mood

Advertising

Carlton – The Big Ad

By Delphine Hirasuna |

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.

Advertising

Continuation of Life

By Delphine Hirasuna |

The massive earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, made funerals an all too frequent occurrence, draping the country in the black and white colors of grief. The Nishinihon Tenrei Funeral Parlor in Japan sought to soften the somber mood and turned to I&S/BBDO in Tokyo for a respectful advertisement that would remind people of the beauty of life. The agency created a full-size human skeleton out of pressed flowers and reprinted it as a poster with the message “Life Is Endless”. The poster was unveiled at a funeral trade show.

Photography

Fashion Photography


By Delphine Hirasuna |

The other day we were lamenting that good art-directed, concept-driving original photography has become a rarity when we happened upon this Washington Life Magazine piece on the Washington Ballet’s production of “Alice in Wonderland.” Photographed by Dean Alexander with creative and art direction by Design Army’s Jake and Pum Lefebure, the photo essay presents a consistent and cohesive story line, communicated through thoughtful choice of lighting, scale, pacing, mood, poses, typography and layouts. Everything hangs together as a piece. The photos have a subtle narrative flow, beginning with the lost look of Alice in an innocent baby-blue dress, all the way through to the playful mid-air leaps of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum and the White Rabbit, to the darkly surreal portraits of the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts staring provocatively at the camera. Although Lewis Carroll’s tale of Alice in Wonderland is well-known, this photo shoot reveals strong art direction by Design Army to ensure that the make-up, hair and costume stylists, the photographer, and models are all working toward the same vision on how the story should be told.

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Announcements

AGI Designers Wax Eloquent About Type

By Delphine Hirasuna |

The words “typeface” and “character” are fitting terms to describe fonts. When listening to good designers talk about them, you would think they were gossiping about people. They talk about their emotional qualities, complain about what they perceive as their flaws, get blushingly specific about their physical beauty. For them, some typefaces are casual flings, good for a quickie when the mood strikes and the lighting is right; with others, they are in love and ready to commit for life. For many designers, a studying letterforms is more engaging than reading what the collected letters have to say.

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Book Excerpt

Jonah Lehrer’s Five Tips for
Reaching Your Creative Potential

By Delphine Hirasuna |


From the bestselling author Jonah Lehrer comes “Imagine: How Creativity Works” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Lehrer explains that his latest book “is about our most important mental talent: the ability to imagine what has never existed. We take this talent for granted, but our lives are defined by it. There is the pop song on the radio and the gadget in your pocket, the art on the wall and the air conditioner in the window. There is the medicine in the bathroom and the chair you are sitting in…” He gives real world examples from Pixar and Second City to Bob Dylan and Yo-Yo Ma. He goes on to say that “creativity is not a gift possessed by a lucky few; it’s a variety of distinct thought processes that we can all learn to use more effectively.” Here he offers five tips from his book on how to increase your creative potential.

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