To promote and celebrate the Millennium Stadium’s 10th year of sell out concerts, our latest campaign signs off with inspiration from another legend…Frankie Blue Eyes.
The campaign is now into its third year and certainly shows how a very good idea can go a very, very long way…

If you happen to be out and about in Chelsea this weekend why not
look out for our Christmas advert for Duke of York Square. Of course
they are seasonal but we also like to think they are classy and
introduce the new brand perfectly to the consumer. Happy shopping!!

Bit of a chicken and egg story here readers. As I surf the enormous internet coloured wave I tend to weave a web of creative wanderings visiting a numerous amount of blog sites showcasing the talents of some of the worlds inhabitants creative flare.

Although of late a couple of things have been popping up on my “hmmm that looks a heck of alot like something I’ve seen before’ radar.

The first of two such similar finds involves a saw and a ship. Both extremely similar in style and finish, it’s as though one has copied the other but then tweaked the design to their specification. In this case the top image by Christopher Monro DeLorenzo titled ‘Seasaw’ (great name, bit like ronsil, does exactly what is says on the tin/ship)

Above is the second saw and ship effort by a young whipper snapper many of you may or may not know Olly Moss. This piece is titled ‘personal2.jpg’ not particularly imaginative. No doubt because the ideal name and logical name ‘seasaw’ was taken by the original designer. It’s not like he could completely steal the idea and use the same name aswell, that’s just shameful. So instead he just flipped the saw around, cleaned up the lines of the saw and reduced the the amount of sails on the ship from a magnificent 9 down to a less impressive 5 (hang on a minute is that the Blue Peter Ship? No but looks a great deal like it) What’s also quite funny is the fact that before Olly had a redesign on his website he had a quote that read “Good designers copy, great designers steal”. Great quote. Fact. This is all well and good until he named himself as the one who offered such an insightful dollop of youth. Considering a certain Picasso of the Pablo variety once said “Good artists copy, great artists steal” it’s highly unlikely that Mr Moss at a tender age of 21 once spurted such a delightful line (and then quoted himself) let alone actually coming up with the ‘seasaw’ design. In many ways he’s living by that ethos, as I do actually prefer his depiction. He’s clearly stolen the idea from Christopher Monro DeLorenzo (a fellow designer) but made it work harder. Although it has to be said that he does have a great deal of truly ‘original’ work on his site . Hats off to the chap I say. While were on the subject of hats this is then challenged in Olly’s self initiated section titled ‘films in black and red’ with this effort for ‘the great dictator’.

I’m not knocking it in the slightest as it’s a superb piece of thinking but I will put every penny I own (which isn’t many in case you’re wondering) that he was heavily inspired by this truly eureka moment ad for Hut Weber.

Moving on to the second and final ‘Who dun it first’ moment. This minor case study isn’t necessarily a complete rip off but the two efforts are fairly similar in my opinion. So in this battle two very talented illustrators go head to head, nose to nose, pen to pen. In the red corner we have James ‘Quick draw’ Joyce. (showcasing a set of email headers for Faber&Faber the book publisher in 2008) And in the blue corner we have Robert Samuel Hanson aka ‘The Man who knows Illustrator like the back of his hand’ bringing to the fight header illustrations for FormFiftyFive. The header changed everyday as the ‘crab’ made its way across the desk top. Both are extremely talented illustrators, both are clearly Kings of clean simple design, but it does throw up the debate who created what first. And what makes it even more significant is that James Joyce was recently commissioned by Wallpaper* & Victorinox to create a limited edition ‘crab’, I mean Swiss Army knife (bottom image). Funny that and interesting all the same!

But as they say “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery”. And it’s extremely hard to be totally original these days which conveniently allows me to plug my own piece of ‘originality’ for my latest Don’t Panic poster competition entry which tackles funnily enough the theme original. See it here.

If you’ve read the entirety of this blog/rant/observation/bit more rant then you deserve a medal.

In today’s market, digital solutions are a must and Underscore are always striving to offer our clients the latest technologies that deliver results.

Therefore we were delighted to have been commissioned by the BPIF (an association that works for the UK printing industry) to offer strategic branding advice and develop a brand identity for a new organisation seeking to provide pro-active, relevant support to digital, marketing and data agencies and print businesses looking to adapt to the future.

Tony Hodgson, Programme Manager of dotgain.org, says: “The team at Underscore have done brilliantly to create a brand identity that precisely captures our vision”

Dotgain.org launched at mediaPro ’09 Expo on November 4th and further information about the organisation and membership can be found on their website for which we also developed the creative: www.dotgain.org

The new google commerce search is now up and running, google’s aim is to make e-commerce searching as easy as using Google.com. Google Commerce Search will be priced starting at $50,000 per year and will be aimed at the top 1,000 online retailers in each country where Google operates, says Google Enterprise Search product manager, Nitin Mangtani.

Key Features include:

Google-quality search for your site
Like google.com, automatic spellcheck, stemming, and advanced synonym options mean shoppers will find what they’re looking for with fewer unnecessary clicks and no frustrating navigation mazes. Google speed, search quality, and ranking capability help users find the most relevant product match.

Scalability
As a hosted solution, Google Commerce Search will insure that increased seasonal query volume won’t erode the quality of your product search experience, so you can spend less time and money on capacity planning around these peaks.

Parametric Search
Enable search refinement by product category, price, price range, brand, or any other product attribute you choose. Automatically generate groupings based on the user’s query and matching items.

Product Promotions
Easy to manage product promotions give marketers and site administrators complete control with guaranteed top search result promotions for custom search keywords you choose. With Product Boost, you can promote specific products, vendors, or product categories at the top of your search results.

Simple deployment and maintenance
Google Commerce Search is a hosted platform, which means that your company will be able to leverage innovations and advancements as soon as they are developed, with no administrative overhead. Deployment is fast and easy, and you’ll have access to Google Commerce Search support experts for specialized assistance with set-up, customization, and analysis.
Advanced Reporting and Analytics

Seems very impressive, more news on the google website