The beautiful art of body copy

January 23, 2012

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I can’t help thinking that in our world of quick hitting, time limiting, headline driven, speed gratification the delicate art of body copy is much overlooked.

Ok, so this great campaign for the Spring/Summer advertising campaign for Aizone, a luxury department store in the Middle East, isn’t exactly supporting my theory. But with a little imagination an interest in looking at beautiful body copy could lead someone into an interest in writing beautiful body copy.

Models were body painted in typographic sentences “Forget Regret” “The Time is Now” and “Talk Less Say More”. It does make you think.

tags: Art,Technology

Samsung digitally enhanced vista: Smart Window

January 13, 2012
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Samsung have launched a new ‘transparent’ smart window screen, that’s set to add a digital layer directly onto your window based vista (yes, that right window, as apposed to your Windows based Vista!). Released at this year’s CES, the technology looks to be the next big ‘tech to have’ for all those avid followers of gadget fashion.

It’s an interesting idea, but you’ve got to ask the question why? Just… why?

tags: Technology

Modernist Cuisine

January 10, 2012

I have to confess, even I am a little surprised to be posting about food. It’s not that often that you stumble across a recipe book that really does stop you in your tracks and makes you say ‘wow’!

Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking is one of those recipe books.

It’s a surprising book in many ways. Surprising that the world needs a six-volume, 2,438-page set of books (des­tined to rein­vent cook­ing – according to its authors). Surprising that you could reinvent food photography in such a powerful way. Surprising that you’d want to part with £311.05 for the pleasure of owning it. And, perhaps most surprising that one of its authors is an ex Microsoft chief tech­nol­ogy offi­cer – DR. Nathan Myhrvold.

So would I want to own a copy? Unsurprisingly – heck yes, it looks beautiful!

tags: Photography

Heineken: QR conversation starters

January 9, 2012
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You know what it’s like, you’re rockin’ out at a festival, there’s a load of new people to meet, but you can’t be expected to talk to them all. That would be silly. There must be a way to streamline the tricky art of the conversation opener, find the people you want to chat to and avoid all that time consuming rejection!

At the Heineken Open’er Music Festival in Poland, event goers could visit the Heineken U-Code Dome to setup, personalise and print their own QR code stickers that would, when scanned by any others at the festival, connect strangers together to hopefully start a conversation!

The idea, created by Leo Burnett Warsaw, is an interesting one. It certainly a compelling way for brands to use QR Codes to help their fans reach out and connect with one another. One just has to ask whether it’s also adding to the death of the subtle art of verbal conversation?

tags: Life,Social

A lesson in how to do good digital

January 7, 2012

If you’ve ever wanted to discover what it takes to do good digital work, then here’s your chance to be enlightened.

Learn about (the always excellent) North Kingdom‘s mastery, passion and sense of business. Plus discover invaluable tips and techniques on ‘how to think digital’ in David Eriksson‘s amazingly open, honest and inspirational inside story into his business.

tags: Creative,Mobile,Motion,Online

Go Rally around HTML5

January 2, 2012

Yes, you will have seen the excellent Rally Interactive site in plenty of other ‘inspiration destinations’ before now, it’s an obvious eye-catcher. But it seems entirely appropriate to start off my 2012 postings with something that will continue to grow in influence and importance, within the wider digital community, throughout this coming year – HTML5/CSS3.

There’s nothing new or cutting-edge about either of these technologies (that’s already happened), but what is emerging is – A. the creative possibilities offered for truly standout sites, and – B. the swift take-up and implementation by the commercial sector.

As the better browsers promote (sorry but IE really needs a kicking!) and our multi-device needs demand, these technologies are allowing for flexible, single development applications, that ensure a fully accessible, wholly joined-up user experience wherever and on whatever we choose to do our browsing.

With the imminent slow death of Flash, it’s nice to see that creativity will always find a way.

tags: Creative,Technology

One meaty app

December 30, 2011
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Pat LaFrieda’s motto is “Eat My Meat”, and with their iPad app, you can do just that. It’s a carnivore’s dream, containing beautiful butchering videos, photography, tips and techniques. No kitchen should be without it!

tags: Apps,Mobile

Nespresso – Dhjana

December 28, 2011

After the gluttonous excesses of Christmas it’s time to sober up with a little caffeine fueled creativity…

Maybe it’s because java has the reputation for sustaining the creative mind (well, others my want to swap ‘java’ for another drug of choice – but lets go with it for now!), but I’ve always thought Nespresso have gone the extra mile in delivering truly inspiring visual experiences.

Nespresso Dhjana is a collection of coffees that represent the very best flavors from around the coffee producing world. Uncompromising in taste they certainly are, and with the added benefit of 100% AAA Sustainable Quality behind their production, they really are the perfect choice for a creative cuppa.

The supporting Nespresso Dhjana site, created by Soleil Noir Studio, is a wondrous visual event. It takes you on a journey through product’s life-cycle, allowing you to visit producing destinations, understand the issues and processes, get a virtual ‘flavor’ of each bean and finally discover new coffee inspired recipes. All delivered within a beautifully crafted visual feast.

The site may not have all those social and mobile ‘bells and whistles’ we like to see, but perhaps it shows that maybe, just maybe there is still a place left for Flash development today!

tags: Flash,Online

Bing picturing 2011

December 22, 2011

As we approach the end of yet another year, there’s an inescapable opportunity for some sympathetic musing of the past 12 months and some serious crystal ball gazing into what the future may hold. There’s plenty of both around at the moment!

Taking the former approach, Bing Canada has launched a simple, yet well crafted, campaign – bingphotos2011.ca. The site is an interactive animated gallery recapping on a year’s worth of photos from the Bing homepage (one of the elements that the brand uses to set itself apart).

The campaign site itself has been created to make use of HTML5, and allows the user to take a little break from all that searching, and scroll back through the ‘year in pictures’ using a nice little date-driven scroll bar feature.

The images you discover are great, and certainly help to compliment your serious searching with some delightful day-dreaming. Whilst the campaign never loses sight of its purpose – the Bing search box is always available – the interest is all about the photography, and with social media integration, photo fans can easily ‘like’ their favourite photo or share it on their social network of choice.

A simple idea, but one that shouts “we’re not Google”. It works.

tags: Online,Photography

Dots by Internavi – Honda infographic

December 21, 2011

There’s something beautiful, almost therapeutic, about looking at the graphical representation of data.

Right from the early days of design’s role in communication (think Florence Nightingale’s rose diagram), the visualisation of statistical data has been proven to be the most effective way to communicate often complex impact realities. You only have to observe the growth in popularity of the infographic to see that.

Dots by Internavi is a motion infographic created for Honda Internavi. The beautifully crafted system analyses and visualises real time ‘car probe’ data, gathered form enabled Honda cars all over Japan, and presents it in a series of dynamic on-screen presentations.

The resulting data visualisation changes constantly to match current travel feeds, and makes the Honda Internavi transportation story a hypnotic wonder to both follow and understand its impact.

Internavi is a vehicle telematics service offered by Honda to drivers in Japan. It provides mobile connectivity for on-demand traffic information services and internet provided maps displayed inside select Honda vehicles.

tags: Design,Online
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by____ Gavin Johnson