ss_blog_claim=5f03e3e7fa6ca8c951b6fbd30fa71c10 2008 October | 12pointtype.com

Monthly archives

KFC ROCKS!!!!!!!!!

Pfffffft…Not quite.  I was throwing away all the stupid crap that was in my mailbox like Wal Mart, Lowes, and KFC ads.  If I could use them for toilet paper and mail them back to each company I would.  Anyway the KFC thing caught my eye because being a gamer I noticed the familiar Guitar Hero logo.  I sat there for a minute making a face like I had just been given a dirty sanchez trying to figure out how Guitar Hero and chicken go together.  I don’t eat fast food so I’m out of the loop on who eats…

Shepard Fairey Pt. 2

Baxter Orr decided to lift some Shep images and do his own thing to them.  Pretty much the same thing that Shep did when he lifted Andre’s picture from WWF’s own art of Andre that started his career.  So when I read this article….http://animalnewyork.com/news/2008/04/shepard-fairey-threatens-to-su.php

I don’t understand why legal help would even come into play.  Appropriation is never going to go away in art or LIFE.  Things in life will always grow from someone elses idea.  The fact that we can play off of each others idea’s is a great thing.  Yes, I understand if you put in time for something…

Shepard Fairey Pt. 1

I’m a Shepard Fairey fan. It may be because of his Andre The Giant work, and I’m a former pro wrestler myself. For whatever reason I’ve just always been a supporter of his. I was browsing around looking to see if he has made anything lately and I came across lots of new work, gallery openings and such. I was surprised to find a lot of crap said about the guy too. Mostly everyone was complaining about plagiarism. The first thing I thought about was Michael Duchamp’s readymades. “Fountain” anyone? It was a freakin’ untouched urinal sitting in a gallery,…

Unleash Your Inner Rock Star!

Like everyone at that time, I fell in love with Tom Cruise in “Risky Business”. He was great singing Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll”. It’s a priceless moment that has been replayed, re-enacted, mimicked hundreds of times. 

Now, in my opinion Tom Cruise was the best at it. That is until I saw this latest creation from advertising agency DDB .  It features Kobe Bryant rocking the mic, Alex Rodriguez and Michael Phelps busting a move while ripping it up on the exhilarating new guitars, and Tony Hawk sliding in on a skateboard to play the drums.

I have only one word…

Boost Mobile Bringing Back the dollar

Pay-as-you-go Boost Mobile is swapping its former lifestyle positioning for a value message – Boost Mobile chat unlimited for $1/day. Their new campaign which will break this week, which will be the first from 180LA of Los Angeles, attempts to persuade consumers that the U.S. dollar is still pretty strong. “The idea is a metaphor for what’s going on right now with the dollar”, said William Gelner, of 180LA. “Instead of being impeccable and regal, George Washington has to make due in a beat up old Buick.”

Their new campaign is in direct response to Tracfone, Cricket, Virgin Mobile and MetroPCS…

When You Need Travelers Insurance

The well-dressed Travelers Insurance man and his helpful red umbrella return in the new spots from Fallon - but this time his fixes aren’t so magical.  Gone are the days when the funny little man used his magical umbrella to save a stranded circus troop and to fly home lost children; sniff, sniff. I guess the more literal manifestation of his powers in these spots are more in tune with the times – but I still prefer the unexpected visuals and storybook quality of the last spot.

13 signs you’re a bad graphic designer – Pt. 3

11. Embossing & Drop Shadowed Type

Do you use the nifty little shadow or emboss tool that comes with your software

PLEASE STOP. This is the biggest dead give away of an amateur. This goes along with forbidden; rainbow gradients, reflections, comic sans. Just don’t use them, plain simple.

12. 12 Point Type

Do you use the 2 point type with auto leading?
For most typefaces, 12 point is a tiny bit too large for body copy. Compare a 10, 11 and 12 point passage of text and tell me which one looks more professional. Try adding an extra 1 or 1.5 line spacing or…

How To Be Don Draper

Want to be just like Don Draper? It’s easy! watch this and learn!

MAD MEN – What’s Next?

When MAD MEN returns for Season 3 sometime next year, it won’t be soon enough as the supply of worthwhile shows to watch on television dwindles down to a mere handful of choices.

Sterling Cooper Portfolio

Check out the best and brightest creative from the 1962 Sterling Cooper Portfolio:

MAD MEN – Episode 13 – Season 2 Finale


http://www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/episode213
WOW! Last night’s MAD MEN – Episode 13 – Season 2 Finale wrapped up with the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis as the show’s backdrop and it was very apropos thematically with missiles and bombs flying around all over the place and striking their intended targets!

Betty Draper, Don’s estranged wife finds out she is pregnant and she does what women did back in 1962 when they heard this kind of news – they continued smoking, drinking and went horse back riding. Don Draper returned from California and asked Betty to forgive him, though he still didn’t specifically admit to his sleazy affair…

Brief and to the point. Or not.

Last week, for the first time since leaving ad school, I got some work ripped apart. It was completely annihilated, and not by my CD. He had given the work the green light and it was in the grubby hands of the client. And they had lots of fun chewing it up and spitting it out.

When I received the feedback from my boss I was interested to discover that I wasn’t really very annoyed or upset or irritated or angry or anything else negative for that matter, but instead just found myself fantasising about the impending doom of the discarded…

Carnival Cruise Breaks Records

This past weekend was full of firsts for Carnival Cruise Line.  It was their first weekend in their new campaign from Havas’ Arnold, and it was their first huge beach ball attempt for Guinness World Records.  Their new campaign: “Fun for all. All for Fun.” will be kicking things off with two huge record breaking events coming up within the next 2 weeks.  They are in a quest to create the world’s biggest beach ball, and largest piñata. 

Their first event was on Sunday, Oct 26th at noon in Dallas’ Pegasus Park, downtown.  They had not one, but two beach balls…

13 signs you’re a bad graphic designer – Pt. 2

6. Using Boxes Behind Text

Do you use plain boxes of color behind your text?

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to. Try something else, use a dramatic headline, use your white space, use a different font, reverse your type, use pull quotes, etc. Can you see in the above picture how the surrounding white space makes the text stand out on its own? You can use these in the correct places however be careful not to over use it.

7. Centred Layouts

Do you use centered text layout in graphic design pieces?
Using centred layouts is usually bad practice as it creates…

Swagger

Aight, I don’t even know if this is the right forum for this but way back when 12 Point started one of the things I was told was “talk about things on the minds of designers.” I’m a music fan, particularly rap and hip hop and the new thing coming out of their mouths these days is the word “swagger”. It has been used in rap lyrics for a while but for whatever reason it has been enjoying top shelf attention in the last year. It’s in almost every song on the radio, I guaran-damn-tee you Maxim magazine has been…

The Spacious Closet Syndrome.

I’ve lived all around the country and been in and out of a few apartments.  What always makes me laugh is when you go into an 800 or so square foot apartment that is trying to do too much with the space and the leasing agent says “as you can see it has spacious closets”.  I’m always like “Lady I couldn’t turn around in this thing without getting my own hair in my mouth, it’s that small.”  They give me the look, I give them the look back. Fine, whatever gypsy, sell your wares to me.

A friend of mine sent…

Just Plain Creepy

Talk about building, if not a better mousetrap, than the creepiest one ever created. As part of the campaign promoting the British Columbia Dairy Association, this little ad is creepy, but a little funny — it’s well written and well executed, but creepy. 

Thanks to the wonders of puppetry and stop-motion animation by Bent Image Lab (Tribal DDB Vancouver is the agency), we see a mouse wandering out of his hole and we get a view of the creepiest eyeball, which turns out to be part of the mousetrap.  He’s almost Silence of the Lambs-level cruel as he fixes on his prey and…

McDonalds “I Won’t Do That”

Remember that song “I would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” from Meatloaf?  It was a great song, made in the 80’s.  I remember when Dr. Pepper came out with an ad using this song; the boyfriend did everything for his girl, until she tried to take a sip from his can of Dr. Pepper.  Well, here is McDonald’s hysterical take on the song, in an ad from Egypt.

Holiday Inn Express Rapper

Are nerds funny?  Can they rap?  Is there any originality in the idea that nerds rapping is funny?  Those are the questions that Fallon answers in this new ad for Holiday Inn Express.  I like the fact that it’s different; it makes the point that even nerds got game.  This is definitely thinking outside the box!

13 Signs You’re a Bad Graphic Designer

I read alot of blogs, and try to keep up to date on what the community. This one struck me really hard, by a guy named Jacob Cass. You can find him here. Sometimes I see work out there and I wonder how people got the job, or, if they think it’s good. I know this is a bit controversial, but, it might help you point put some flaws in how you design now, and help you improve. Not saying you need to improve though.

It’s long, so Part 1 of 3, here we go…Give yourself a point for each that you still…

Art On It’s Own.

I was talking to a lady yesterday about the lack of design jobs in our area.  I threw in an emotional tidbit about how I’ve shed some tears from the stress of not being able to even find a dead end job.  I’m tellin’ you folks, I can’t even get a job being the freakin’ rat at Chuck E. Cheese’s.  I know there are some people out there boo- hooing about not having a job who aren’t really trying.  But for those of us who spend the majority of our days looking for work and get the run around from…

Knock It Off!!!

Finally there is a campaign out there telling people to “Knock It Off!”  Arnold, New York has created a new campaign for GLSEN and Ad Council.  It features various people telling those who use the term “That’s so gay” to Knock It Off!  All commercials say this very truthful line: “Don’t say something is gay when you mean that something is stupid.  It’s insulting.”

I applaud those who came up with this campaign!  We need to finally stop being so mean and hurtful to each other!  Come on people join me as I ask: “Why Can’t We Be Friends??!!”  By the…

The New 2009 Television Season

With all the commotion and noise the election, the economic meltdown, the war and all the other things enough to make you go screaming into the night, The New 2009 Television Season has started with very little fanfare and even less attention. Given the competition for the average person’s attention for entertainment or otherwise, it makes sense that this year’s crop of potential hits are aren’t exactly setting the television landscape ablaze.

It will be a long time before we see another milestone in broadcasting that equals the quality of The Sopranos or the appeal of Sex and The City. Shows…

Further to “Are Designer’s Jobs in Jeopardy?”

We are really living in Bizarro World where the ambitious are savaged and attacked and become outcasts and the shortcut takers and the corner cutters of the world dominate the workplace culture to deem who is “in” and who is out! The standards set for creatives in the agency or design world are not a level playing field and the fact that we accomplish so much, but receive a disproportionate amount of credit or security for our accomplishments is proof positive of the inequities.

Are Designer’s jobs in jeopardy?

 

Despite the mixed reviews amongst people working in design / advertising about Mad Men, I have become addicted. However it is the underlying struggles raised by the characters that stick with me the longest. For example, in this past week’s episode, Harry Crane opens Ken Cosgrove’s paycheck and sees that he makes 300 dollars a week. This is 100 dollars more than he makes, which to Harry begs the question, why? It is not until a discussion with Salvatore the Art Director that he realizes where he is lacking, and where this article will begin.

VALUE IS CONTEXTUAL

Salvatore asks Harry, “What do you do that makes you…

I don’t believe it. Atheist advertising!

The Guardian  newspaper has just gleefully announced a pro-atheist bus advertising campaign – donated funds permitting – in order to counter the rash of pro-christian advertising that we Brits have been subjected to over the past however long. If nothing else, the idea is an interesting premise and perfectly commendable. After all, if religious folk get to advertise their beliefs on buses and billboards then why not the humanists?

Some are arguing that the move is childish and petty and that the atheists are being just as bullying and aggressive by plastering the line “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and…

What Is Love?

Remember that skit from SNL?  Or the movie: “Night at the Roxbury”.  It was hysterical!  Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell were priceless.  Anyone from Saturday Night Live is funny, but this movie was great.  It brings back such memories – I was just graduated from High School, getting ready to go to Europe…awesome times. 

Well, the other day I was watching TV and this commercial came up.  It is priceless!  Its a parody of the movie/skit; that will keep people awake with a humorous take on the before-and-after effects of drinking Diet Pepsi MAX.  It also includes a behind-the-scenes look which features LL…

Do You Love My Hair?

Here is a funny ad…well music video really.

I found this video today and had a good chuckle.  Its from the California Milk Processor Board.  Apparently this will be their second release; entitled “Is It Me, Or Do You Love My Hair?”  This will be another “hit” for their White Gold Campaign from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco.  It’s definitely a nod back to the awesome Glam Rock of the 80’s.

I like it and think it’s funny, but do you think it sells milk well?  Watch as they take you on a milktastical journey schooling you on the benefits of milk. …

Funny Ads

Great example of a client that has a sense of humor about themselves that ultimately endears them to the consumer.

MAD MEN – Episode 12

Rape. Child Abuse. Bigamy. Corporate intrigue. Professional envy. Spiritual rebirth. Divorce. Spousal Abuse. Last night’s episode of MAD MEN would make the trashiest paperback novel green with envy! The second to last episode of season two went deep into the dark side to be very telling for next week’s season finale and probably for the next few seasons to come.