OK, OK, so I am a dreadful sucker for these sorts of things and found myself quite misty eyed at the tribute by the BBC to David Attenborough that will be coming to your screens shortly. But what a lovely brief and what a great little film.
It’s hard really to think of anyone capable of replacing such a figure as Sir Dave – Kate Humble or Bill Oddie are not really in the same league are they?
Congrats to the team at RKCR/Y&R and creatives Ted Heath and Paul Angus.
The hugely legendary Saul Bass is portrayed here courtesy of BrainPickings.org to whom my thanks.
A couple of things struck me (hang on a minute, you DO know about Saul Bass, tell me you do? – Yes? – You do? Ok, I’ll carry on…) about this interview.
The passion for what he did. That’s pretty obvious.
But also the simplicity of his arguments.
Number One: Learn To Draw. Note the initial capitalisation of those words (aptly American), but also the emphasis on such a completely sensible thing that despite all the software we have at our disposal, you cannot beat being able to jot down and communicate an idea on a piece of paper.
Takes seconds.
And infinitely faster than googling some poor representation of an image that ‘sort of get’s over what you are trying to say’ but in the end, does it?
Because if you cannot draw, you will be forever limited in your work. As Saul says: “If you don’t, you’re gonna live your life getting around that and trying to compensate for that.”
The second thing that struck me? The fact that Hannah Britten who pointed this link out to me is not only young, knows who Saul Bass was, but can also draw.
Excellent stuff. Mr Bass would be proud that a new generation has respect for his legacy.
I am indebted to the kind folk including David Griner at Adweek for a fine selection of ads from the last few years (that aren’t Apple’s 1984). You can see the selection here…
Just one thing. The one that’s at the Number One slot for Pantene? Well, maybe I have a heart of stone but that surely doesn’t deserve it? Too cheesey for words. And my all time favourite the Boddingtons campaign especially Mel Sykes and her “Do you want a Flake in that one love?” hasn’t made the grade.
Ah well. Another case of one man’s media is another man’s poison.
So here’s the ad in question for those of you who may want to see it again.
You need to download Google Chrome (if you haven’t already done so) and go to here, but once there you’ll find a fascinating showcase of web technology set to the tune of Arcade Fire’s “We used to wait.”
The blurb on the ‘How it was done’ part of the site goes on about:
Choreographed windows, interactive flocking, custom rendered maps, real-time compositing, procedural drawing, 3D canvas rendering… this Chrome Experiment has them all. “The Wilderness Downtown” is an interactive interpretation of Arcade Fire’s song “We Used To Wait” and was built entirely with the latest open web technologies, including HTML5 video, audio, and canvas.
There’s more there if you want to explore it, but first, enjoy it!
A hint of what to expect: You have to put in an address for where you grew up. Fascinating stuff.
Ok everyone, I’ve been keeping this under wraps for too long now. Time to show you a selection of what GravitasLondon has been up to since we launched.
You can download the pdf here. It’s about 2.5Mb so won’t take long!
Take a look at the contents and if you like what you see, perhaps we can do some business together.
Tips for Better Ideas from Andrew ‘Big Show’ Blodgett on Vimeo.
Rethinkscholarship.com came up with this which is rather sweet… Who says that you can’t use an old medium – in this case paper and cardboard engineering – to get a message over? Nice and simple and bears a second or third view too! Love it.
One of the hundreds of weird and wonderful shots on the site
A site that’s so damned exclusive you cannot join (it’s by invitation only) but that I keep on going back to (purely in the interests of research and not hoping to nick any ideas or images you understand). It’s called Ffffound and it’s stuffed with silly, clever and plain wow factor images. There are some that are lost on me but on the whole in the pages there you’re bound to find something that makes you stop and look further.
A positive must for any designers, or a weird trawl through the minds of the people who post? It’s a bit of both. Take a look for yourselves.
I rather like this. Another of those things that will probably get recycled again elsewhere. In the meantime take a look and, you know, chill…
(You can afford the time to chill once in a while you know.)
I rather like this. It’s called Bounce Room. I don’t know why I like it, other than it’s the sort of thing you say to yourself, I’ve never seen that before.
The Bounce Room 1 & 2 are by Michael Guidetti. Together with the paintings come projectors which add animation to the sceneries. Take a look at the videos on the site.
Social media is a wonderful thing isn’t it – you can spend your days picking up great stuff like this from the web all in the cause of ‘research’. I expect it will find a form in some sort of commercial application selling something that has no relevance to the original concept but will look very pretty. In the meantime enjoy…
Credit where it’s due – I am indebted to Creative Review for pointing this joyful piece of creativity out to me. I’ve always been a sucker for animation of pretty much any sort and here’s a sweet film designed to drum up interest in the 2009 Creative Circle Annual. View here.
I’ve watched it a few times now and still can’t get all the references but see what you can spot. I figure the oldest ref goes back to the 1920s – Skegness is so bracing – though strangely Guinness is represented by very much later and I think inferior work.
It’s worth viewing at a reasonable size so you can see the details. Enjoy!
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