So I got a new job. in Ohio… yep thats right… Ohio.
I’ll be working for Abercrombie and Fitch. I’ll be saying goodbye to my home state and good buddies sometime in mid november. crazy times!
for your viewing pleasure heres a series of old time photos with Superheros superimposed into them. Surreal in a really good way.
I do a lot of searching. On a day to day basis i troll the internet for inspiration and new ideas. It’s rare that I find something as awe-inspiring and wonderful as what i found today. Sita Sings the Blues is an animated retelling of the story of the Indian epic, The Ramayana. The story is woven together with scenes from a parallel contemporary story about a broken heart. All this and it’s a musical too…set to the musical numbers of 1920’s jazz vocalist Annette Hanshaw.
I’ve always been a myth lover but this takes the cake. It’s not only beautifully animated but the story is wonderful too. The film can be seen streaming free at Reel 13 but you should also check out sitasingstheblues.com. One of the more amazing aspects of this film is that it has been released as Creative Commons. Nina the animator gives her work freely to the world to enjoy. It’s a great concept and well worth a read.
The film is a little over an hour but completely worth it. If you get a chance to watch it i’d love to know what you think. Take some time today to watch this incredible film. You won’t regret it. Enjoy
I somewhat recently went to the Atlanta Zoo in the heat of the Georgia summer. Heres some of the cool things I saw…see if you can notice the trend. It was really hot.
this guy was doing everything he could to not be sleepy. His friends were doing freaky lemur activities and he wanted in but couldn’t muster the energy
The Panda exhibit was AWESOME. The female was napping as shown in the picture but the male was playing the crowd. He would run around his cage in circles doing summersaults then he would climb his tree take a dump and then go back to running circles and doing somersaults.
The Zoo can be a sleepy place.
Yesterday, Domenic and I finally made a trek out to the newly opened Coca Cola museum in downtown Atlanta. (Specifically to see the Andy Warhol exhibit, which was small but awesome) Having lived in Georgia for many years I’d been to the old museum a fair few times. The new museum is really an updated, more streamlined version of the old museum in a more centralized and up-and-coming location (directly next to the new (super cool) aquarium). As a whole the attractions are all still the same. You get a “look back” into the history of both Coke as a product and Coke as a cultural entity. Then you walk through a sample coke production line and finally you pop out into the tasting center where you can sample Coke products from around the world (most notably Beverly, a foul beverage from Italy that facinated me as a kid and from what I saw yesterday still remains a favorite of hyper active, pre-teen field trippers.) What has changed is the perspective with which the museum now displays the influencial span of Coke history. The focus is finely tuned to reflect a few key themes. It seems like Coke is no longer concerned with finding clever ways to weave itself into the fabric of americana but is instead directing itself towards the individual. Perhaps this reflects the times…or the ever growing international scope of the Coca Cola empire but the days of “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” seems to be quaint little feathers in the cap of Cokes past. The new Coke campaign and the underlying theme of the new coke museum is based on the following commercial.
Brilliantly produced and creatively imagined the new campaign is called “the happiness factory.” The spot is definatly up to par for the one of the greatest and most respected marketing histories in the world, but it certainly represents a shift for the company (and a clever shift at that.) With this new commercial Coke has created a new and mysterious universe that is quite apart from our own. No longer playing a force of world unision the company has set up a new realm where the magical, happy forces of coke now reside distict and seperated from our world. I think it is intersting that Coke is no longer represented as a seamless part of our worlds “magic” but instead as a dissperate entity that works together to then influence our world in magical ways. Coke is no longer a classic peice of what defines us a civilization but instead as a place apart from ours that merits our persuit. The commecial takes Coke away from being aligned with what makes us happy people and redefines the product as being above us, a magical entity that works independantly to bring us happiness if we seek it. The commecial seems to say that if you put some coins into the machines then a whole universe of happiness will unite to bring you a product that represents the unification of their love, joy and admiration. Which in itself is also an intersting shift towards individualistic fulfillment over group unification. I noticed this at the museum as well when i sat in on the new 3D cinamatic adventure to find the “secret ingredient” of Coke. The ride takes you on a journey around the world to find what it is that makes coke the perfect balance of flavour only to drop you right back where you started to excitedly anounce that what makes Coke great is, indeed, you the individual consumer. What an interesting approach. Set up an incredible new world of “wonder, magic and happiness” (a world that most people would find appealing) and then put that world at the consumers fingertips (only a buck away) and position that world as if all of its wonderment can only be realized if the consumer acts accourdingly. This is why Coke is such a powerful company. This is really clever stuff.
So in conclusion here is a follow up film to the Happiness Factory via Youtube
And if you are reminecent of the old days here are a few of my favorite Coke commercials from the old perspective.
Today, I went to a seminar featuring Duffy & Associates. This is a dynamic design firm based in Minniapolis, MN that I’ve got a huge crush on. Ignoring that it’s rediculously cold in MN, the work thats coming out of this firm and the processes that they live by are exactly in line with why I’m a designer. I was perticularly impressed to find out that Duffy was responsible for the new campaign for the Islands of the Bahamas. I’d seen this campaign in design annuals and in real life and have been consistantly impressed with how awesome it is.
After 9/11, the tourism industry hit an all time low. Concidering that the Bahamas main source of revenue is the tourism industry it took a particularly hard hit. The government of the Bahamas teamed up with Duffy and Associates and created a new way for the world to experience the island. By bringing together all of the various islands under the same brand they were able to increase travel by 5 % and cruise line stops by 20%. Pretty coolstuff. Plus it’s gorgious work. Check it out.
I thought I’d heard the last of Second Life but perhaps practical uses for the virtual world are still to be found. The creative team behind W Hotels, ElectricArtists, has set up shop on aloft island a virtual location accessible first only by computer. The idea is to give viewers the chance to explore the soon to be built hotel before its planned opening in 2008. The interactive 3-D model is a work in progress, updated in sync with new influxes of artists’ sketches and building plans. This virtual “grand opening” is the first of its kind, while most hotels’ 3-D models and virtual tours are based on existing architecture.
