DesignYak

A weird one

Microsoft have drawn “inspiration” from Academy Award Nominated Short Film, ‘I Met The Walrus’, a documentation of an interview between John Lennon and a 14 year old fan. Josh Raskin directed the original piece, combining sketches by James Braithwaite with digital illustration by Alex Kurina. You can see the film here.

Imaginary Forces have collaborated with JWT for the Microsoft project, which presents ‘business owners success stories”, complete with crackling sound quality and zany animation. There’s something not quite right about the “People Ready Business” campaign, visually it looks great but so did ‘I Met The Walrus’. It lacks the authenticity and originality of Raskin’s film but it’s not surprising considering the subject matter. You can see the three ads on Imaginary Forces website.

Keep right on

Just seen this brilliant poster on Plan-B Studio’s website, the guy behind the agency and the creative director is Steve Price. It’s a witty take on a poster produced by the government in 1939, the original message - “keep calm and carry on” - was intended to instil confidence in the nation at the beginning of the second world war.

‘Let’s get creative’ with the Guardian

Yesterday the Guardian featured a special report on the creative industries in the UK, discussing the current climate and what lies ahead. It was all pretty positive. John Hegarty from ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty points out that considering the “decline in our currency we now offer unprecedented value” to overseas companies, it is now “30% cheaper to create in the UK”.

The report goes on to say that the creative industry can help the UK “attack the recession”, with David Cameron announcing a party review of the sector. Gaynor Aaltonen, does suggest however that many creatives are not striving for world domination and the problem may be the inability of small companies to capitalise on success. Her concern is that creativity alone may not be enough.

I found Ben Terrett’s article particularly interesting. He discussed a concept called “unproduct”, which he describes as “maximum idea, minimum stuff”. Value is placed on the product, which in turn delivers a guaranteed quality. The aim isn’t necessarily to produce the goods as cheaply as possible but to produce something that can be cherished.

An example he gives is the Hand-Me-Down range by Howies, a range of jackets and bags, guaranteed to last at least 10 years. It’s a great idea, and as Ben points out it’s the result of a collision between the issue of climate change and the current economic crisis. You can read more on the Guardian’s website.

Photofit

I saw this quite a while back and thought it was a really interesting project, definitely worth a mention. Giles Revell and Matt Willey have produced a series of portraits using a Photofit kit, the images are often striking and the accompanying interviews give a great insight. You can see more on Giles Revell’s site.

Hello

So, as Steve has already informed you, he’s off on his hols and in his absence I’ll be running the show. I’ll be updating it with the usual design related shizzle. I’d love to hear any thoughts and comments you have on the work posted. Hope you recognise Lionel's clay head below, to watch the vid again click here.

Off to Oz

I'm off to Australia for 3 weeks! While I'm away, I'll be leaving you in the capable hands of my friend, Edward Read. Ed is a designer at The Times. See you soon, hopefully with a lot of great posts from my time away, Steve.

iPhone font applications

I just saw a couple of iPhone applications for those of you who are lucky enough to have an iPhone.

Ever seen a good typeface and wondered what it is? Whip out your iPhone and take a photo, and WhatTheFont for iPhone will identify it in seconds! For more info and to download it for free, click here. I don't know if it works, you'll have to let me know! Via Gramatter

The second one is called Kern, and is “a minimalist typography experience challenging you to precisely place a missing letter into a falling word while avoiding any unnecessary ligatures!  Practice and prove your typographical acumen with a score that gives new meaning to point-size!” Sounds like something to do whilst you're bored on the bus or something, click here if you're interested. Via Iain Claridge

Type Trumps

Rick Banks has created this set of Top Trumps, called Type Trumps, allowing players to battle with classic typefaces. You can buy this set through his website. 

Via Iain Claridge

 

Howies Spring catalogue 2009

Visit the Howies website to get your order in of the new Howies Spring catalogue, you can see a pdf of the catalogue too. Designed in part by my friend from University, Aron Jones.  

New Green Day album cover

Here's the new Green Day album cover, inspired by a stencil graffiti by Sixten. Haven't made my mind up about this yet, I liked the cover of their last album, American Idiot but not sure about this. It reminds me of Blur's album Think Tank, which used graffiti by Banksy. I much prefer Blur's.