This video hit my inbox one day after reading Khoi Vinh’s lament about the absence of illustration in online publications, The Sad Story of Illustration on the Web. The two seem to counter balance each other. Read the rest of this entry »
In the Digital Age, Words Still Matter
As professionals, reading and writing is second nature. We jot down notes, digitally send documents, and bring ideas to life through conversation. We don’t always acknowledge the actual medium of the written word due to its ready availability and everyday usage. This disregard, however, proves that written language is the basis of all communication and commerce, and is key to the development of relationships with your clients and the global online community. From email to pamphlets, and brand identity to website programming, words are they key to our online engagement, our primary interactions with them being in content creation and communicating or navigating through search engines. Read the rest of this entry »
Subscribe to influential people’s gifts
As Quarterly.co put it themselves:
Quarterly Co. is a subscription service that lets you receive awesome things in the mail. You can subscribe to people you find interesting and, once every three months, they will send you a package right to your doorstep. (…) Quarterly is all about the contributors who are choosing new and exciting things to send to you.
We really dig the idea of receiving physical thoughtful gift — for which you pay a subscription fee in advance, of course. In these days, you really get excited when something besides bills and catalogs arrives in the mail. Don’t deny it, when you order online you keep checking the tracking number for updates, we all do. And you know exactly what you’re going to get.
Now imagine you don’t know what it’ll be but it’s something from an artist you picked, that you are interested in his/her thoughts and how will those translate into a quarterly curated piece. That’s quarterly.co, good ideas in your mail.
The Dutch Stutter Foundation asks us to be patient
We love when design is key in effective communication. And it’s definitely a plus when it delivers social responsible content.
So, of course, we love this billboard set in Amsterdam by agency Y&R Not Just Film —with the collaboration of out-of-home advertising company JCDecaux— for the Dutch Stutter Foundation
It’s clever, visual, simple, and contains a powerful message.
Delicious, crafty animation for Chipotle.
Delicious and crafty work by director John Kelly for Chipotle Mexican Grill (our local). We’ll file this in the “I Wish We Will Get To Do That One Day” bin. Kelly has recently released a behind the scenes video and stills of the production process. The craft, creativity and innovation of the piece is evident.
Young & Rubicam Argentina has created this fun (and fairly hard to beat) game inspired by old-school space shooters like Galaga or Space Invaders.
You play as a fearless creative team who goes on a quest to create an ad campaign. They’ll face terrible enemies such as a fierce account manager army, hordes of evil cryptic briefs or narrow-minded-I-want-a-bigger-logo clients. And this is only the beginning of this epic 8-bit adventure that will take you to the depths of the advertising Hades. Welcome to The Client’s Wife.
It looks like the internet sites such as Reddit have something else to offer besides LOLCats, memes, quirky news and trolling. They also can spin acts like the one that happened during the London riots.
Seven days ago, Reddit was the one to first raise concern about the looting 89-year-old London barber Aaron Biber suffered at his shop. Aaron had run that barbershop for 41 years and now he was forced to shutter because he didn’t have insurance and couldn’t afford the repairs.
This story seemed to connect with several redditors — reddit.com users — who found in Aaron the tale of an all-timer middle-low class man with an iconic business. A barbershop that would be sad to see disappear just because some rioters thought it was fun to trash and loot.
Right after the post being upvoted, redditors started looking for ways of sending Aaron some money to help him straighten out the situation.
This action was picked up by three interns at London ad agency BBH Barn and, through a blog and a more than decent social media response, they managed to raise £35,000 ($57,000) in only three days. After that period of time they closed the fund said Aaron had “more than enough to get himself back up and running”, states the blog. The rest of the fund left after fixing the barbershop will be distributed to help the businesses near Aaron’s that were also affected by the riots.
Of course, Aaron Biber’s barbershop wasn’t the only one affected by London riots and it won’t be the last disgrace to happen. But this is just one of those nice stories where a simple spark on the internet lights a fire.
For Those Who Deserve a Beer. Heineken BFF.
People don’t want me to say what I’ll do. They want me to do what I say! — Jeff Winger (Community)
Ace app concept created by Ogilvy NY art-direction intern Glen Hansen and copywriter Otilia Dobrea.
If this became a real app with a record, we could tell apart big-mouthed fellas from those who stay true to their word. No more sighs with a glimpse of hope in getting something from them besides that nice pat on the back. Knowing that, that ice cold, refreshing, tasty beer they promise is as metaphorical as hell freezing over.
The use of Augmented Reality nowadays is pretty much limited to funny/entertaining stuff . It’s treated more as a game or a cool feature rather than something profitable.
Moving away from these uses, the German Green Party’s Berlin chapter — alongside with Augmented Reality company Metaio — has launched a mobile app that lets users discuss about the city’s environmental issues.
Aiming the mobile device to a point of interest will make an overlay pop up showing other users’ thoughts over that issue allowing the user to share their own opinion about it.
In addition to this, when users aim the app to one of the Green Party’s billboard, one of the party candidates will discuss in depth the matter portrayed on the billboard.
This is a really interesting take on new ways of maximizing the reach of a political campaign and the approach to hesitant voters outside the mass media. Especially having in mind the high number of political parties in European countries, where most of the time parties don’t get the majority vote as it’s scattered.
As seen on www.readwriteweb.com
The Force is Strong in Your Global Positioning System.
All those mastering the use of the Force have a new guide in their lives. Garmin has released the official Star Wars voice skins. You can now let Master Yoda guide you through the path to the Light, or take a trip to the Dark Side (e.g. nearest Starbucks) lured by the Dark Lord of the Sith himself, at $12.99 each.
We now demand a Chewbacca voice skin.
Subscribe
This is Hero's place to share insights, ideas and best practices in web design, branding and inbound marketing. We hope these posts will be a catalyst for your success.
