SPINNING AROUND: SEVENTY SEVEN THINKING OUT LOUD

FURTHER CASSETTEBOY SHENANIGANS

Chris pinged this around. Liked it. Have blogged it. Toodle pip for now ...

SCHOOL OF COMEDY HITTING SCREENS SOON

A bit of a plug for the lovely Laura Lawson, who has conceived and produced forthcoming E4 series, School of Comedy.

I saw (and raved about) the one-off that Laura did as part of an E4 comedy showcase some time back and now she's been given a series.

Short trailer here, which doesn't entirely do it justice, if I'm honest. Watch it, it's funny. Was all that I was going to say, really ...

HAPPY WEEKEND

Maybe it's just because I'm now a dad of a little 'un of about this age and because she does this sort of thing, but I found this just made me smile. Baby dancing to Beyonce's All the Single Ladies? sod all to do with marketing, but you just can't beat it ... Have lovely weekends ...

My only question ... does it have anything at all to do with this ...?

A BUNCH OF PHOTOGRAPHY-RELATED BITS

I, and various other members of the Seventy Seven team, are big fans of all things photographic. So I thought that I would collect a small variety of piccie related bits and bobs and would pop them up here.

First up, for those of a retro persuasion, My Last Polaroid might be of interest. Many will know that Polaroid is no more. They aren't making the film anymore. So to celebrate, the nice folks decided to pop together a site on which peoples' last uses of the film could be collected and shared.

How cool is that?

Second up is a middle-ground photography-related thingy as Lomo have opened up a Lomography Store in London. Down Carnaby Street way. For those who are particularly into the whole Lomo thing, you might be interested in a series of events and teach-ins that they have planned to celebrate the store's presence.

Fantastic stuff.

Next, there's a brilliant campaign by Canon that I have been meaning to write about for an age. PhotoChaining is a lovely piece of work in Australia whereby people put up shots, select an element of the shot so that someone else can add to the chain. So the first piccie might have a cow as part of it. In which case the next piccie will have a cow in it. The next might pick up on the grass in the previous shot. And so on.

What a lovely idea.

Then, bringing the whole thing bang up to date, I have been playing with a lot of iPhone camera apps of late. But hadn't come across the three that were recommended by Iain on Crackunit and have been playing with them since. And very impressive they are too ... Pano enables you to make extended panoramic shots, Quadcamera takes four snaps in quick succession and Photo FX has a whole bag of tricks to play with.

Well worth looking at.

Oh ... and one final thing is a Southbank Photo Tour laid on by Frui. For all of £10 you can join a bunch of other budding snappers and head out into the city for a picture session. Might pop along to see what it's all about.

WEBCAMMING ALL OVER THE WORLD

Dunno why, just like this.

GUITAR HERO PUTS THE BOOT IN

Thought that this was a lovely collaboration: Guitar Hero x DM limited editions.

Classic 14 hole DM boots with an extremely subtle (so subtle you wouldn't know unless you were an "insider") guitar logo across the back.

But it also got me to thinking that if experiential might've been en vogue a couple of years back and that it's now all about social meeja, maybe PR agencies should be thinking more about taking a lead in putting together these kinds of partnerships for their clients.

As brands become more social and as so many have huge fan bases or communities (whether online or off), so a smart partnership provides a way of sharing those fan bases and a way for both brands to benefit as a result.

So, in this case, Guitar Hero makes DM contemporary and "now" and helps them access a younger generation of rockers, keeping the brand modern and transitioning it into Generation Y, so DM gives Guitar Hero an aura of rock legend credibility and endorsement.

It's a funny thing, but we seem to be working on a lot more of this kind of activity for a couple of our clients at the moment. But it feels to me like we should be doing more of it.

A smart brand partnership, where there is something to be gained for both partners, means that each can create and access the other's consumer base (whether online or off), new and surprising (and therefore newsworthy) things can be created and the world starts to look a happy place.

Sure, there have already been some stunners (Nike+ with Apple springs to mind, H&M or New Look working with designers and style leaders likewise).

But it also feels to me like PR agencies should be at the forefront of these kinds of partnerships. We're a bunch of people who are tactically minded, we understand relationships and how they can be forged to mutual benefit and we ought to know how to make these kinds of partnerships work hard for all parties.

I reckon that this is going to be an area that we really should be watching and developing our skills in, because done well, it ought to be one in which we have a lot to offer, skills-wise.

PUN EN FRANCAIS ...

Loved this ... le Barbiefoot ... from Colette celebrating her birfday ...

GRAF ... NOTE TO SELF

This really is a note to self, so apologies for inflicting it. Um ... I'll try and make it sound like it was intended for a blog ...

Millsy span around a note from her (apparently lovely) mate Matilda, who runs (or co-runs or works at or something) End of the Line, which sorts out graffiti commissions.

One day, I just know that I'm going to need this. So I am going to stick it here because it's quite a handy spot.

For anyone who is interested (and for my future self of course), there's a portfolio and a short film of their work for Kia ...

A QUICK HAT TIP TO JON AND FELT

Just a quick one to mention that the lovely Jon Burgerman has got a solo show at Giant Robot in New York.

Which is nice. (BTW, some might know that Jon made some lovely T-shirts for a little sideline venture of mine ... ilovesideline)

Tho not as nice as the stunning felt representations of Jon's characters by Felt Mistress.

Which are just gorgeous, if you ask me.

You can check out more piccies of the characters on flickr and you can even buy the little fellas ... here.

LEGO AND 8 BIT TRIPS

1,500 hours of work, stop-motion animation. Some people have too much time on their hands. We love those people, they should be (and in this case, are being) celebrated ...

via Contagious

IN Bb ... QUITE REMARKABLE AND FUN STUFF

One from Fishburn Hedges Group's planning director, Marc Moninski this time ...

In Bb (In B Flat) is a project created by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls and "developed with contributions from users".

Basically, you hit play on a bunch of the YouTube clips, all pieces of music in Bb on various instruments with relatively little tempo or groove. Because they are all floaty textures, they can all be played together at once to make lots of really interesting little tunes and variations.

Isn't it interesting what a bunch of people will do when given the internet and each other to play with? It's a constant amazement to me, to be honest. Lovely stuff.

HELEN MUSSELWHITE PAPER SCULPTURES

This is just lovely, lovely work. Well-worth sharing and shouting about it anybody's book. Helen Musselwhite makes quite amazing and beautiful paper scuptures.

At some point - and I have yet to work out exactly what reason might make it valid - I'd REALLY like to use this in a campaign for someone somewhere along the lines.

So this is really a note to myself. Tho one that I thought was worth sharing as if someone else wants to come up with a good way of using her work, I'm just as happy.

"SLINKACHU" ... GOD BLESS YOU!

Slinkachu is odd. A photographer by trade, the wee fella has made something of a name for himself on t'interweb with images of little people left in the city to fend for themselves (as above). As he says on his site of the project ...

"The scenes I set up, more evident through the photography, and the titles I give these scenes aim to reflect the loneliness and melancholy of living in a big city, almost being lost and overwhelmed. But underneath this, there is always some humour. I want people to be able to empathise with the tiny people in my works."

It's odd, lovely and eminently browsable.

THE INKSTRUMENTALS ARE COMING

I just thought that this was a lot of fun. It's a new iPhone game thing created by the lovely Jon Burgerman (who the brunette and I got to make some lovely T-Shirts for our Sideline once upon a long time ago).

Based on the blurb on Jon's site, it's being created with the people who brought us Mouth Off and is called Inkstrumentals. Basically, a load of Jon's quirky illustrated characters who each make different sample noises when tapped.

Looking forward to its arrival, looks like fun ...

inkstrumental™ making of video from ustwo on Vimeo.

Inkstrumental WIP 02 from ustwo on Vimeo.

CLARKSON BEATBOX MASH-UP

Barking, but incredibly amusing.

via Nick Burcher (again).

COMPANY BLOGS SHOULD BE LIKE THIS?

The World's Best Ever features a piece on all of the finest ads for off-beat fashion and lifestyle retailer, American Apparel. SEE, there IS a marketing-related reason for the image above.

Seriously, though, flicking through some of the ads, it got me to thinking that this is a brand that is utterly and remarkably of the moment. You can understand in so many ways, flcking through Dov Charney's almost-pornographic images, how the brand has gone global.

It's a business that wears its heart on its sleeve (sweatshop free cotton was where it started out), celebrates its people (many of those who feature in the ads are staff) and sells bloody good product at pretty reasonable prices.

But more, it's got a leader who feels like he still stamps a mark on a helluvalot that the company still does - including how it speaks to its consumers.

(PS. should agency blogs have posts like this on them - particularly with pics like the one above? Dunno, strikes me that if they don't have them, they should.)

LAUNCHING YOUTH MUSIC BOX

Seventy Seven has been working with Youth Music, the music charity, to launch Youth Music Box. Basically, a fantastic music-making installation down at the Southbank Centre open now (11.00 am-7.00 pm daily) until 31 August. And it is brilliant, as this piece from the Beeb explains ...

THE FINAL FRONTIER

Bloody amazing.

I thought that I might have had my fill of 40th anniversary of the moon landings "stuff" having been assailed to a degree eclipsed only by the fact that I can't move for Michael-sodding-Jackson tunes (cue hate mail from Jackson fans).

Anyhoo ... just when I thought that Armstong and Aldrin's tales of derring doo could spawn nothing further of interest, I came across these shots: the moon, as seen through the astronaut's eyes (or lens, as the case maybe). Here and here, they are from a NASA book: Apollo: Through the Eyes of the Astronauts.

And they are amazing. PLEASE, I beg of you, go take a look.

PITCH MUSIC INSPIRATION

Sorry ... another really busy week this week. Pitching again, y'know? Lots of music-related bits and bobs at the moment, so thought that I would take rare advantage and blog some of the bits and bobs that have been inspiring me in that very field ...

Largely, these are thanks to pitch colleague, Chris Reed, who has been diligently collecting them in expecation that their time will come at some stage ... and lo it has.

First up, the Williams Fairey Brass Band's Acid Brass ...

Then there's this absolutely cracking track. I particularly recommend it from about forty seconds in ... by a group called Frumptarn Guugenband.

The other two chaps who have been really rather blowing me away are these two: Nathan "Flutebox" Lee and Beardyman, both of whom have a totally different and individual take on all things beatbox. Has to be watched to be understood, really ...

APPLE'S WALL OF FUN ...

For their world wide developer's conference, those clever people at Apple made a rather crazy cool representation of the top 20,000-downloaded apps from the iPhone app store.

It's actually a seriously interesting thing ... with icons lighting and creating little ripples everytime another is downloaded live in the store. Clever stuff, I thought ...

LITERAL VIDEO MARVELLOUSNESS

You really do learn something new every day as it turns out.

I'd not come across literal videos before. So being sent this one by the missus (who in turn got it from the lovely Sarah Schofield (former colleague and good egg) was rather marvellous. If a trifle barking. Who's going to use it as an ad creative first, then?

MORE NON-ADVERTISING SHENANIGANS

A film by Chris Gavin. Which just goes to show that there are many lo-tech ways of creating great work ...

CASSETTE BOY TAKES ON THE APPRENTICE

This has naff all to do with advertising really.

But it's a bit on the clever side. And funny too, which meant that, in a week where there has been something of a dearth of great advertising work, this seemed like a good thing to share.

The infamous Cassette Boy mashes The Bloody Apprentice and SirAlun gets a bit of a makeover and comes clean about the real purpose of the show ...

IN HASTE THREE ... THE ART OF THE FILM TITLE

What a FANTASTIC site ... the best and coolest film title sequences at the Art of the Title Sequence.

Favourites include the one pictured above - Baz Luhrman's interpretation of R&J and Mulholland Drive.

You can also re-live some classics (like Saturday Night Fever and Barbarella, for example).

What a creative treat

IN HASTE ONE ... NO IDEA WHAT THIS IS, LIKE IT

This is proper insane ... coding in Tweets ... HERE. Don't get it, do like it.

via Crackunit

DISPOSABLE MEMORIES ... WHAT A GREAT IDEA

This is such a great idea. Brilliant. And SO lovely that it works.

Basically, a chap by the name of Matthew Knight (soon to join W+K) dropped a heap of disposable cameras in all manner of places.

He asked that people take the cameras on their travels, pass them on, take some snaps ... whatever. And then send them back to him for the images to be developed and shown on the website dedicated to the project.

What a stunning idea.

Now, the numbers might look a bit ropey. There were 93 cameras released. Five have come back and 19 have been found. A bunch of them are MIA. Which doesn't sound that great.

But these things take time - as Knight says, the project was inspired by the Slow Movement, so it seems appropriate that it takes a bunch of days to take off - we marketers too often expect immediacy, I think. And sometimes patience pays dividends..

via Contagious

DISNEY AND THE PERILS OF CUT AND PASTE

This made me chuckle a lot ... chap who has cut together a bunch of scenes from Disney films through the ages to show where the animators may have got a bit lazy or perhaps were lacking a spot of creative spark ...

MONU-MENTAL PHOTOGRAPHS

Isn't this lovely? Architects Julian Harrap and Sandbox have worked together to create quite remarkable fisheye lens photos of the London skyline from the top of the Monument in the heart of the city. There is a daily film that shows the City in glorious panaroma from midnight to midnight. Stunning ...

BUTTON HURT IN HORRIFIC F1 ACCIDENT

Made me chuckle ...

Thanks to Alan, who popped it over.

MORE LOGOS THAN MOST

As some folks may know, Seventy Seven works for Wolff Olins, the branding agency. Their irony is that they don't actually have a logo.

Odd? Mebbe ...

But also a reflection of where they think the whole idea of brands and branding is going.

So they have a totally free expression of their name ... folks are free to come up with new and interesting ways of visualising the business' identity, so that it becomes - quite literally - the property of anyone in the business to own, shape and express.

There's a flickr pool with some of the logos that they've come up with. My favourites are these ...

At some stage, I was thinking that I might ask one of the team over there to do a quick "blog interview" to explain the thinking. Might be a fun thing to do ... One for post-Easter.

MORE IPHONE APP GOODNESS ... JORGE COLOMBO

Jorge Colombo is an interesting chap. He creates really cute pictures using what can only be described as an updated version of finger painting ...

He uses the Brushes application on his Apple iPhone to create really lovely little pictures. We thought that Jorge was worth shouting about. More nice work on his website ...

FLICKR WILL BE MONETISED ...

Getty Images has signed what looks like a partnership with Flickr to enable them to start rights-managing amateur photographer's works through the Getty Flickr Collection.

According to CR Blog (which is highly skeptical about the move), Getty will sign photographers that its editors find on Flickr and will offer to represent them and their work to commercial clients.

Interesting stuff, if you ask me ... and just one of the interesting ways that brands will start to make economic forays into the social internet (I hope).

SHARP(IE) PR IDEA IS WHEELY HOT ...

 

Sharp idea from the folks at either (or all of) Lamborghini, Sharpie Pens or a Miami car importer called Prestige.

For my money, Sharpie is coming out ahead by some long margin ... as someone has taken a bunch of marker pens and tattooed a rather pricey Lamborghini Gallardo.

Poking around on the web, it turns out that this Sharpie Lamborghini is well-covered across the internet and has acquired almost a cult status.

Not bad for a marker pen brand. Just thought that it was a lovely idea ...

THE BEST BRAND LAUNCH IN THE WORLD ... EVER!

This is extraordinary ... the world's newspaper front pages on inauguration day.

Dale Fishburn (via Neil Hedges - and in the world of Fishburn Hedges Group, a suggestion for a blog post doesn't come with a better pedigree) pinged this through with the observation that "THIS is what I call global penetration for a new brand ...". Thanks Dale!

MORPH FOLLOWS IN GROMIT'S FOOTSTEPS ...

Bloody marvellous ... Morph has followed Wallace & Gromit into fashion photography ... He appears in the latest edition of Esquire magazine.

A bit of a coup for both brands and they're cleaning up, media-wise. The BBC, Telegraph and a host of regionals have all scribbled up the story. Congrats to both Morph (he's thirty it transpires) and to Esquire editor Jeremy Langmead for pulling off a blinding publicity coup for his charge.

And what a fitting tribute to Tony Hart that Aardman Animations created this shoot in the month that Morph's creator passed on to the great studio in the sky.

Piccies follow ...

FANTASTIC PLASTIC ... THE BEST ALBUM COVERS OF '08

Art Vinyl - which basically sells frames for albums so that you can adorn your walls with musically literate artworks - has selected its top 12" of 2008, These are some of our favouites from their picks ...

1. Coldplay's Viva La Vida

2. Foals' Antidotes

3. Liquid Liquid's Slip in & Out of the Phenomenon

4. The Last Shadow Puppets' The Age of The Understatement

5. Stereolab's Chemical Chords

via the CRBlog

AKQA SCORES AGAIN WITH XMAS WISHES

Last year, AKQA gave us Cheese and Biscuits the Christmas rodents. This year, they've done it again with this little beauty ... Jingle Bells played on a microwave. Gotta love it ...

LOVED THIS ... AND ONE TO REMEMBER

Seventy Seven does the PR for the British International Motor Show. Given that it only happens once every couple of years, we have LOTS of time to collect up ideas and inspiration.

Just came across (I love the interweb), Benedict Radcliffe. He has created a remarkable fluoro Lamborghini made from thick wire. And very arresting it is too.

Thought that, first of all, it deserved sharing with a wider audience because it is fab and that, second of all, I really ought to stick it here as an aide memoire for some later date when ideas time comes around again.

RANDOM THING OF THE MONTH ...

... Has got to be Poladroid.

Available for Macs only at this stage, you download the software, put a photo into it and it will make it look like it was shot on an old school Polaroid camera - all fuzzy, fadey and somehow reminiscent of the 1970s and early-1980s.

They haven't worked out how to give everyone in the shot a perm and moustache yet, but I am sure that will come ...

Splendid.

MAKING THE POINT GRAPHICALLY

US Presidents through history ... by illustrator Patrick Moberg

Hat tip to Todd Andrlik

A VERY PERSONAL PRESIDENT

Amazing ... Obama has posted a bunch of actually quite personal looking snaps from election night in his flickr stream.

The fact that the man's communications team have used Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and a host of other social media tools in the campaign should mean that this is no surprise.

But the two things that I thought were worth mentioning were.

First of all how personal these things feel - a real sense of a president for the people is what you get from them ... perhaps this is what brands should be watching and learning from.

Second of all my amazement at the tone that people are using to make comments on the shots ... "You don't know how good it feels to address you this way.  I have waited forty years, since Bobby Kennedy" ... was the one that stood out to me.

Amazing. People think that the president of the United States is a guy who you can leave comments for on flickr. Things have come along way, huh?!

JUST GORGEOUS ... MYT MUGS

Came across these lovely MYT Mugs for everyone in the office via the guys who designed them as a self-initiated project ... A+B Studio.

And very lovely they are, too.

The perfect solution for large orders of tea and coffee in the office (not that I would actually know, truth be told, I'm shocking at getting the rounds in, being a latte lover myself). Still, I'm told that, if I were to make a round of tea, these would solve a basic memory problem ...

They're available at the Design Museum, Magma and on the A+B site.

QUICK THING ... IT'S NICE THAT SHOW

Bit of a quick note to recommend that folks take a look at the It's Nice That ... exhibition, which runs until 24th October at Plymouth College of Art.

It's the first in a series of exhibitions that will feature a selection of the work posted on the design blog It's Nice That - all in its original format. What's more, there will be a show up in London in the not-too-distant future.

Which is jolly good news for those of use who dwell in the capital.

For those who fancy a sneak preview of what those who live in/travel to Plymouth are enjoying, you might want to check out the flickr set of the exhibition.

A SHADOW OF THEMSELVES

Came across Henrietta Swift's self-initiated project, Shadow Monuments.

Made me think that, as a stunt for a travel website (just for example, but where are we going to find one of those ...?!) it might be quite cute to commission her to do this sort of thing against a backdrop that would give them a monumental scale - you can kind of see the image below re-created against the backdrop of the Tate Modern Gallery ...

Just a thought ...

MORE DESIGNERLY EPHEMERA ... POP-DOWNS

Er ... even by the normal standards of Spinning Around, this is a bit left-of-field.

A French project - Pop Down - that offers folks the chance to make a comment on the advertising interruptions around them.

A series of little stickers that imitate the "close" button on a browser window, the group behind the stunts encourages people to append the stickers to advertising - pointing out that ads are as irritating as the pop-ups that plagued the internet once-upon-a-time.

Told you ... random.

PLACESPOTTING ... ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

A fun way to spend a short amount of time ...

You click on this link. You take a look at the image from Google maps that will appear. You read the clues (if the clues are not in a language you understand, you click the next arrow).

You then use the second map (a Google world map without a zoom) to find and zoom-in on the destination shown in the first image and - assuming that you are right), the quiz rewards your cleverness.

It is good, honest.

A WORLD OF COLOUR ...

This is just brilliant ... a set of colour tools from Idee Inc.

The favourite at the moment is this fella, MultiClr: a tool that searches either flickr or an Alamy set of images to return pictures that match the colour that you click on the programme's palette. Rather fun, I reckon.

Also included on the Idee Inc site are Visual Seach and BYO Image Search Lab. The first enables you to type in specific words and concepts, at which point it shows various images from its Alamy image set. Not that interesting.

The second, however, enables you to upload your own image, at which point the site finds images with similar shades and tones. It's bloody clever, it has to be said.

FAVOURITE IPHONE WALLPAPERS

All manner of wallpapers have come out for iPhone (and iPod Touch too, I guess).

Being Apple brands and hence having a loyal cohort of the world's top designers in their fan-base, the iPhone has a stunning crop of digital fashion with which to adorn itself.

Thought that it would be worth selecting what I reckon are the best pieces to date - with thanks to Poolga, Laszlo Kovacs and We Made This in particuilar.

Click the piccies to bring up the full-sized version ...

For lots and lots and lots more, you might try the flickr Wallpaper pool.

THIS IS LOVELY ... THISISSAND

An odd online sand painting making thing. Try it ... you'll like it.

FACEBOOK HAMLET

Nice to see that people are still doing entertainingly original things with the world's favourite social network ...

by Sarah Schmelling via McSweeneys.