Category: Humor

Humor

Tis the Season for Cats and Sheep

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Whether pushing soft drinks, electronic games, clothes or jewelry, all the TV ads during the Christmas season seem alike. They are packed with every Christmas cliché — a rosy-cheeked Santa, cute kids in pajamas, elves, reindeer, snow, families gathered around the Christmas tree basking in the warm glow of a fireplace. If you’ve seen one Christmas commercial, you’ve seen them all – and can’t remember any of them, much less the product they’re promoting. So, it is refreshing to see some retailers strive for originality. Here, Brooks Brothers and Walmart chose animals to celebrate the season by singing “Jingle Bells.” There the similarity ends, and the fun begins.

Happy holidays, everyone.

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Humor

Royal Navy’s Christmas Wish

By Delphine Hirasuna |

The crew of the Royal Navy’s HMS Ocean came up with a creative way to announce their Christmas homecoming after seven long months at sea. In a series of giddy antics, they lipsynced their way through Mariah Carey’s rendition of “All I Want for Christmas.”

Last April the HMS Ocean was sent out for what was supposed to be a seven-week training exercise, but suddenly got diverted to Libya instead to support the UN air mission during the uprising against Moammar Gaddafi. When the crew finally got word that they’d be back in their home port of Plymouth for Christmas, they celebrated by making their own video during an unusually quiet two-day period. A morale booster for the crew, the video is silly, funny and a “feel-good” way to usher in the holidays. Welcome home.

Public Art Programs

Blackpool Comedy Carpet – Good for Laughs

By Delphine Hirasuna |

One of the UK’s largest works of public art, the Comedy Carpet, opened in October on the seaside promenade in front of the renowned Tower in Blackpool. Designed by artist Gordon Young in collaboration with Why Not Associates, the typographic landscape is made up of jokes, songs and catch phrases from more than 1,000 British comedians and writers. Commissioned by the Blackpool County Council to create a piece of installation art, Young determined that “Blackpool occupies a unique and important place in the social history of Britain. Comedy in all its guises is a big part of who and what we are…. Blackpool has been a magnetic chuckle point for the nation.” Young added that he also wanted to maintain the high craft standards of Blackpool’s historic architecture, including the famous Winter Gardens, library and Tower. “

The 2,200 square meter Comedy Carpet was five years in the making. Each piece (over 160,000 letters) was cut from solid granite or cobalt blue concrete, arranged into over 300 slabs and cast into a high-quality concrete so it wouldn’t fade. The Comedy Carpet has become an instant tourist attraction, with visitors walking across the promenade and reading the memorable words of legendary comedians.

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Design Communications

Disney Handbook: Living the Brand 1940’s

By Delphine Hirasuna |

This employee handbook issued by Disney Studios in 1943 stands out in stark contrast to the sternly written handbooks given to new hires by companies today. Yes, it was for Disney, creator of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy. And, yes, times were more innocent back then (notice the male worker ogling the female). But the Disney handbook managed to cover everything from workplace dress code, safety, sick leave (10 days a year for women; five days for men), pay day, personal mail and terminations in a friendly, good-natured tone. It communicated a sense of the corporate culture and brand personality and a spirit of camaraderie.

Companies today often argue that they need to spell out personnel rules and policies in no-nonsense legalese because people are more litigious than ever. That may be true, but typically an employee handbook is one of the first documents a new hire receives. It would be nice if it was designed to be more welcoming and more reflective of the qualities of the brand, instead of getting right down to brass tacks and talking about criminal background checks, firearms and drugs at work, and whistle-blower protection.

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Advertising

Museum of Communism (Really!)

By Delphine Hirasuna |

The fact that the Museum of Communism in Prague is next to a casino and above a McDonald’s burger restaurant is an ironic “thumbing one’s nose” at the oppressors who kept the Czech Republic under nearly a half century of totalitarian rule. The museum, which has as its slogan “Communism: The Dream, the Reality, the Nightmare,” is dedicated to relating what daily life was like living behind the Iron Curtain, right up to the Velvet Revolution that led to the overthrow of the Communist government in 1989. It includes everything from video clips, Soviet memorabilia, and a replica of a Soviet interrogation room.

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