saab aero

Here we have Saab beefing it up with their Aero X concept car. The photography for this ad and for the microsite itself is incredibly gloss giving it that glassed icy look. And they make that parallel in the video as the screen freezes over. Also in comparison is a jet fighter and as the roof slides open the idea of bubbles rising. Ok so a little pretentious for a pretty unremarkable car. Some angles do look quite good (the back has a kind of edgyness to it) but really you can tell this is Saab trying to be Audi or BMW. Oh and it is already starting to look dated. When was this car released? I figured about 2005 and now those blue lights at the front do nothing for me. Still this is a slick ad and it does what it is supposed to do for its target audience of no doubt male aspirational 25 to 40 year olds. Nothing remarkable with the microsite either which is a shame as there was a lot they could have done. This is a far better microsite for Saab. Much more interactive and a great way to use flash video.

javier ferrer vidal

I am totally blown away by this site for photographer Javier Ferrer Vidal who is in himself a fantastic photographer who concentrates on portrait work. This flash site is slick to the enth degree. The opening view of the kid in glasses has been broken up in Photoshop and put on layers within flash to create this really slick parallax effect. Little details like the plane flying through the sky really add to the drama of this shot. This kind of parallax thing is VERY in vogue at the moment and I can think of quite a few examples of this being implemented really well (check out this months winner over at the IAB for a good example). I am actually deeply involved in a project now for a client who wants this effect to showcase their product.

As you delve deeper into this site you get to the photography which is all laid out in a 3D space in a haphazard manner. Rolling over one image turns it to greyscale and blurred (god bless flash 8) and clicking on an image gives you an enlarged version. The navigation throughout is simple. One click to zoom in and another to zoom out. This style of navigation is quite intuitive these days and it is pretty much a given that by clicking on the background it will take you back out. I think this kind of work will lead nicely into any multi-touch work that may come in the future as we figure out what kind of gestures will work for this new interface (check out my other blog posts on multi-touch).

And then to finish off there is the contact section with an underlying bit of video as a background of some people on a merry-go-round. As you move your mouse right they playhead goes forward and as you move left it goes back. Yes this is really simple to implement but the effect is perfect especially given the subject of the video. Oh and underpinning all this work is a sound track of considerable talent. It is perfectly fitting and really quite catchy. All round a great site, perfectly exectued in my mind.

big yellow

Ah the simple things in life. A great stop-motion animation here from the folks over at Big Yellow. A simple and effective ad. Highlighting all the junk we accumulate in life as waves of an ocean crashing about a house. Really nicely animated to the sounds of the ocean. I had an idea to do something similar in my back garden as we have a pool of gravel for a garden and I could envisage waves of gravel moving about. Hmmm I sense a project coming on.

night tennis

Thanks to Scott for this one. Night tennis. Two pro tennis players. A pitch black court. UV clothing. Music by Paul Oakenfold. 3 minutes. Awesome. This was a great way to meld sport with music and align a phone brand to both. It looks really cool and must've been great for the audience to watch. Kind of like clubbing but in a more passive way. Anyway I thought this was a great idea. The website itself is also worth a look as it's a slick flash site. I guess it must've been quite hard for the players to actually hit the ball what with all the lights and sounds but the way it all came together surely was a sight. Check out the article over at Adverblog.

self titled

If, like me, you are constantly on the look out for new and interesting ways to navigate through a site you will love this one from John Iacoviello. Given a simple circle as the main navigation tool you click and drag to move the bar around the circle. Each segment of the nav is a section of his site and the colour coding helps you to move to different sections. This is something unique I think and really quite intuitive. Oh and also there are a bunch of flash actions available for you to download so check out the yellow section if you are a fellow Flashter.

don't try this at home

Check out these sculptures made from books. Scottish born Georgia Russell uses a scalpel to create these gorgeous creations. Taking the mundane in shape and turning it into a work of art. Stunning.

shotcode

Welcome to the world of the shotcode. This is the revolution of the barcode as we find a new way to grab information from our static world. So the concept is this: a shotcode can be placed on any printed ad or screen and the user can take a picture of this code with their camera phone and through a piece of software can identify the hidden URL and take the user to exclusive online content. So each shotcode represents a unique URL and could in fact be the location of your homepage, which was the case for this girl who had her shotcode tattooed on her neck. Extreme? Well yes considering the URL didn't work properly. Oops. But this technology could end up being quite useful commercially although I doubt people will be quick to download the correct software for their phone (better if it comes pre-installed). The existing technology used in these kind of content delivering print ads relies on bluetooth technology but this does involve extra, and often expensive, tech. Shotcode does not. And this will be appealing to the business world. We'll see what the uptake of this is like.

flowers feed the soul

Flowers feed the soul is a great site that definitely needs rediscovering. I was doing a little research yesterday on The FWA site (Flash Web Awards) for a project we are working on. And I stumbled across this FFTS site which I had seen before but really would just like to share it. I absolutely love the meld of stop-motion animation with flash to create this gorgeous little environment. It is really ornate and layered and rich with detail. The guy is a flower designer who wants to create flower arrangements for you based around your mood. This is a cool concept and I hope he did well with this site. I think it works. It is quirky and different and quite brave.

got milk?

This has got to be the most gorgeous looking desk out there and having a nice sleek Mac sitting on top all the better. It seems to be perfectly designed to fit a pro mac upon its shiny surface and almost follows the form of the Apple Studio display and iMac design to the T. iWant people iWant.... Check out the site here.

the future's bright....the future's Intel

With the swap over to the Intel chip over at Apple just a fading memory now, it seems clear that Intel's future is very bright indeed. They are commited to providing more power for their chips any way possible. And now they are looking to power a whole gammut of mobile devices shown here in a demo of possible future apps. I must say this ad has me drooling (thanks to whoever sent this round the agency today). The only problem is that I am impatient. I want this technology now. I do, however, understand that there is a big gap between dreaming of a technological future as perceived in science fiction and actually living, breathing and using the tech in day to day life. As I sit outside working on my laptop I think nothing of the incredible technology that is in place to power my surf on the net. Yet here it is. The future is, in fact, now. But the dream of a perfect future where technology is so advanced that it blends seamlessly into one's life is really appealing. Oh and I do love the minimalist look that so many of these films sport (has there ever been a cluttered vision of the future sporting hi-tech gadgets? I suppose Children of Men came close). Any thoughts?

photographing kids

It was an absolutely gorgeous day yesterday and quite a surprise for April. It was like a hot summer's day without a cloud in the sky. I took the opportunity to do some photography as we were visiting my Aunt in Sussex, it being my neice's 5th birthday and my cousin's 16th. Naturally the focus of the day was on the kids and I got chance to use my trusty Canon 350D SLR. I set the camera to black and white mode. Now I know I could do this in Photoshop but there is some satisfaction gained from shooting in B&W from the outset as you are really looking for movement and pattern over colour. It is also great when previewing as I am often inspired to take different shots to when I shoot in colour. It's not an obvious work flow for having a digital camera but one I find satisfying. You do have to be careful when doing this as no colour information is recorded and no way of turning a b&w image into a colour one. So taking photographs of kids....my advice: stick the camera on continuous shutter mode and fire away. You will need a big memory card but the results are worth it. Yes you are going to discard 95% of your images but you will capture that glint in the eye or that look of total amazement which you will never capture any other way. Get the kids busy as well. Have an activity. There is nothing worse than posed kids pictures. They are much more alive when playing and immersed in something. I also set my camera to manual focus for most of the day so that I could really keep the attention on what I wanted to whilst blurring background elements out. It is also really interesting to have the focus on something else and have the kids blurry as often they are bouncing about anyway. Check out my flickr photoset here.

gondry the ads

I thought for this rather glorious Sunday I would indulge into a little more Michel Gondry this time with his TV adverts. His love of repetition and loops is evident again here in a stunning ad for Smirnoff where narrative and time are irrelevant as our hero dives from one unrelated scene to the next. Each fall into a new land is made possible by peering through the Smirnoff bottle and seeing the new world unveil. What is great here are the transitions between scenes. I especially like the way the bald guy's head becomes the spaceship. Next up is Gondry's ad for the Gap. Here his perfect sense of rhythm has his dancers perfectly orchestrate a routine that has them blending with each other and exploding into others in a full range of colour. A very memorable winter season ad. Oh and I have left you also with his Levis ad which is shot in delicious black and white with a totally edgy feel. Again a powerful sense of drama here as a scratchy sound track delivers it's punch in a wry narrative. A bit of a diversion for Gondry but a classic none-the-less.

Smirnoff



Gap



Levis

graffiti research lab

Ever wanted to try your hand at graffiti but were afraid of getting mown down by a passing train? Got delusions of grandeur? Well this combines the two and might just be what you were looking for. Drawing graffiti on skyscrapers with no consequences. Awesome. Check out the video here. The artist gets a light pen and a device behind tracks your movements thus translating them into a projection of light onto your chosen building. Sounds like fun to me :)

denis darzacq

I am really liking Denis Darzacq's photography. He manages to capture a snippet of time and reveal it to look like something else. Here he captures his subjects as they seem to float in the air. The effect is stunning. Obviously what he is doing is capturing gymnasts mid flight with a fast shutter. But there is something about these floating bodies juxtaposed against the urban backdrop that make this photo set really interesting....

aphex twins

Good golly gosh and grief. I stumbled across this list of the weirdest music videos ever made and this was number one. I've got to say I was bricking it whilst watching it at work. This honestly shocked and scared me to death. It is totally chilling and bizarre and gets more so as it goes on. Watch this with EXTREME CAUTION as it is liable to scar you for life. You have been warned.

swim

Here's a treat. This short film by movie makers Floris Kaayk and Sil van der Woerd from the Netherlands. It is a stark realisation of a fertility clinic and the consequences of playing God for a moment. The two seem fascinated by the world of the minutae and endeavour to explore such tiny worlds. Check out their portfolio site over at Microbia.

exoforce

So with the new agency locale at Clerkenwell I am in need of some new office toys. Luckily being the geek I am I have some lego exo force given to me for Christmas. I hadn't actually opened it until today and truth be told it is awesome :) Based on a manga cartoon style, this range of lego breathes new life into the lego range. It looks really great in a cool transformer way. Might have to get a few more ;)

one over

Mmmmm this portfolio site from Jon Ruppel, a designer/developer from Los Angeles, is just gorgeous. He has focused on a really clean layout that you can fully customize by changing background, layout and content. Interestingly this made me view a lot more of his work. I am loving the motion he has achieved in his tweens and I suspect he has discarded such crutches as the tween class in favour of hard coding it himself. The technique, if I am right, is this: nail your tween on the timeline and tweak it until it is perfect adding all those little extra bounces that make it look great (you'll need a high frame rate to get this looking good, I'd say 31 fps is best); then get flash to trace the x, y pos for you and push those to an array; use that array as the guide for each future tween and discard your timeline work. If anyone is really interested post a message and I'll send you some sample code as to how I would go about doing that. Check out the work here.

jarratt moody

Oh this is just lovely. Jarratt Moody has devised this awesome animation using only typography to deliver 'that' speech from Pulp Fiction. Ok *warning* do not click on this link if you are a bit sensitive to harsh language.

got milk

Some serious production values have gone into this excellent flash site built for the 'Got Milk?' campaign. What is lovely here is the attention to detail with a 3D modelled environment built to look like a miniature island. Tapping into our childhood love of board games you even get to toss a realistic looking die about your screen. Ok so the gameplay is a bit tough and if you are on a laptop with a trackpad you can forget it. But definitely worth a look and a bit of a play.

Play it here

ford womb

Oh this is just lovely. I'm pretty sure this is actual video taken with those new ultrasound techniques as opposed to CG. Amazing to see these creatures in the womb. And that polar bear (wow). Not sure about the message of the ad though. Ford being green conscious and appealing to a new generation of users. What about dealing with their existing gas guzzling market and trying to change a few attitudes? Just a thought :)

milk meets coffee

Check out this superb set of macro photographs. Taken as a drop of milk hits the hot surface of a cup of coffee. The results are spectacular and is a great way to view a normally mundane event. Enjoy ;)

LAB

Mathieu Badimon is doing some truely extraordinary work over at his LAB site. Working with some complex actionscript he is really pushing some boundaries in terms of creative coding. Some really beautiful stuff. I especially like the dynamic clock featured in the picture. Check it out.

dare tagged

In the best nature of GT and all who worked there we decided to send off our old building in a small way. Dave who has been there the longest ceremoniously ripped our old GT sign off the wall of the fourth floor to the cheers of all who were toasting our last day at the old building. Our rival company Dare who moved in next door to us at Great Titchfield St. to swanky offices, much to our chagrin at the time, got a friendly tag by one unnamed employee as the sign got taped to their office railings. He he. Much to our amusement whilst down the pub that afternoon the Dare people started blogging about it. Here is the link with all the comments. Thankfully it was taken in the spirit it was meant as we are now moving to even swankier offices in the city. Farewell Dare and farewell Great Titchfield St.

What is really odd is that someone else has set up a website called weweregoodtechnology with all the people's names who have left or are leaving..... not quite sure what is meant by that????

More to come on this and pictures too I hope....

seb przd

Check out Seb Przd's flickr set here. This guy is a master of using some extraordinary camera techniques to create some startling images. He has some great panoramic equipment coupled with some powerful photoshop plug-ins to create these gems. He has Escherized some pictures to create awesome spiral comped images like this one. His Stereographic Projections like the example pictures I have included can be seen here. And some great cloning work is found in this flickr set of his.