A perfect example of the power of advertising. How to make a out-of-touch, ailing brand suddenly seem contemporary and cool. Better still they have leap-frogged the Lynx ’sex sells’ cliche and managed an advert that somehow makes a mockery of men yet still appeals to both sexes. Good stuff.
Archive for the 'Culture' Category
“Wow…” exclaims Broken Social Scene front man and co-founder Kevin Drew as he takes to the stage, “We weren’t expecting there to be so many of you.” It’s been three long years since the Toronto troupe have graced this side of the pond, and judging by the throng of fans tightly packed into the small, hot Academy 2 in Manchester, their absence has been duly noted. Read More
Adidas Originals remake the famous Star Wars Cantina scene for their World Cup ad campaign. Plenty of familiar faces including Daft Punk, Snoop Dogg, Noel Gallagher, Ciara, David Beckham, Ian Brown and more.
The Germans are coming, it’s true.
In fact in many cases they may already be here, lurking in cupboards or appearing on coffee tables, covering them in brightly coloured miniature effigies, sitting upon alluringly colourful 2D worlds. For the time being this miniature invasion will be confined to homes belonging to rather geeky men, or the odd family but this influx of German culture really deserves to spread through-out britain.
Causing chaos to all flights in and out of the United Kindgom, the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano in Iceland has been the topic on everyone’s lips this weekend. On 14th April Eyjafjallajökull resumed erupting (after the previous eruption on 03rd March), this time from the top crater in the centre of the glacier, causing meltwater floods (also known as jökulhlaup) to rush down the nearby rivers, and requiring 800 people to be evacuated. This eruption was explosive in nature and is estimated to be ten to twenty times larger than the previous one in Fimmvörðuháls. This second eruption threw volcanic ash several kilometres up in the atmosphere which led to air travel disruptions in northwest Europe starting on April 15, 2010, including the closure of airspace over most of Europe.
I have a feeling this will be pretty much preaching to the choir, but I have to make sure you all know about this. This American Life is one of the best, if not the best, radio show/podcasts I have ever heard. It is incredibly high standard. Basically they take a theme and do two or three acts on that theme. They do research and tell unusual stories that are absolutely fascinating. Some will make you laugh some will make you cry. And you know me, that counts as great art. Subscribe to the podcast here.
I actually managed to get tickets for Bug: 18. For the past few years I think I have either seen it sell out before I get round to buying tickets or just noticed in passing that I have missed one. SO what’s it all about? Well let me tell you a little fact, it’s a grand tour of the most exciting and innovative new work in music videos, with the one and only Adam Buxton as your guide. Half of the infamous Adam & Joe show off of TV and wireless radio box fame. Its basically a mix of live blog, stand-up, comedy and cutting edge motion. Much like a conversation with myself, yeah, imagine talking to me but in a theatre on the Southbank and it would be almost as good, infact at key points better.
This one goes out to all the web nerds out there! For anyone whose ever designed a website you all know that using flash is almost turning into a modern day faux pas. In recent months the release of updates and new browsers (FireFox 3.5, Safari 4, Google Chrome and Opera) means the need for this outdated form of web design seems to be finally diminishing. As a test of this new technology 9elements have created a little experiment which loads 100 tweets related to HTML5 and displays them using a Javascript-based particle engine. Through an extremely beautiful and minimalist playful format each colored particle represents a tweet. Most interesting: modern mobile devices like the iPhone or Android-based phones also support new standards in favor of Flash. The future looks bright for HTML5. Launch the canvas experiment here.
WIRED asked Density Design of Italy to draw a map based on the future scenarios, developed by the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, to aid the reader in grasping the ideas and hypothesis built by 7000 influencers from all over the world(easier said than done!). The result is a both beautiful and engaging vision of cultural trends to come. Check it on behance or explore the whole thing here.
I’m not big on my American stand-up. I tend to find it a series of ever increasing loud noises full of sound bites and a general lack of lateral thinking or irreverence. Massive sweeping statement, I know, wanna fight about it? I just had a listen to Aziz Ansari’s new album(is it classed as an album when just comedy??). You may have seen him in Funny People and some other U.S stuff I don’t know about. He’s in the Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow crowd …so you probably get the picture. Basically what I am trying to get across is that this guy seems a cut above the rest, he definitley has that brash American style, yet his delivery is bang on. Check the Kanye material near the end, it is frikin priceless. Spotify