Illustrators

iris have invited some top talent into their towers over the last couple of months for a Meet. session. Illustrators Anthony Burrill, Jean Jullien, Mr Bingo and Container Plus have all come in to talk about their work and inspirations.


Anthony Burrill


Jean Jullien


Mr Bingo


containerplus

Campaign Unframed

Andy Whitlock who works at Poke London has a nice way of taking the piss out of overly serious ad land folk. And good on him.





Check the rest of the set here and his blog here

Crease me up

So... Simon Schubert has got a lot of talent at folding paper and stuff...



Massively impressive. Check the whole set here

Clocked

Swedish designers Humans Since 1982 have made a digi clock out of 24 analogue clocks - the hands combine to tell the time digitally. Wow. It's called The Clock Clock



Watch the vids of it in action below



and this projection:

Potato Heed

Ginou Choueiri does portraits on potatoes...

Swine Apparel

A topical t-shirt available to buy from the aptly named swineapparel.com. Offensive and amusing at the same time.

Light in the tunnel

Artists Bar&Shay altered public lighting in Tel Aviv's open underground tunnels.

From this...



To this...





Snatched from Wooster

Re-branding America

Paper Magazine issued a brief for all comers to re-brand America...

"Right now America is like a company teetering on bankruptcy -- we have lost so much credibility and brand currency over the past eight years. And so we invited some of the best visual communicators we know (from ad gurus to artists) to create original advertising concepts that could redefine our country's image. Welcome to U.S.A. 2.0".

A mixture of solutions - some nice, some obvious... selection below - or more here



Alex Bogusky: "Che Guevara has become T-shirt shorthand for counterculture -- most people in a Che T are oblivious to who he really was and are just celebrating the rebel in us all. In reality, Che went from being a doctor to a murderer in a wrongheaded, desperate attempt to change the world. The Communist Revolution he believed in didn't work -- and were he alive today, he would have to face that fact. Knowing that, the question is: Who would Che wear on his T-shirt? Who and what would (or could) he put his faith in?"



Geoff McFetridge: "Lincoln is very much a man for these times, his beliefs and values hold strong to this day. I was thinking of a way to give a new iconic value to the lowly penny. American history is an interesting way to describe what America is like today. I like to think there is a little bit of Lincoln in all Americans. I also thought it was funny to mess with the American flag as a design exercise. I liked that the idea of endlessly designing the flag is both disrespectful and optimistic."



Stephen Powers: "America needs no rebranding -- we just need to remind people that we're a nation of 300 million that all know how to say, 'Fuck you, pay me.'"



That last one by Peter Buchanan-Smith but I can't be bothered to put the verbose quote in.

Nice project.

It's future time

This is a lovely little thing - a digital clock that doesn't need batteries or electric power as it creates a chemical reaction between mud and metal...



It's too clever for me to explain so read it all here

BakerTweet

This is old now as I forgot to post about it... but it's the best use for Twitter I've seen.

Basically, Poke London invented a little tool for The Albion Cafe that tweets when fresh baked goods pop out of the oven so that Twitter followers can pop in and pick up the freshness. Genious.

Watch this...

BakerTweet from POKE on Vimeo.

And read more here

Voxel

Directed by Ubik. Lovely

Not To Scale - Ubik ~ Voxel from ventilate.ca on Vimeo.

More over here

UTI goes Manc

iris Manchester hosted their very first UTI event last week in The Atlas Bar in the Deansgate area of the city.

As you'll see the logo has been all flat-capped up by our northern friends. Smart.



‘The thinking man’s pub crawl’ was attended by a mixture of agency people, TV companies, creatives, entrepreneurs, and marketing directors from Manchester businesses.



Si Scott, who chatted at out first UTI in London, was first up. His legendary work has been used in campaigns for Audi, Nike, Orange, MTV, Guinness and Hugo Boss. Si talked about the evolution of his work and how he thinks the rise of digital has led to a lack of attention to detail in design. He also recounted the countless times that his intricate hand drawn work been mistaken for computer-generated artwork.

Here is Si mid-chat...



Next up was new media expert Mirage Islam. As a contributing editor to industry bible Contagious, Islam gave some insights into ‘two-track branding’, whereby advertisers continue to use mass marketing but support it with ‘niche’ marketing. This bespoke approach strengthens one-to-one relationships through channels like digital with examples ranging from ABC & Unilever’s joint site, ‘In The Motherhood’, to Fiat’s EcoDrive and O2’s ‘The Blueroom’. Use of digital channels such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as Search Engine Optimisation, were discussed with reference to the Compare the Market’s ‘Compare the Meerkat’ campaign.

Mirage has a word...



Peter Draper, former marketing director of Manchester United, wrapped up the evening. He discussed the rapid change witnessed in the world of football over the past 20-25 years. He cited the catalysts as stadium disasters that prompted review of all stadia and investment into the sport by Sky in the early 90s.

Pete works the floor...



Draper drew on his experience with Manchester United during this time and how the club was quick to recognize that fans should expect great customer service rather than take fans for granted, just as any other business would recognize the importance of customer service. He believes this can be applied to business in all sectors with an emphasis on a great customer experience right through, so that brands can convert customers into fans.



The night went down a storm - as UTI tends to. The next one in Manchester is in July so check here for more details and to register - and I'm told there will be footage of the talks uploaded here soon.

Tick tock

Stefan Strumbel makes cuckoo clocks inspired by graff and street art.



Get more here

Give me wood

Michael T Rea has made a cool prosthetic suit for Stephen Hawking. Man that's cool.



Interview with him over at Don't Panic

Clever / fraud

Conceptual artist, Michael Marcovici, collected the credit card data of 100 people online and sent them his new book...



Read all about it here - especially the results of the project. Cool.