Bye bye Left Right & Centre. Hello RAAK.
I recently started a new company with my ‘compadre’ Wessel van Rensburg and as the overlap with LRC is too big, I will now post my thoughts on all things communication on the RAAK blog. Hope you will join me there.

The first post so far has been on how we crowd-sourced our logo and ended up with an ever-changing mash-up of a logo.

Through the lovely blog Today and Tomorrow, I stumbled upon these French art-pranksters, prank-artists, guerrilla-dudes called  Encastrable (loose translation: built-in, I think).

This French duo (Antoine Lejolivet and Paul Souviron) uses street-art-type techniques and applies them to the über-dull world of DIY shops and supermarkets. Just using items that are on the shelves and without permission, they create these ephemeral installations that turn the supermarket into an artistic space. Nice. Funny. Critical.

Also, for some reason that reminds me of a Biz Stone (Twitter co-founder ) quote I read this morning: “Creativity is a renewable source.”
It’s a lovely day.

Augmented reality is the new buzz word it seems. The technology itself has been around for a while, but all these nerds (they’re not nerds? yes they are nerds) are starting to use it to make amazing applications. So it’s getting interesting for a non-techie like me.

The ones that are getting me interested are mobile services like Wikitude and Layar. They are basically applications that, using the phone’s camera, recognise where you are and tell you what what’s around you. A very useful little tool and I presume it will allow people and businesses to add descriptions, making it both social and commercially viable. And as the new iPhone comes with a built-in compass, I’m sure these applications won’t just be limited to the Android phone for long.

On the gimmicky side, you have things like the BMW Z4 interactive 3D game. Gimmicky, yes. Pointless, yes. But as my friend here in the studio just said: “That’s something my dad would love!”. So it’s yet another tool in the box for brands to raise awareness and to get people to create their own content.
Although the app only seems to allow you to export the final result as a still and not show the whole process, like the video this smart chap made.
Still, the BMW tv ad is a little crap, even if it was just for not pointing people to the game.

UPDATE: I forgot that @philtidy mentioned last week that the US Postal service was using AR too to let people measure which box they need for their parcels. Nice.

Not-so-well-known online book retailer wants to become more-known. Brazilian ad agency comes up with an extensive campaign that includes technology, some guerrilla stuff, social media, viral marketing and a cool product too.
This is ‘The Living Book’, a book that’s written by people and that changes on a weekly basis. 

The book consists solely of QR codes (those weird matrix-type square things that are being used for mobile tagging). And when you take a picture of these codes with your mobile phone, each one will translate into a new bit of content every 7 days. 

So far so cool, but it doesn’t stop there. The bits of ‘content’ are actually Twitter messages that include the words ‘love’ or ‘hate’. Great gimmick, nice campaign, lovely way to integrate UGC, interesting technology. And apparently, the book sold out in no time.

Creative Review has a nice write-up about the whole thing.

Does anyone have any other good examples of QR technology being used creatively?

Shocking.
Two months since my last post proper. There’s no excuse for it.
But there is a good reason for it, though. It’s all because of Twitter. It’s Twitter that made me stop blogging and twittering.

See, it was through a simple Tweet that we found out that MTV and the European Union were trying to build a social-network-type-website to support their joint campaign, raising awareness about the upcoming European Elections.
And because my social-media pal Zuluzulu-slash-wildebees and me had been saying that ‘09 was gonna be the year of collaborations, that our skills were finally going to converge, we wrote an overnight proposal built around existing social media tools like Twitter, Qik and Facebook Connect. 
And we won the pitch.
So this is what took me so long: Can You Hear Me, Europe. 

We worked our socks off (turnaround time: 1 month, in 23 languages), but it’s been a great project and we learnt a lot. Most importantly: people have been using the website in a pretty good way. And, good for us, the site has been getting mentions on BBC, Brand Republic , Politica2.0,… 

It’s been fun. So much that we’re now thinking of a company name and a positioning plan. So we can truly start collaborating.

More inventive stuff with square boxes.
To finish off the week some pure eye-candy, by animation duo Ubik.
Nothing more. Just to sooth your souls. 
It’s a stunning animation made for Motionographer’s recent F5 showcase festival.

I like street art. Bumping into cool, beautiful, silly interventions always makes me smile. The fact that someone uses the world around us as a canvas just, you know, is great.
Mmmm, feels like it’s hangover Friday today.

Anyway, this one would definitely make me stop if I saw it. German artist Jan Vormann uses Lego blocks to fill up cracks and holes in walls. Dispatchwork, he calls it.
He’s done it in Italy and Israel before, but his latest contructions are set in Berlin. 

Photo by Kathleen Waak

Here’s a cute little idea.
Finnish animation studio Anima Boutique have developed a series of episodes called The Guys. They get people to send in their home videos, which they re-interpret, import their animated characters (The Guys) into the scenes and re-publish on their website. 
They’re all short, they’re all silly, so they all have potential to become your daily 10 seconds of nonsense.  On your mobile of course .

David Lynch embraces the internet yet again. On June 1 the director/artist will launch Interview Project,  a website that will release a series of 3-5 minute portraits of people that his crews met on a 20,000 mile road-trip round America. 
Watch the trailer and Lynch’s own little Lynch-style plug on the Interview Project website. Entertainment Weekly also has a preview of the first episode.

Would have been great if Lynch himself had interviewed all these people; the extraordinary meets the ordinary meets the extraordinary. Still, this looks like a nice piece of human content being dripfed into our digital brains over the course of a year.

Here’s a great idea that breathes new life into the struggling format of the tv commercial. Get your audience to make it.
Not some competition where you ask people to create the whole film. That has been done before and generally only appeals to the more hardcore creatives. But get the public to submit small bits and pieces, so everyone can easily participate and the result is a collaborative effort. 

Belgian mobile provider Proximus are making a stop-motion tv commercial based on photos that people have uploaded. Not just any pictures; people get clear guidelines. Currently they’re running an animated storyboard as a tv ad, pointing people to a website where they can upload their pictures to match specific frames of the storyboard.

Genius! Lots of fun! Immediate result for the people who participate! A very well executed website. Very little brand pushing going on there. 
And if they succeed, they’ll get the world record for most locations/actors/directors in a tv spot.

I was checking it over the weekend and people have already gone out of their way to shoot great stills. Check out the scene where people ‘fly’ around the little park. Someone had some fun with that. 

The only thing I’m missing is some form of identifying the names/locations of the people that are submitting. And maybe leave comments. That would have turned it even more into a social event.

A few weeks ago, Berlin-based Irish animator David O’Reilly won the Gold Bear for Best Short at the Berlin Film Festival. I must admit  I was a little surprised. I’ve known his work for a while through an early music video and it’s fair to say he seems a pretty independent talent. Not really award-winning fodder. 
Yes, his winning film ‘Please Say Something’ is a heart-breaking representation of a typical love story. But O’Reilly treats it in such a clever, noisy and abstract way that I wouldn’t have put my money on him winning prestigious awards. Still, you can’t help but like it. It’s a really nice piece of film making. 

But O’Reilly is not just independent when it comes to his productions (detail: the film was made in his flat, with one computer); he also pushes the conformities of distribution.
PSS was originally released as 23 episodes of 25 seconds each through his own website. And now that he’s got recognition, he’s convinced his distributors Future Shorts (and who knows who else) to release the film online, i.e. for free, despite the fact that it probably blows up a few bridges with programmers / festivals /… and other people that could bring in money.
Instead he wants to prove that the web as distribution for (successful) animation has its place. Brave guy.

On his blog he’s asking people to embed and distribute ‘Please Say Something’. I love the film and I’m curious to see how his web-distribution experiment turns out, so I’m happily obliging. 

PS: Also, check out his Wofl 2106 piece, which was one of the few films that made you sit up at last year’s onedotzero wow+flutter programme.

In one my last posts I mentioned the power of frameworks that could create a bit of structure in ’social curating’. Same goes for self-publishing, I feel.
It’s all good to wack your film onto YouTube and hope that millions of people will fall over laughing. But there’s so much content around these days, it could be a rather difficult task to get noticed. Even if you’re a genius at adding the most inventive tags to your work and twitter about your output like there’s no tomorrow. 
So attaching it to an existing brand, placing it in an existing environment (could just be a YouTube channel) is possibly another efficient way of getting your work noticed. If a trusted brand says you’re good, you’re good. 

Anyway, all very heavy words to say I really like what the guys from 99$ Music Videos are doing. They’re asking film makers to hook up with musicians and make a video for 99 dollars. In one day. They’ll show it. 
A very fun and pure idea that’s all about creativity and the basics of music videos. But if they get enough people to send in material, they may just become a little hub for creative music videos. And I’ll definitely follow them to spot new talent. 

Via @camlevin

Following on from the last post, here’s more French creativity in the video field:  a hilarious animation/music video called ‘Le Café’.
Made by Stephanie Marguerite and Emilie Tarascou. 
Music by Oldelaf.  

Time for that afternoon coffee.

Via @philtidy.

A lot of production companies are understandably a little nervous these days. Trying to keep up with the rapidly dwindling commercial budgets. Pondering whether they should bother making that 5K music video. Trying to make sense of ‘that digital thing’. 

So it’s inspiring to see the people at Paris-based Mr Hyde moving into interesting territory with the start of their online film festival called The Hyde Tube. Now, setting up an online video festival obviously isn’t that special, but the company are selling it as a talent-spotter place for agencies, labels,… i.e. their clients. 

I can see why they’re doing it.

It’s obviously a good way for them to spot talent and possibly ’sign’ them to the Mr Hyde roster. You know, let knowledge come to you, rather than you go and find it all yourself and all that. 

The festival aspect is fun and obviously a good thing PR-wise. 

But the thing I find most interesting is that they’re trying to position themselves as a quality brand. “If it’s not on here, it’s not worth watching”-type of thing. 
Social curating (i.e. you look at your peers to see what’s recommended) is highly effective, but I can see there being a place for this kind of stuff within the creative industries. Even the hottest creative director or art buyer with the fattest finger on the throbbing creative pulse, can’t see it all. The Hyde Tube seems to limit the amount of films/directors, so this selective curating model could well have some added value.
Especially as brands are gagging for video content and there’s more and more stuff commissioned on the lo-budget side of the spectrum. So new, keen (and cheap), creative talent is in demand. 

Speaking of money, the unusual thing is that The Hyde Tube are very open about finances. In their own words: 

Clients will contact The Hyde Tube in order to pass on a project to a specific director, who is then free to decide whether or not to accept it. If accepted, the director will write a treatment or make an animated test within 3 to 5 days. For this work you will receive approximately 500€.

If the client is happy with the treatment and decides that the director will make the film, The Hyde Tube will connect the director with the client, and Mr Hyde or one of its affiliate studios will oversee the production until the film delivery.

The director’s fee will be 10 percent of the budget, the first half payable on the first day of production and the rest upon delivery of the finished film.

Open. New. Creative.
It’s not perfect, but I’m definitely going to keep an eye on it.

I don’t seem to venture into Soho very often these days, but this looks like it may well be worth it. The Inamo restaurant (opened a few months ago) sits you at an interactive table that allows you to order your food yourself, change the colour scheme, book a taxi etc etc. Gadgety, but apparently the food isn’t too bad either. 
Now they just need to develop a takeaway app for the iPhone.  

Via Josh Spear.

Check out this range of ‘brunch equipment’, made by London-based Dutch designer Ivo Vos. Neuroses have never been so much fun. 
The site has some other interesting design explorations too.  

Via Ryan Yeah.

Call to all music festivals: from now on we expect your line-ups to be like this one for the Bonnaroo festival. No more print ads and flyers, we want animation!

Directed by Elliot Jokelson at Ghost Robot.

Original approach to the crunch of all crunches.
Avant-garde composer Johannes Kreidler created an audio piece using data from the decline of the stock markets.
And the growth of the porn industry. 
Makes you smile on a Friday morning.

So, you’re a band that likes to communicate with your fans (if you don’t, get a real job). You have your MySpace page, your email-newsletters, possibly a blog, maybe even a Twitter account. But fuck, it’s all quite messy, isn’t it? And aren’t the kids all on their mobile phones these days?
Then you may be interested in Mupps, a platform that allows you to build your own music applications for mobile phones (or at least the likes of iPhone etc).

People at Pitchfork and Wired are excited about iPhone apps for musicians, but so far it’s been only major label acts (like Snow Patrol, Pink and Pussycat Dolls) that have experimented with it. Possibly because they’re not that cheap to develop. 

And, apart from the Death Cab For Cutie one that was released last week, they do feel like pretty static marketing tools. Things that are dreamt up in a meeting room, things that don’t come alive, because the artist itself doesn’t use it to communicate. 

Mupps seems to address a few of these issues.
One, it taps into that oh-so-important mobile market, which is a major communication platform for music-lovers. Sure, not every 15-year old has an iPhone, but mobile phones are rapidly becoming multi-media hubs.  

Two, there’s the portal function, i.e. all your Radiohead-related info is there. Including iTunes and the likes. So I’m sure managers and record company peeps are sniffing out the commercial value.

And three: the directness of Twitter integration will make it feel like you’re constantly following your favourite band (considering your hero updates it). 

I’m curious to see what the price plan is, but there’s meant to be different levels (basic – advanced – professional). And I’m sure the modular aspect of it means that it can be relatively cheaper. 

The application is not available just yet (you can sign up for a newsletter to get notified). But apparently the developers are looking for feedback, so if you’re a musician / label / manager, you may want to find out more. Kanye, you listening?

The other day I was thinking about a campaign-type-of-idea to use snow or ice as a canvas for messages or advertising. Just, you know, storming the brain. 
Yesterday London experienced quite a snow extravaganza and sure thing. The guys from Curb agency swiftly ploughed their way through the white stuff to plant a bunch of Extreme sports channel logos around the city. Nice write-up in Creative Review.
A clever bit of green guerilla marketing.
Then again, my idea was better. Only because it had a digital aspect to it.
Bit less green, but quite a bit more now.
Missed opportunity?

The power of a good, creative music video remains. Here’s another commercial that’s inspired by a pop promo.

I guess that’s what those poor, struggling, starving, but highly creative music video directors are left with these days. Get the chance to develop a strong conceptual, visual idea, hoping that it will be picked up by an agency creative.
Still, they have to be kind enough to ask you to direct it. That’s the case here though: both films were done by the same director, Tom Kuntz, who recently also directed that rather fun Cadbury’s ad. Busy chap. 

But I always found it strange that production companies (who ‘rep’ their directors) don’t find ways to make more use of their roster’s creativity. In times of convergence, cross-platform and transmedia, should a production company not (partly) act as a creative agency as well?

Aaron Koblin was part of the team that made that Radiohead-video-without-cameras and these are some amazing visualisations from US flights paths that he made. Check out the animation here.
Can we have that hanging on the wall please, with live updates, as a living painting?
In any case, another great Koblin example of technology meeting art. 

By the way: suggested by @bbhlabs, a rather inspiring bunch. Because yes, I got on Twitter (@leftrightcentre). When friends start sending you emails, saying “I wouldn’t have to email you this link, if you were on Twitter”, you know it’s beginning to make sense.
So far, so fun. I’m enjoying it and do think I’ll start finding it useful.

A friend just pointed me to an article about this stunning moving house, designed by London-based architecture firm dRMM. Must have been a great client to have. It looks beautiful.
And technically impressive, even though it turns out  that they’ve been making moving houses for ages. Villa Girasole, which follows the sun, was built in 1935.

Big billboard ads are an obvious source of inspiration for any street artist. Simply because they’re an intrinsic part of any big city street. There’s even a Poster Alteration Art group on Flickr. 
London has its Decapitator but I do like Poster Boy, a New York street artist that spices up the subway stations over there with his radical mash-ups of posters. Armed with a razor blade as his weapon of choice, he cuts up ads and re-arranges them on the spot into something funnier, more political, more thought-provoking. 

Check his Flickr stream here, films from Wooster Collective, Animal Magazine and his own YouTube channel and articles in NY Mag and the Guardian. 

Lots of attention, so answers on a Tweet: will he show up in an ad soon, sell out to galleries or is he using the media to start his own little revolution. From his interview with the Guardian:

“That’s what I want Poster Boy to be about,” he enthuses. “The idea of taking your environment into your own hands and making it what you want. As long as you’re not hurting other people, it can’t be bad.”

Feel inspired by the collaborative effort of Bart Hess and Lucy McRae, quite aptly called Lucy And Bart.
In their own words: “instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body”.

We’ve been working with some fashion designers recently and, doing all kinds of research, I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the creativity applied in fashion communication recently (see previous posts here and here). 
The social media expert we work with on this fashion project pointed me in the direction of Chictopia, a community platform for people who are passionate about fashion. People show what they’re wearing, rate each other’s outfits and review products. Obviously, it’s a fantastic way for brands to do some research, talk to their clients and even (subtly) push some of their products (although Polyvore seems to do that better).
And now American Apparel (the 3rd most popular brand on the network) has gone one step further created an ad campaign with the highest rated ‘models’ from Chictopia.
Genius move, yet so simple and obvious. So double genius.

Just to offset the 2 previous, rather serious posts, here’s a rather serious, but intriguing film, called Morituri Te Salutant. 
Animated and directed by Niko Stumpo aka Abnormal Behavior Child.
Made, you know, just because he felt like it. 

Via Submarine Channel 

Obviously, that’s all very true and useful and what not, but 2009 is set to be the year of video. On the digital platforms of course.
‘Groundswell‘ already mentioned video as an integral of any good communications strategy, and more and more industry people and blogs are talking about it. What got me thinking was this article on Video Insider, bigging up the importance of video. I particularly agreed with the bit where it mentions that it’s time to be creative with online video.

Creative in production, but very much creative in thinking. So not just re-purposing tv content into shorter ‘webisodes’, but making something that truly complements a tv show.
Not just re-purposing a tv ad into a pre-roll, but creating specific, short, funny, interesting messages that actually make sense in an online environment.
And not commissioning a viral without actively trying to seed it. 
Creative in translating your message for that right environment.  

If you move to a new country and want to integrate, you speak the new language, right? But to me it seems that brands/clients/communicators seem to struggle with or even avoid that new language.
True, it’s far from clear yet what the online video ‘language’ really is. Correction: make that ‘languages’, plural. Because that seems another pre-conception: that there’s one solution. Not necessarily, me thinks: why not have a variety of ‘translations’ of your core message. Another topic that Video Insider writes about very well.
Why not have different versions of online ads, all based on the same message or tagline. And with all the power to measure online behaviour, you must be able to target different varieties of your message to different people. Why not have…

I’ve been involved in quite a few online (video) projects over the last few years and “It’s only for the web” is still a phrase commonly used. And while they say that, they divide the ‘big budget’ by 8 and give that to online. TV STILL seems to be THE one platform where a lot of people want to be.

Shame, because while production costs are much lower than they used to be, I think the development of concepts and ideas are gonna be key in 09, the year of online video.

What’s interesting to see is that labels, who have traditionally been quite averse to embracing internet technology are now realising the digital potential. Big time. Major label commissioner Tim Nash (who won the award for Best commissioner at the recent UK Music video Awards) writes a very entertaining blog about his lovely job and gave an insight in how they deal with the ‘Truth Tube’ and how they’re analyzing the viewing behaviour and the tagging of their videos. Turns out that 52 seconds is the average ’switch-off moment’.

As a fan of creative music videos and with quite a few talented directors in my close circle of friends, my heart breaks and weeps when I read this. It’s scary to see how the big corporations are desperately trying to take the risk and failure out of what we always believed to be a creative industry. Sure, from a commercial point of view you can sort of understand them, but we can only hope that the stats don’t get applied to each and every band.

My prediction is that music videos will become similar to tv commercials. They’re no longer the sine qua non of advertising, but for washing powder (read: hits! hits! hits!) it’ll still work. And for the more aspirational brands (read: more creative artists), the future of ‘music marketing’ will move more towards inventive campaigns like the Oasis one I wrote about before, highly creative material (video, websites,…) that translates the creativity of an artist and personal communication like blogs and documentaries/video blogs that give an insight in the wonderful world of musicians.

So here’s to a creative 09.

This time of the year is mainly good for receiving some nice Christmas cards sent around by the creative industries. Keen to impress their clients, potential clients and anyone who’s interested in watching/reading, companies are spending some quality time and money on these ‘cards’.

A friend sent me this cool one, from agency AKQA, but Creative Review have collated the nicest ones from their mailbox here and here. 

So have a great break and here’s to an inspiring 2009. 

I’m not a big fan of cars and definitely not of those tasteless car-porn pictures, aimed at satisfying drooling petrolheads. But when Japanese photographer Satoshi Minakawa takes a picture of some kind of vehicle, it becomes interesting.

Have a look at the Conceptual 2 section on his website for some beautiful shots. And subscribers to Creative Review can get a monograph with his shots of some strange Japanese ‘Dekatori’ trucks with the January issue. 
BTW: his pictures in the ‘landscape’ section of his webite remind me of our recent trip to Japan. Lots of concrete ‘landscape’, but beautiful stuff. 

Music videos are meant to be dead, right? But every now and again, a little gem pops up. And this one for Metronomy is one of the most creative and funniest music videos I’ve seen in a long time.
A high-res (yes indeed) version on YouTube, or watch on the music video page of El Niño, the production company that reps the directors Megaforce.

I never mentioned it here and I didn’t manage to vote, but Volvo, Vice Magazine, The Independent and Yahoo ran this competition called Creative 30, to find the leading creative think-ers and do-ers in the UK. The winners have just been announced and the jury chose artist Katie Paterson, while the public vote went to milliner (isn’t that a beautiful word for hat-maker) Will Chambers. Paterson’s pieces are particularly intriguing. She makes various sound sculptures, influenced by science and nature and general cookie-ness. Charming stuff. 

But have a look at the other 28 nominated creative talents and check out their profile films. I particularly liked the work of photographer Jonnie Craig (see picture above), illustrator Mimi Leung, the beach chairs from furniture designer Max Lamb and ‘possible sculptor’ Daniel Mort.  
Nice initiative and interesting to see that a brand like Volvo wants to spend some money on this (Paterson wins £10,000 – Chambers a Volvo).

While the advertising world is still wondering just how cynical, colonial and faux-real that new Whopper ad/documentary is, I prefer my campaigns to be a little more subtle.
Have a look at how agency BBH is trying to revive interest in Tango with a campaign called Do the Can Fist. The full-length ad is here or on production company’s Knucklehead’s website, but also check out the Save Tango website, which seems to complement the whole vibe pretty well.  
I’m sure Tango wasn’t even doing that badly, but that underdog role suits it just fine. Made me smile.  

Art that’s suitable for the festive season.
New York artist Rosemarie Fiore uses all kinds of found objects to make her art, but her firework paintings are particularly intriguing pieces. By bombing sheets of paper with fireworks and controlling the explosions, she creates these abstract environments. I’d love to see/smell a real one and sounds like a lot of fun to make. 
Nice.
So who’s gonna turn that into a music video or a commercial?

Following on from the previous post, I’m finding out that the fashion world is embracing the world of film-making in the most creative way. 

I already mentioned SHOWstudio, who have a great collection of fashion-inspired films. But what about JCDC versus Logo, a brilliant piece of animation made by French agency Four H, for the new Spring/Summer collection of JC de Castelbajac. Amazing stuff.

And what about Viktor & Rolf, who skipped their show at the Paris Fashion Week and instead created this online environment, including a full 9-minute catwalk video, featuring only 1 model (direct link via SHOWStudio)? Full creative control, plus making the ‘catwalk’ accessible to all fashion-fans. The fashion world has all of a sudden become quiet a bit more interesting to me. 

And production companies should take note, because it seems that the fashion world has a bit of money to spend. 

Fashion is a notoriously closed-off world, but even this mythical industry is now opening up to its audience. 
SHOWStudio, the brainchild of fashion photographer Nick Knight, has been an internet-based fashion platform for a few years now. Since 2006 Knight’s approach has been to show the creative process as much as possible. Very 2.0 and what-not.

I had kind of forgotten about the project, but I just rediscovered them because of ‘Let There Be Light’, a 3-day fashion shoot that had a live video-stream as well as a Twitter feed. I only just heard about it (2 weeks late), so can’t say how well it went, but judging from the (edited) video excerpts, it looks beautiful and interesting. A great way of inviting the audience into your universe.

Next: the interactive Twitter-Skype-controlled fashion shoot. “Agyness, can you give me that look again, straight into the web-camera”. 

The first one was the great 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa. If you’re familiar with the work of design studio Sanaa, you’ll understand it when I say that the space is quite minimal. Still, it works very nicely, also because they had a few art works commissioned as part of the architecture. There’s one of those James Turrell sky-windows, but the real clincher was this clever, but beautiful piece by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich. 

They also had a really nice collection, mixing Western conceptual chaps like Jan Fabre and Damien Hirst with local artists and incorporating more ‘popular’ platforms like animation and figurines. I particularly liked this great installation by Yoshitomo Nara, in collaboration with graf.

The other museum we visited was possibly one of the most amazing buildings I’ve ever seen. The ChiChu museum was commissioned by some big cheese at the Benesse Corporation, on the old fishing island of Naoshima, just to house his 4 ‘Water Lilies’ by Monet. That’s right: one museum for 4 paintings. But it’s an amazing space, designed by boxer-turned-architect Tadao Ando and built more or less into a hill. 
It’s all very Nihon-clinical and almost lab-like (you have to take off your shoes before you tread on the white marble mosaic that makes up the floor of the main room), but it’s so well done it makes you smile. 
Taking pictures if forbidden, but this person managed to take a few.
Just go.

Two weeks ago I wrote about how I liked the Transport For London ‘Do The Test’ campaign. And it seems like the Observer liked it too, because they did a half-page spread on it in last week’s paper (online version here). That’s pretty good column inches for an ad campaign (is this what they mean with blurring the boundaries between advertising and PR?). 
But in the article, Fergus Adam from advertising agency WCRS (who created the spots), says that this kind of viral marketing is pretty much over, because people are less likely to forward clips and jokes. 

Does anybody know of any statistics that support that statement, because this totally surprises me. I agree with him that clients asking for “a viral that gets 5 million hits” are a bit naive. It’s not that simple. And I also think that the word ‘viral’ still gets used to justify lower production budgets (”but it’s only for the internet”). 
But if something’s good, surely it’ll be passed on, talked about and shared? No matter what platform it was originally made for. No matter whether it was ‘marketed’. Sharing has become such an easy part of communication that if you have a good product or make something that’s worth watching/reading/listening to, then I’m gonna tell my friends about it. 
Surely?

If you happen to be in The Hague or in Holland, pop by the GEM museum for ‘Les Beaux et Les plus Beaux’, what looks to be a fantastic exhibition by Dutch artist/sculptor Silvia B. 

I once had the pleasure of visiting her studio in Rotterdam and was immediately sucked into her wonderful world of hybrid creatures and thought-provoking esthetics. You have to love someone who creates a series of gloves like this Skinover series.

In the previous Japan post, I mentioned the Japanese tendency to experiment a lot with design and their obsession with it. When we went to visit the 21-21 Design Sight pavillion (made by Tadao Ando), we stumbled upon an exhibition called ‘Second Nature’, curated by a designer called Tokujin Yoshioka, which confirmed that thought. 

Apart from very interesting art/design pieces, like human/tree hybrids and chairs made of crystals whose growth is influenced by playing different kinds of music, the setting was amazing. The ceiling of the gallery was covered in 360,000 plastic straws, which made you feel like you were walking in another eerie, beautiful universe. 

We weren’t allowed to take pictures (an interesting habit in most of Japanese galleries), but Wallpaper has a nice collection of stills, plus a Q&A with the designer/curator. 

A very clever and creative piece of advertising/awareness raising for Transport For London. It was created by agency WCRS and directed by Chris Palmer at Gorgeous Films, who also did this similar TFL film a while ago.

I just wonder if there shouldn’t have been more of a digital side to the campaign. Some kind of interactive quiz or game element that allows people to pass on the film without actually giving away the answer. Something that builds up over time. There is a website for the campaign, but it doesn’t really add that much, does it. 
Still, very enjoyable piece of communication.

Apologies for the shocking lack of posting activity recently, but I’ve been on holiday in Japan. And guess what: the internet access there is surprisingly limited. Wireless: forget it. Internet cafés: if you ask, they look at you like they’ve seen a ghost. Because wifi is sooooo 2004-5-6, sir. Everybody over there is on their mobiles, surfing the worldwide wap web. Interesting. 

Anyway, Japan is a crazy, beautiful, funny place with lots going on. And they have good beer. So I’ll try to filter the creative info in my head into a few posts over the next few days. 

The first pleasant surprise came straight when we arrived. 

It turned out that the Tokyo flat that we had rented through a friend of a friend belonged to French ‘conceptual stimulator’ Item Idem. Not just a flat, more like a 3-room-installation-stroke-gallery. Thanks Cyril, for letting us stay in your crazy place. 

Yes, it’s true. Everything and everyone in Japan (or at least in Tokyo) is designed. Even the local laundromat looks cooler than the average London flat. Definitely cleaner. And technology’s everywhere.

So a company like Kenwood happily experiments with the design of their speakers. Check out these 2 beauties, which we saw at the Morphonics launch. The left one is meant to be hugged, so the bones in your body enhances the sound or something strange like that.
And the right one, designed by Claudio Colucci, was completely made in corian and costs something like €60.000.

Colucci is a pretty interesting designer. Some of his stuff is a little too organic for me, but at least he has a sense of humour, lacking in most design. I particularly enjoyed his Mutant Attack chairs, which were shown at the very nice Clear Gallery, next to some Japanese 60s/70s design classics from Shiro Kuramata.  
And he’s a funny chap in real life too. Him, his girlfriend and producer/curator Laurent took us out a few times and fun was had by all. I’ll never forget Claudio’s karaoke rendition of Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’.
Yes it’s true, everybody does karaoke in Japan. 

The header of this blog contains a few words that consist of more than 2 syllables, but the guys from design studio Zeitguised know how to describe things properly. Check out the title and explanation to their new piece ‘Peripetics’. More importantly: check out the film itself. It’s weird and wonderful and even though I’m not always a fan of abstract work, this is amazing to look at. 
A few years ago, I had the chance to work with Zeitguised on this mobile content project for which they created some ‘visual haikus’ and since then I’ve always followed their work. They’re one of the most intriguing design/animation units around; very technical, but there’s always this enthralling element of humanity and outlandishness in there. 
And if you describe yourself with ‘Breaks stuff, puts it back together and sells it for less’, you can do no wrong.  

We recently moved studio and one of the guys that I bump into every now and again in the kitchen is Noah Harris, who just finished this rather lovely ad for Ford Fiesta – This Is Now. It took him a good 7 months to finish, but it’s well worth it.
In good Web2.0-open-collaboration style, he got a bunch of designers/animators on board to create all the gorgeous visuals that show in the screens. Very now indeed. 
Now, I would have thought that Ford would include all the individual pieces on some microsite, get people to comment etc etc, but nope. They seem to have a microsite for this car, but no films. Instead they’re all on YouTube and you can watch them here.

Another rather talented director that sits in spitting distance from me is Tom Haines, who made this lovely music video for crazy Texan band White Denim. It has just been picked as video of the week on 6Music and it was criminally ignored for a nomination in the category Best Indie/Alternative video at the UK MVAs.

One of the most intriguing artists that has used, abused and appropriated the www with freshness and creativity is Han Hoogerbrugge. Artist, animator, designer, interactivist, call him what you want, but he’s always been intriguing, if only for his constant consistent attire of pin-striped suit.

And this week seems to be Hoogerbrugge’s week.

If you happen to be in Rotterdam, go check out his interactive installation ‘What You Say Is What You Get’, commissioned by the Boymans van Beuningen museum. He’s been developing a keen interest in installations recently and this is a next step. 

And then there’s the release of ‘Modern Living’, a book-cum-DVD all about Han and his wide range of work. A monograph as they say. It’s been a while in the making, but it’s all yours now. Check out Submarine Channel for more info.

And if you like the darker side of Han’s work, you should visit his new project, Prostress 2.0, an intriguing series of  ”Daily fresh servings of professional stress”. Different, as they say. 

I like the man. 

I’ve always floated around the music industry in some shape or form and I’ve always been surprised how un-creative the environment (and its output) is; despite the fact that there are so many talented people involved.

When I was commissioning music videos (I still do the odd one), I always felt there were quite a few other ways of translating music into moving image or into a (dirty word coming up) ‘campaign’. But there weren’t many examples and everyone kept making music videos; some great ones, lots of disposable ones.
But it seems the music industry is coming round and is no longer completely averse to exploring non-traditional routes.

It’s not really a surprise that creative artists like Soulwax do something as ambitious as their tour-film ‘Part Of The Weekend Never Dies’, but none other than Oasis recently did something that made me smile.
Not only did they give away sheet music of songs on their upcoming album, allowing people to play/record/upload their own versions; they also taught a bunch of buskers in New York how to play the songs and sent them out on the street, as an exclusive preview. Original, simple, to-the-point, pretty much (another dirty word coming up) ‘360′. And you document it and you have a film. I think it’s great. 

So yesterday I was talking to some friends and we were wondering who came up with the idea. And the answer is: the advertising agency BBH. While I find it a bit scary that the big advertising agencies are getting involved in music, it actually does make sense. I’m not talking about positioning a ‘brand’ like a pack of butter, but at the end of the day agencies generate ideas. And if anything, the Oasis ‘campaign’ shows that in an era where everyone has a video camera, a strong idea makes all the difference.
So maybe, just maybe, the major record companies and mainstream artists will start tapping into the creativity that’s all around them. 

Here’s an online advertising campaign that will get some attention, taking interactivity to ‘another level’. Only in Scandinavia can you get away with that; imagine this happening in the UK. 
Made by Stockholm agency Dallas.

I was asked to be on the judging panel for the UK Music Video Awards, so I’ve been watching a lot of music videos lately. Always fun.
Because while I totally believe the genre of music video needs a re-think and we should (also) be looking at other ways of promoting music through moving image, there were still a lot of great films in the selection. Most of them you can find on video blog Antville and I’ll post a few links when the UKMVA shortlist is announced, but one I’d forgotten about and was happy to see again was ‘Work It Out’ by RJD2, directed by Joey Garfield for New York outfit Ghost Robot. 

And when I was making friends in our new studio (we moved!) and the guys from Bad Idea magazine gave me a DVD that included this little docu/short, I thought it was time to read up on the Crutch man called Bill Shannon. Talk about creative communication. This guy’s taking dancing/skating/body language to a whole new level. And do read the Artist’s Statement on his website.

I was chatting with my friend ZuluZulu the other day about digital media (he’s a bit of an old school new media dude; you know the ones; they were programming CD-ROMS when I was still impressed by Word and survived the dotcom-crash) and got talking about Joost, the much-hyped, long-forgotten Future of TV. The application that was going to change the way we watched tv. Or content, I should say. 
Whatever happened to them, we wondered? And shouldn’t they be doing something with a browser (it was the day that Google released Chrome), incorporate their software into a more user-friendly website. 

Well, speak of the devil etc etc. Turns out that Joost is no longer focusing on letting you download a software application, but are integrating their p2p technology into a website and the browser, thus bringing it closer to the likes of YouTube.
It looks pretty nice and seems to focus a lot on community (something they’ve been talking about for ages), but there’s still the million dollar question. Or two. While ZuluZulu is worried the ISPs may get a bit iffy, my main issue is still content.
I talked to Joost more than 2 years ago about sourcing (more left-of-centre) content for them and while at the time they were very close to signing some big players, it must be going slower than they expected. Admittedly, they are getting deals with the CNNs and the Warners of this world and there’s some decent stuff in their catalogue, but we’re not yet seeing the top raters like The Wire or an international sports event. Which I think they may need to get that all-important ‘critical mass’.

Let’s see how much more money the owners want to throw at it. They have a lot (remember they sold Skype and Kazaa), but I hope it does well, because I always thought Joost was going to make a difference. 

More info and pictures at Techcrunch. 

In times where street art is hitting the galleries big time, it seems only fair that tiny street art is picked up by more tiny galleries. Ha ha ha. 
This exhibition at the Cosh gallery in Soho, London hosts the first solo exhibition from miniature street artist Slinkachu. For a few years, he/she (not sure about Slinkachu’s identity) has been making cute interceptions/installations in the London streets. Beautiful, funny, a little bit sad: these pieces are pretty clever. 
If you can’t make it to the gallery, there’s a lot of stills here.

I’ve worked on a few pro-social and environmental video campaigns, trying to bring across a message that no one really wants to hear. So I know it’s not easy to come up with something efficient, let alone creative. Because in the end, the client just wants to show polar bears or big lumps of ice falling into the sea. 
But this film-slash-installation by director Tim Godsall tackles that challenge pretty well, me thinks.

And a YouTube link, just in case the Quicktime version is taken down at some point. 

This Sneaker burger thing was made by Swedish designer Olle Hemmendorff, after Nike asked a bunch of designers to interpret some of their iconic designs.
Very nice & very clever.
Does anyone know where we can see the other 7 contributions? It looks like they’ll be exhibited in the Stockholm store Sneakers N Stuff, but if anyone has more online links, let me know.

When bands ask their audience to participate in their new music video, it generally doesn’t get much further than a cameo in the audience of the ‘club-performance’ or at best, the chance to use the artists music to send in your own creation. Apart from the fact that cynics see it as a cheap way of getting result, it’s pretty standard fare. But here’s an interesting one: a music video project that’s based on technology and a global community of UGC-makers.

For their next video, Chemical Brothers and Nexus Productions are asking people around the world to upload a still or short video, documenting “the insanity that goes on at the stroke of midnight”. That’s a nice idea in itself, but the makers want to have material that’s “related to the specific point of origin”, so it can be uploaded and tracked via Google Earth. 

Collaborative, open, global and creative. Who knows what the end result will be, but I like the idea of it already.  

For the full brief, go here (open until August 25).

Reading the words “audio-visual” and “experiment” in the same sentence always makes me a bit cynical and respond with a sentence that includes the words “moving” and “wallpaper”. But the Advanced Beauty project, conceived and curated by London-based digital design studio Universal Everything is well worth a look.

One: because they’re setting creative parameters to their artists. Technical as well as creative. And in my opinion, limitations are always a good thing in an art-type project like this. 

Two: because they’ve created their own platform. Where normally this kind of work would end up in festivals like onedotzero and, if they’re lucky, on a DVD that sells a few copies in the ICA to fellow artists and some agency creative directors, these guys have taken it in their own hands and distribute the work through a podcast. This way, they must reach people that they wouldn’t reach normally. And the DVD will follow later, which I guess will make them some money. 

And three: because I think some of the work is actually quite good. Especially the film by UV & Minivegas, which put a smile on my face. I’m actually looking forward to seeing the rest of the series.

But where has this gone since then? A few weeks ago, a friend who works in business consultancy pointed me to Jacques Bughin, a media consultant his company uses a lot. And his thoughts on the whole mobile thing just seem ancient right now. Where are the ‘mobisodes’ from yesteryear? Where are those music videos created specifically for mobile viewing? Is anyone still watching?
The figures from the BBC seem to suggest the audience is switching off. But is that because of crap content? Or tedious technology?

On a content-level mobile tv is quite often a cut-down version of existing programs. I can imagine people logging on when it’s exclusive content though. I remember the UK network 3 getting an exclusive premiere on a Robbie Williams video and I’m sure that did very well.

But I personally think technology is inadequately developed (yet) to get a major impact. I just tried accessing some video footage from the Albarn & Hewlett produced opening titles for the BBC Olympics coverage. And gave up. Too slow, too messy interface,… And with mobile phones moving more and more towards computers (IPhone et al), wouldn’t people expect to watch things ‘online’, i.e. decent quality at decent speeds? Or not watch at all. 

I’m sure there are good examples of mobile video, but I don’t know them. And I definitely think it’s an interesting aspect of the media. So if anyone has any suggestions on good blogs/websites about mobile communication, then do let me know.

“You couldn’t ketchup even if we handed you the tomatoes”. Wouldn’t you hire the people who came up with such a spot-on tagline to invent some crazy shit for your company/campaign/cat’s 5th birthday party? These guys can turn a toilet brush into something exciting.  
And now my friends from Knotoryus have published a little book, called ‘Face Everybody And Rule’. 
They’re a creative (their ideas!), fashionable (their style tips!) and generous (their champagne!) bunch, so if you happen to be in Ghent, Belgium, pick up a copy and see if it lives up to the slogan.

After my post 2 weeks ago about the use of split screen, I received another example from Straighty 180, a production company in Sydney, who made this music video last year. On the first level it’s just a normal, narrative music promo, but part of the concept was a website where the original video would play splitscreen with another video, together revealing more about the storyline.  
Not as interactive as the Pop Levi experiment, but nevertheless a pretty interesting example of cross-platform approach, still quite rare in music video land. 

I’ve always found that the Dutch are pretty good at exploring the opportunities of digital platforms. And this widget from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is a very good example. 
Bringing a 15th century painting into the digital realm is not that obvious. But this plugin is a simple, quick and inspiring way to sample art. 

This ‘music video multiplex’ for Pop Levi is already a few weeks old, but at the time I hadn’t started the noble art of blogging yet, so I thought I’d post it again. In case you hadn’t seen it. 

Although I really like the idea, the execution isn’t overly great. So it won’t be long before someone really explores the interactivity opportunities. I’d like to see more screens. And why not more moments where you have to pause/play/rewind to complete the video. Or make your own version for that matter. 

I reckon this could be something for director/artist Roel Wouters, you know: him from the live-installation trampoline concept for the rather fantastic zZz video.

Which by the way has just been re-used for this car ad. Quite badly re-used, I should say. Bit missing the point really.
Does anyone know whether Roel got to make that himself? It’s the same music, but I heard that he declined.

Why exactly is Euro RSCG doing this? In the press blurbs, they talk about ‘access to artists’ and ‘future-facing business models’. Now, The:Hours is not a traditional label; it also does ‘music content production’, like this. But if the advertising industry needs better/cheaper/quicker access to music creators and the copyright on songs, surely they could have bought a specialized music production agency. 

And I don’t get the fact they’re interested in a record label. If the plan is to discover the new Justin Timberlake, so McDonalds will háve to come to Euro RSCG for their new version of ‘I’m lovin’ it!’, then that’s quite risky, no? 

I know music is extremely important for brands and the last few years the trend has been shifting towards custom content (remember the Nike/James Murphy, Nike/Cassius and CocaCola/Jack White collaborations), but I’m just not 100% convinced by this one. 

What am I missing? Enlighten me!

Bloody Radiohead. They’ve done it again.

While the music video industry is nervously looking around, trying to avoid gloomy nose-dive scenarios, those Radiohead fuckers do something no one else has done before. Again. 
An interactive, no-camera-just-code, ready-to-remix video experiment.
Genius, right? Or is it just another marketing ploy, as cynics were keen to point out  last year when the band gave away their album on a pay-as-want basis?

I think you can judge from a few angles. 

From a creative point of view, I feel it scores well.
Apart from the fact that I’ve never really seen anything like it, it’s a great piece of visual expression that is typical for the band/brand Radiohead.
I also think that as a piece of filmmaking it does have its values. I watch a lot of music videos and my attention span is close to that of a goldfish, but this video kept me watching. Quite a feat. 

From an interactive point of view it’s a bit limited. The fact that it’s open source is obviously a genius thing. But unless you’re quite a geek -and let’s be honest, not that many of us are- it’s hard to interact with the work. In that way, Arcade Fire’s attempt last year was more successful, be it less aspirational. 

Technologically I’m sure it’s all great, but I personally couldn’t care less. Velodyne Lidar technology, whatever. 

And marketing-wise? A success, no doubt. After 3 days it’s already racked up more views on YouTube than a lot of it the band’s older videos. And which music video has recently received that much attention in the broadsheet media (ok – it’s the online version, but still). And has a collaboration with Google. 
But is that because Radiohead had a clever marketing plan? Or because it’s a great piece of work and worth the attention? 

One last point. Is this the solution to the flailing music video business? Obviously not. Although I’m sure production companies are already thinking about how to ‘implement’ this and score a YouTube hit themselves, this video really is just one example of doing something creative that also gets noticed.
Afetr all, even Robbie Williams made ‘interactive videos’ 5 years ago. 

In the category ‘pretty-useless-but-absolutely-great websites’: I So Wish. 
Although tagging it as ‘useless’ is maybe a little harsh. Especially for the makers.
Because creator Andrew Dubber, one of the leading bloggers about the music industry (check out New Music Strategies) started it ‘to make money while sleeping’.

In his recent post about how he and his programmer friend made this site, he extrapolates his concept to the field of the music industry. He pretty much recommends musicians to come up with a similar ‘cash machine’, instead of chasing the rock ‘n’ roll dream of getting signed to a record label, tour the world and make/burn heaps of cash. If they want to be creative, that is. 

Which makes total sense to me. Creativity’s success is all too often measured by the amount of money it generates. Which means that lots of creatives (musicians, filmmakers, artists,…) are having to compromise their output in order to make sure they can pay their rent and that can of ravioli. When they should be focusing on what they do best: make nice stuff that no one else makes. Whether that makes money or not. 

Actually, let’s make that ‘most people’. Because everyone has a non-professional passion and a story to tell. 
In Belgium (where I grew up) there’s actually a small political party that wants to get rid of social security and give everyone a basic income, unconditional. So people can do whatever they want. Make more money. Or be creative. I always thought that was an interesting concept. 

Having said that: there are no 6 billion ideas like this.  
Still, I may just get together a few of my friends and and see what we come up with!

I’ve always been a bit skeptical about banners. Last year, Han Hoogerbrugge, an animator/director I work with at my agency Pixelspew, was asked to design an interactive banner for American communication giant Comcast. Despite the fact that the result was fun and playful, we were both wondering who actually clicks on these things. Judging by the agency’s reasonable budget, it had to be quite a few people, but we couldn’t help thinking that the whole banner thing wasn’t really communicating clearly. 

But this ad (for a credit card) does its job well. The reason is that it plays with the boundaries of the banner. There isn’t a direct link, but you see a guy handcuffed to the edges of the banner, trying to free himself. Very visual and you can’t help but notice him. And then he pulls another screen across the banner to reveal the message. Pretty clever. Shame though that the ad wasn’t interactive. But still, I made the Guardian a bit of money today.

So welcome to this blog. Hopefully we can share some thoughts on all things creative. On the beautiful, exciting, interesting, funny examples, but also on the ever-changing media landscape and the role creativity can play in that.

Fill me in, contradict me, give me a shout.