The Standard Hotel in New York have recruited Brooklyn-based artist Julia Chiang for an exclusive set of artworks as part of a project entitled “All For You”. The series is in conjunction with a site-specific installation for the new store at The Standard NY Chiang has an unusual medium for her work – melting lollipops, nailed to the wall, which leave leave behind a trace of each single drop. In addition, she has also created an exclusive set of 50 glazed porcelain apples. Chiang chose an apple because it is a symbol of desire and an icon of the city of New York. Each apple is handmade in porcelain and glazed a glossy red and comes in a wooden box that has been burned with the details of the edition, signed and numbered.


Thanks to Gavin Cumine for this story.


References:
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/february/chiangs-lolly-art

Read more »

It’s good to get out of your bubble – whether that’s the cozy environs of Shoreditch House or the corporate towers of Canary Wharf. It must be fun working at Ogilvy’s “pop-up agency”, set up for the good people of Brixton. It’s called the Idea Shop:

‘…we are offering our services free of charge to small businesses, community projects, arts groups, and other organisations and individuals in the Lambeth area. The Idea Shop team – all volunteers from Ogilvy Group UK – can advise on advertising, marketing, PR, digital, social media, strategy, direct marketing, branding, design and copywriting.’


Most of us spend most of our time dealing with (relatively) big budgets and big organizations. It’s great to work with people running small businesses- it’s a different perspective, and hopefully valuable for them. At Mother we run quarterly “Brand Clinics” with UnLtd, a kind of venture capital fund working with social entrepreneurs. We also ran advice sessions at last year’s SHINE conference for social entrepreneurs, and we’ve been invited back this year. We’ve met some great people doing this, and everyone enjoys working on it.


The Idea Shop is only open for a few days (being a pop-up agency). It would be nice to see more of this kind of thing – agencies reaching out into the community and finding new outlets for creative thinking.


Thanks to Jon Miller for this story.

US First Lady Michelle Obama is on the pages of Vogue covers and Carla Bruni Sarkozy’s outfits are talked about as if they are next year’s state budget. For those early adopters growing a bit tired of such pointlessness the Chechen minister of press and information is taking fashion and politics combo to a new level.


A few months Canadian former catwalk model Chrystal Callahan was hired to blog on Grozny Gossip and host Highlights of the Week with Chrystal Callahan on state-controlled television Grozny TV. Features on fashion, beauty and lighthearted topics in general are mixed with tributes to Chechnya’s president Kadyrov, infamous for controlling his war-torn country and subjects with murder and torture. Callahan, and her employers, state the purpose of the blog and 20-minute show to be a mirror of the beautiful side of Chechen everyday life avoiding the more obvious darker side of Chechen life.


This cocktail of fashion, propaganda and social media makes you wonder of you underestimated the importance and impact of fashion after all? Or maybe one-dimensional propaganda never went out of fashion? Lately fashion bloggers are said to be responsible of the democratization of the fashion industry, but that might just be old news. Maybe the early adopting fashion bloggers are going over to the other side…


For another take on fashion fundamentalism please watch this.


Thanks to Paula Bjork for this story.


References:
Radio Free Europe


Image Credit: ?

I’m Here is the story of a male robot librarian living a solitary and methodical life — devoid of joy and passion – which changes suddenly when he meets an adventurous and free spirited female robot.  Set in contemporary L.A., it stars British actor Andrew Garfield and Sienna Guillory, and is directed by Spike Jonze. The fact it is funded by Absolut Vodka matters very little and with no product placement, it instead relies on the brand’s synonymous association with the creative arts.

Read more »

Embrace cosiness and be happy, that is what Monocle magazine are telling us to do with their recent Cosy Index, which challenges angular and sterile aesthetics that have become an architecture norm. Architects and designers may cringe but according to those who know, consumer tastes are changing making people long more for the intimate and inclusive.


Taking the uncertain times into consideration, Monocle argues further that it’s high time to reinstate cosy as a key ingredient for happiness. In turn Monocle supplies a range of cosy credentials for those in search of the warm and fussy. Cities to visits are Vienna for the rich architecture and old school cafes, Kyoto for the intimate cobbled backstreets and great lighting and closer to home there is Rye in East Sussex which gives us whimsical signage and an exuberant antiques market. In slick Monocle fashion JAL’s business class interior and The Tokyo Grand Hyatt gym also makes it into the list, which obviously means you don’t have to ditch your filthy rich habits to be cosy and happy.


Thanks to Paula Bjork for this story.

There has only been one digital story on the tweets of everyone’s fingertips and that was the launch of Apple’s new iPad. A hybrid of their iPhone and Macbook, the device looks fantastic. And whilst there is the usual scepticism, it is easy to see its potential in further changing the way we consume entertainment both at home and on the go. Its price first and foremost, retailing from $499, gives all those people who want a Mac for their home to surf the web, store and consume media; who couldn’t justify the more expensive Apple products, a viable more affordable option. Most interesting was the buzz this product launch caused.


In Apple’s usual fashion they kept everything secret, which created an insatiable buzz on social platforms. As Apple’s Steve Jobs launched the new product during a global live stream, Twitter’s were tested due to the amount of activity. The Guardian, who followed the live launch online with commentary, reported that seven of the top ten trending topics on Twitter were about the new product for much of the launch. Whilst the New York Times reported that there was on average 2,200 tweets per minute about the product ahead of the stream, steadily continuing at 1,500 thereafter.


Monitoring keywords, the NYT research demonstrates the power of the live launch as top key words shifted from Apple & Tablet as popular terms to all of sudden being iPad within a few minutes. Whilst it seems that conversation could be the secret to a great product launch, one thing is obvious – Apple sure do know how to launch a new product.


Thanks to Neil Bennett for this story. Neil has a namesake who was a fly half for the England rugby team between 1975 and 1979.

Elie Zananiri is an animator and programmer from Montreal who is the creative behind the excellent Big Screams project. The project featured an interactive screen displaying cartoon-like characters, which were generated by and then linked to participants who called into a specific number through their mobile phones. The characters generated then battled each other in a game won by whoever screamed the loudest into their phone acting as a weapon and the resulting audio pushing other characters off the screen. It’s just plain old-fashioned fun.


Thanks to Gavin Cumine for this story. This week Gavin has mostly been drinking Coke Zero.


References:
http://www.psfk.com/2010/01/interactive-competition-encourages-mass-screaming.html
http://www.silentlycrashing.net/bigscreams/

At the start of 2009 Guinness began development of RFID technology in association with ball manufacturers Gilbert and technological whiz kids at the Fraunhofer Institute in Nuremberg. The innovation saw an RFID chip placed in rugby balls and sensors situated around rugby pitches to monitor players and the ball itself, logging a number of statistics such as accuracy of passes and strength of tackles. A year later the innovation is coming to the fore in an interactive hub and TV spot entitled Area 22.


The spot shows a futuristic rugby training ground and ends with a link driving viewers to Area 22, a site with goodies that include an iPhone app that aggregates different rugby news feeds, a pub finder that uses Google maps and a rugby kicking game. A Facebook fan site for Irish Rugby supporters has the option to send gifts of team jerseys to friends, and has gathered 4,000 fans to date. All this, acts a prelude to the Rugby World Cup in 2011, when Guinness’ sponsorship and established brand association with Rugby will become more mainstream.


Thanks to Gavin Cumine for this story. Dead Or Alive’s hit track “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) was number 1 on the day he was born.


References:

Read more »