific summary of the ways that art and graphics have been used by the candidates and their advocates this US election season. Especially impressive is the roundup of Shepard Fairey homages.”
10.30.08 | Democracy, designers and Obama - the johnson banks thought for the...
Zombies as Indicators for the Economy
A science fiction Web site produces a graph suggesting that the number of zombie movies rises in periods of war or unrest. Is there a causal connection? We don’t know, but we are definitely in the age of “Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!” right now. Not to mention “Zombie Strippers.”
10.30.08 | Chart Porn: War and Social Upheaval Cause Spikes in Zombie Movie Production
Don't Mess With the Chef
“Top sushi chefs who serve only what they want how they want it are the new Soup Nazi. Don’t scrape the wasabi off your sashimi, and don’t order the California roll - these sushi chefs have very sharp knives.”
10.27.08 | Sushi Bullies - WSJ.com
On Terror
“A journal publishes for the first time a speech by Leonard Bernstein given 22 years ago to a small group at Harvard — one that “feels eerily current.” It’s about cultures of fear: ‘This is the way the world lives, is practiced in living—existing in terms of an enemy.’”
10.27.08 | The American Scholar - Something Called Terrorism - By Leonard Bernstein
What Are We Doing Now?
Facebook is in the living room. ”A consumer poll done in the second quarter found that 75% of Internet users participate in some form of social media, up from 56% in 2007.”
10.24.08 | Forrester: Social Web Now Mainstream
Re-Branding The Atlantic
“The 151-year old general interest magazine The Atlantic is known for championing the “American idea” in all its diversity and for exhibiting a curiosity for topics ranging from politics to design. The result can range from Andrew Sullivan’s prescient and influential essay “Why Obama Matters” to Corby Kummer’s 2,300-word treatise on apples. When Pentagram undertook a redesign of...
Re-branding America
“We’re beginning to get a sense of how Barack Obama’s political success could change global perceptions of the United States, redefining the American “brand” to be less about Guantánamo and more about equality. This change in perceptions would help rebuild American political capital in the way that the Marshall Plan did in the 1950s or that John Kennedy’s presidency did in the early...
authorial voices
The British Library on Thursday releases for the first time recordings of 57 British and American literary icons. Marvel at Arthur Conan Doyle “battily explaining” telepathy; Gertrude Stein “incomprehensibly explaining how she writes”; and Raymond Chandler “drunkenly slurring his way through an interview with Ian Fleming.”
10.23.08 | Now on CD: library’s treasure | Books | The...
Political Fashion on a budget
“Time photographer Callie Shell has snapped an entire collection of candid shots of Barack Obama, some grand and sweeping, others mundanely human. ”Senator Obama was doing press interviews by telephone in a holding room between events. Sometime later as he was getting ready to begin his event, he asked me if I was photographing his shoes. When I said yes, he told me that he had...
The Economic mess in under 50 words
“As in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could say in the game only by borrowing. When their credit ran out, the game stopped.”
A quote from FRD’s former FED Chairman, Marriner S. Eccles (in 1951) summed up the factors that contributed to the depression of the 30s in a way that illustrates the current economic climate...
Empty vessels
A critic decries the global “sugar-rush appetite for architectural icons.” As in Norman Foster’s Peace Pyramid in Kazakhstan and Rem Koolhaas’s China Central Television building. They’re part of “the commercial stampede to produce cheap thrills” rather than “more engaging, humane, and affecting buildings and places.”
10.21.08 | Empty vessels: eye-con architecture - Features, Art...
“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from...”
– Galileo Galilei
Service
On “Meet the Press”last Sunday, Gen. Colin L. Powell concluded his endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama by referring to the death of a Muslim soldier, Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan of Manahawkin, N.J., who was killed in Iraq on Aug. 6, 2007. In Powell’s own words, after speaking about the need for inclusiveness of the Muslim community: ”He was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was...
Paul Otlet Predicts the Internet in 1934
In 1895, Paul Otlet invented the first search engine: he accepted factual queries by mail, and combed through his collection of over 400,000 index cards for the answers. But even more impressive are Otlet’s remarkably prescient essays on the future information technology. In his 1934 work, “Traité de documentation,” Otlet envisions a future where, instead of reading from books, people will...
Men Who Love Their Cats
The New York Times runs a probing exposé on the growing trend of straight, single men who love their feline friends. Says one interviewee, “The cat’s nice. I come home after a long day of work, it sits in my lap, I pet it.”
10.04.08 | More Men Are Unabashedly Embracing Their Love of Cats - NYTimes.com
It's Men's Fault
Did testosterone cause the financial mess? A study in Evolution and Human Behavior found that, in a group of mostly Harvard men, those who took the most risk with a $250 stake were the ones with the highest levels of testosterone and more masculine facial features.
10.03.08 | Bad Market? Blame Men | Popular Science