With George Lucas re-releasing ‘Star Wars, Episode 1’ in 3D it appears everyone is jumping on the Star Wars themed advertising campaign band wagon (some doing it better than others).
PC world, Adidas and Vodafone are all culprits, but my personal favorite is the new Volkswagen viral adverts. Everyone knows that mans best friend is a dog and we do love seeing our furry friends on the not so big screen.
A couple of months ago Deutsch created the first viral campaign advert for volkswagen titled ‘Bark Side’ and now comes the sequel ‘The Dog Strikes Back’.
Here we see our furry friend has eaten a bit too much and can’t squeeze through the dog-flap. So what can he do? He begins an intense work out, from walking on a treadmill to swimming lengths in the family pool, until, the new VW Beetle drives past and he can finally get through the dog flap and chase after it.
It is here where we can see the connection between the first and second advert where the camera pans out to a flat screen situated in the bar scene in the film ‘Star Wars’.
I think this is a very good balance of originality with a hint of copying.
Either way a very good campaign indeed.
PLAINSTONE.COM
Leading film production company Pretzel Films wanted a bespoke mobile website to complement the digital presence that underscore created to showcase their award-winning team, their stunning work and to spread the word to people on the move.
The mobile websites main aim was to allow potential clients to quickly and easily find Pretzel’s most creative and awarded work. With the growing mobile user base, it is very easy to underestimate the simple things like finding a telephone number or post code, so we used the built in mapping functionality to allow their clients to quickly and easily find their central London office and other contact details. The mobile site retains the original brand values, engages Pretzel Films user base and above all keeps it simple and easy to use.
You can view the mobile website right now and of course be sure to check it out on your mobile!
Lovely stuff indeed.
The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee is just a few months away, and the patriotic merchandise is already starting to roll out across Britain. Front and centre will be the official logo for the event, designed not by an award-winning agency but a ten year old Blue Peter viewer.
Katherine Dewar’s design was chosen from over 35,000 entries to a competition held by the BBC programme, and will appear on everything from official documents to commemorative plates.
Given the public reaction to the 2012 Olympic logo, it is very brave of Buckingham Palace and the committee organising the jubilee to go for a child’s drawing without much retouching. The result is vibrant and full of life, and really sums up the feeling of excitement that will envelop Britain this summer with both the jubilee and the Olympics. Taking a chance like this has produced something genuinely memorable and different, and will undoubtedly inspire younger generations to get interested and involved in design.
You can see the emblem in action now.
When the Occupy campaigners were forced by Transport for London to stop using their previous logo (based on the London Underground sign) they decided to hold a competition to find a new one. Jonathan Barnbrook’s design beat 17 others after a vote among the protesters, and the London based graphic designer (who’s previously worked with Damien Hirst) commented that he was “honoured” that they chose his logo.
Avoiding the typical imagery of leftwing movements, such as the clenched fist, the logo reflects the wide political spectrum of the people involved. The Os in the words ‘Occupy London’ are used as symbols for location, with the L in the graphical part of the logo transformed into an arrow, indicating the journey a protester has to make to occupy a public space. The font used is the Barnbrook designed ‘Patriot’ which, as he states on his blog, “alludes to the direct nature of the movement”. In our opinion it’s a strong, identifiable brand that gives power back to the people.
For more information on the logo, and Jonathan Barnbrook you can visit his blog which has loads of other great creative inspiration on it.
Similar to the elephants parade campaign in 2010, over 200 Easter eggs have been created by leading artists, designers, architects and jewellers which have been dotted around London in one big egg hunt.
The overall winner (chosen from random) will receive the ‘Diamond Jubilee Egg’ which is valued at over £100,000. With plenty of bizarre and wonderful designs from the comical ‘Where’s Wally’ egg to Sir Radley Scott’s contemporary entry, there’s a nice wide variety for everyone.
The event started on Tuesday the 21st of February and is running until the 3rd of April. The campaign will raise money for the Elephant Family and Action for Children.
This clever idea that uses the egg as the symbol of ‘new life’ which reflects the nature of the two charities. Overall this is a cracking idea which will bring great fun to the capital.
Visit the Fabergé big egg hunt for more information.
Last night’s Brit Awards ceremony saw James Corden hosting the event for the second year running at the O2 Arena.
We loved the infamous BRITS statue and retro onscreen graphics designed by the talented Sir Peter Blake (designer of iconic album covers such as the Beatles ‘Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’) and some amazing performances by Rihanna, Adele and Blur all added to what looked like a fantastic night. Hopefully next years event won’t see George Michael presenting an award though…
Remember when the only web fonts you could use was restricted to a handful of web safe typefaces like Times, Arial or Verdana? You don’t have to look back very far.
“You can’t use that typeface, it’s not Times, Arial or Verdana. It’s not for you, that Interstate typeface, you can’t use Interstate, you should use Times, Arial or Verdana” dark days for web typography. Remember when you could only dream of adding a custom type to your web design? Nasty wasn’t it?
One of the big web trends of 2010/2011 was the use of custom typefaces. Even before that designers were already experimenting with cufon, sIFR and FLIR. Apart from sounding like a new strain of bird flu, none of these solutions were perfect. “I like it but it’s not perfect – can we just use Verdana, cus Verdana works on my screen. I like that lovely font, but please just use Verdana”. GGGGrrrrr! We needed a better solution – something that just worked.
Quietly, in the background, while we were messing with sIFR, there was another solution. It was just waiting to be discovered. That solution was @font-face. Okay so it still sounds pants, but at least it has font in its name. @font-face gradually gained momentum – it was David v Goliath and we all know how that panned out. @font-face was by far the simplest and most reliable solution. In short it was a game changer – and it wiped the floor with everything else.
With the good work of Paul Irish and Font Squirrel the ability to have any typeface on your design turned out not to be stuff and nonsense but a real possibility. With Font Squirrel helping you get all the fonts in the correct formats the whole process became relatively easy.
Those dark days are nearly gone now and a whole world of typographic possibilities are available for us type-starved web designers. And the icing on the cake, yes it gets better, is that there are now more providers of web ready typefaces than you can shake a stick at.
So if you want to avoid getting your hands dirty converting your own faces, I’ve put together a quick list of type services, who provide hassle-free solutions. Enjoy.
Offers a free solution for 1 website. Costs around $100 dollars a year for full access to their type library. They are now owned by Adobe so I can see their library just growing and growing. They have one of the largest web ready type collections.
Advantages – Large collection of web ready faces. Easy to setup.
Disadvantages – The free service is very limited. Its an annual subscription with page view restrictions. It uses javascript to implement.
Google – Font library is not as big as typekit, but the whole collection is free, and its really easy to use.
Advantages – Its free. Totally free, and its very easy to implement, no registration required – did I mention its ridiculously easy and quick to implement.
Disadvantages – Type range is limited. Sometimes it takes longer to load.
Offers a nice collection of free fonts and also includes the @font-face generator so you can create your own web font kits.
Advantages – Its free. Generate your own font kits, quickly and easily.
Disadvantages – Font range is limited compared to other services, and some are not the best quality.
Offers 30-day free trial. The pricing structure varies from $40 to $800 per year, the collection is quite large and contains some very nice typefaces. The website also contains some good information about how type renders across different operating systems.
Advantages – 30 day free trial.
Disadvantages – Not the biggest collection of fonts.
Pay for the fonts that you need, when you need them. Each font is priced individually and the typical cost is £7.50 per year, per font. The good thing about font deck is that you can try all their fonts for free, forever. However that is only for 20 unique users, but that should be plenty, useful for testing.
Advantages – Large collection of fonts from lots of different foundries and designers.
Disadvantages – Could get expensive paying for each font per year however some might find this an advantage.
Offers free trials for all their fonts. (30 days) You can have a hosted font service at around $40 per year. The collection itself is large and includes one of our favorites – interstate.
Advantages – Offers free trial, good range of quality typefaces.
Disadvantages – Could get expensive.
typefront.com
With typefront you upload your own fonts if you have a web license for them. So it offers no fonts at all, is a diy service for hosting your font only. Offers a free, try it out service for 1 font, with 500 requests per day. If you upload more fonts its going to cost you around $15 per mth.
Advantages – Host your own fonts on a super fast server
Disadvantages – No fonts offered – you supply them.
Has a large selection of fonts that vary in price. Basically with font spring you buy the font with a web license, so it has no subscription fee. The advantage of that is you can use it as many times as you like, with no page view or domain limits – but its up to you to implement it. That’s no problem as its really easy to implement anyway. Depending on your point of view this can actually be easier, as you can buy the font and forget about it. No yearly or monthly fees, no slow service, simples.
Advantages – Big selection of fonts. No subscriptions. You own the font.
Disadvantages – Could become expensive.
After some deliberation we are warming to the towering red landmark for the 2012 Olympic Games designed by Anish Kapoor. Set to become the UK’s largest sculpture, visitors to London’s Olympic Park in 2012 will have the benefit of an unparalleled panoramic viewpoint of the sprawling urban park, thanks to a swirling and looping construction of metal trusses presented in a bright red colour. Apparently it will rise to dizzying heights and include a spiralling staircase from the viewing platform to its base that is likely not for the faint of heart.
It has its detractors on cost (obviously) and has already been dubbed ‘iconic’ by others (perhaps a bit prematurely) but these games will need an icon, and better a big brave bold one in bright red than none at all. That’s what we think.
So is Myspace dying, dead or just defunct? On a personal level, I wouldn’t know as I have never ever had the need to visit a Myspace web page. To me, the social networking site might as well have not existed as it has passed me by without even a flickr.
It has never been on any Google results that I can remember when I have searched for an artist or a band. With Google now owning Youtube together with their own fledgling Google+ social site, I cannot see that changing any time soon.
So up and coming artists, where is their future without Myspace showing their wares? Where will the next Lily Allen or much acclaimed Adele come from if not from Myspace? From all accounts it looks like not just one social networking site but a combination of the main three.
From the latest ComScore social media stats, there are still a fair number of (US) unique visitors. It is though small in number, just 15% in fact, when compared with the goliath that is Facebook . But is this a true representation of the Myspace situation worldwide?
If it is, it shows that Myspace is still very much alive as its closest rivals are Linkedin and Twitter with 40% more visitors each. If not, as I am sure other continents and cultures will have massively varied results, it is still a matter for debate.
The ICSS (International Centre for Sport Security) is a global leader in sport security based in Qatar, providing training, research and consulting across the world. Underscore is delighted to have delivered visual, technical and content support for websites to help the promotion of the ICSS and their International Sport Security Conference, and the sharing of information and knowledge with members of their community.
We created three multilingual sites, supporting a host of media including photo galleries, videos on demand and live streaming of their conference. The International Sport Security Conference site promotes their high profile event, and the ICSS branded knowledge portal allows information sharing and discussion between ICSS members and industry experts.
To see the sites in action, visit:
www.theicss.org
www.internationalsportsecurityconference.com
Ally Pally is due to become the biggest hospitality house for competitors, sponsors and spectators in the capital during the London 2012 Olympics. As the unofficial Dutch Embassy “for fun” during the Olympics the Holland House will host entertainments every night for up to 6,000 people, and as the brand guardians for the venue we look forward to some interesting challenges!
The BBC have featured the iconic North London venue in a TV piece: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17030930
If you’ve got a keen eye you might catch some of Underscore’s signage in the background!