Advertising

Carlton – The Big Ad

By Delphine Hirasuna | January 31, 2014September 4, 2014

Since the Super Bowl puts most sports fans in the mood for beer, we thought we’d bring back an old beer ad favorite — The Carlton Big Ad, created by George Patterson and Partners (Young & Rubicam) of Melbourne in 2005. An epic parody of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” battle sequence, the commercial, also filmed in New Zealand, shows men in maroon and yellow choir robes rushing and leaping across a sweeping rugged terrain, while resolutely singing new lyrics set to the medieval tune “O Fortuna” from Carl Orff’s cantata “Carmina Burana.” Although the commercial looks like it was made with a cast of thousands, it actually only used 350 people, with the crowd replication software, Massive, filling in the rest of the extras in post-production. “The Big Ad” went on to win numerous awards, and undoubtedly paid for its production costs and then some through the millions of times it has been viewed on the Internet.

Fashion

Haute Fashion Touchdown

By Delphine Hirasuna | January 30, 2014September 4, 2014

You won’t catch any of the Super Bowl XLIII players butting heads with these helmuts on this weekend, but you can still bid on one and help the NFL Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the health and safety of sports and youth football.

Bloomingdale’s in New York collaborated with the Council of Fashion Designers of America to invite some of the world’s leading fashion designers to bring their own personal flair to football helmuts. The collection of 48 fanciful and impractical headgear has been on display in the window of Bloomingdale’s 59th Street store in Manhattan and can be viewed online as well. The helmuts are being auctioned off to support the NFL Foundation, and the public has been invited to submit their own design with a chance to win a Bloomie’s gift card and a mini 3-D printed version of their submitted design. Even football helmut design is a participatory sport.

Posters

Maribor Theatre Festival in Slovenia

By Delphine Hirasuna | January 24, 2014September 4, 2014

The Maribor Theatre Festival is the oldest and most prominent theatre festival in Slovenia. In recent years, it has evolved into an international event with symposia, and foreign guests, producers and performances. The festival has been the scene of exciting arguments, thought-provoking insights, unexpected reversals, and controversy. If the bold graphic identity designed by Nenad Cizl for the 48th Maribor Festival is any indication, attendees can anticipate works of equal originality and drama. Cizl explains that the visual theme for his art is intended “to address the attitude of Slovene politicians toward culture.”

Brand Logos

MSAP: Street Map to Graffiti Art

By Delphine Hirasuna | January 23, 2014September 4, 2014

Rather than single out any one art style or type of graffiti to serve as the identity for the Madrid Street Art Project (MSAP), IS Creative Studio adopted a bold asphalt black-and-white street pattern to brand the program. Devised by Martin and Diana Prieto Martin and Guillermo de la Madrid, MSAP is a nonprofit project designed to support and enjoy public art in Spain’s capital city. Through guided tours, workshops, exhibitions, publications and artistic actions, MSAP aims to bring street art to citizens. According to MSAP’s website, “To come up with the [logo design], we relied on the city streets where street art was born and lives. Due to the diverse activities of this project, we thought that the identity of the Madrid Street Art Project should be flexible. We developed a logo that looks like a map….Streets often lead us in opposite directions to our destination. We think this is a great representation of the reflection which street art invites us to think about.” MSAP’s structured logo also contrasts beautifully with the bright colors and amorphous shapes of graffiti drawings.

Typography

Type in the City

By Delphine Hirasuna | January 20, 2014September 4, 2014

Show Us Your Type is a design project created by Neue, a thrice-yearly online magazine that focuses on two things that the Neue founders say they “adore” – typography and cities. Each issue is about a different capital city, and designers are invited to submit their interpretation of the chosen city through posters that are primarily typographic. It is interesting to note what each artist sees as iconic of the culture. To look at a broader selection, go to showusyourtype.com.