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Cursive Buildings

We all loved the Sleeve Face phenomenon that swept the nation, then it just become a little "done". Don't fret however, as now we have Cursive Buildings (I think that's what they're called??).
Created from animated gif's of usually 2 images "Cursive Buildings" create 3 dimensional perspective by adjusting the pictures visual layers.

See more of these brilliant yet possible epileptic fit educing images at:
CursiveBuildings.com

Shake like a Jelly

We'd like to say a big thanks to the lovely Marina Orlova for mentioning our YouTube account, KeirsCallahan, in her highly informative "Shake it like Jello" video.

Ever found yourself tormented by the ignorance of not knowing where the word flabbergasted comes from? Us too. But don't worry, Marina, aka HotForWords, was there to help:


"Shake it like Jello"

Sometimes it can be a bit of a chore to express exactly how you're feeling, but thanks to everyones favourite Russian philologist that struggle exists no more. Tackling a plethora exciting words and phrases each week, Marina is the #1 - most subscribed 'Guru' on YouTube. If you're yet to see the best of her oeuvre, click here to browse the words already covered.

YouTube
Official Website

Thanks also to Tim for alerting us of our long awaited mention! "Another mystery solved by your trusty HotForWords."

Bringing the creative portfolio right up to date.

This week Campaign magazine ran the feature:


Bringing the creative portfolio right up to date
by Matt Williams Campaign 11-Sep-08, 15:00

Creative graduates are now showcasing their work on the web. Creative chiefs review four online portfolios.

Guess what, we may not quite be graduates yet (1 year to go), but they were kind enough to give us a mention anyway!

Will Awdry, creative partner at Ogilvy and previously of DDB & BBH fame, nominated our site for the article.

At first we were apprehensive, we simply haven't had time to update the site for a few months. Having recently made huge changes to our print portfolio, updating the layout, adding new work, and binning a lot of old ideas, we had planned to tackle the online version next. However it seemed we had nothing to worry about, Will Awdry had given us a brilliant report.

Below is a section of the Campaign article.
The whole article can be read in the current issue of Campaign or online at www.brandrepublic.com/Campaign

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Joe Keirs and James Callaghan, unattached
Apprasied by Will Awdry creative partner, Ogilvy

Among legions of toads, Joe and James' oeuvre is a real prince. Granted, they don't leave a phone number and the telly wasn't loaded in when I saw it, but their stall is positively groaning. Some of the ideas are clever, some dangerous and some, well, plain demented.

There's a parody of the Coke "11.30am" spot for the Dairy Council. It's a little extreme.

They have tucked into a British Library brief using offal as their medium. A Photoshop, stop-frame dancing cat fronts an estate agent.

There are nice ideas for Ted Baker window displays, an exquisite homage to Eric Gill for Leeds University's visual identity and an approach to possible cottaging locations that balances serious intent with understandable provocation.

The team posts snapshots of themselves, like strange refugees from Wet Wet Wet, but they're deeply ironic, so that's alright.

There's a Flickr section, a blog, some great YouTube picks and a shed-load ?of other stuff. The site is copyrighted and they even run a shop from it.

The assembly evidences great craft and wit. I don't like all of it and some ideas are naïvely gauche, others a little familiar.

I'm not really sure whether they know if they are designers or ad people. They clearly don't give a toss about what sort of media channel they operate in.

I was able to absorb all of this in five minutes.

Of course, I'm now eager to meet them. They've used the medium du jour to get themselves across to their audience - creative directors - in a smartly digestible way.

As it stands, their "portfolio" doesn't guarantee them a job, nor would I give up on hard-copy cousins as a result. But it does put them out there in a highly seductive competitive set.

www.JamesandJoe.co.uk

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Our good friends from the old D&AD workshop days, Eddie Fisher and Charlie Hurst also got a mention for their brilliant and ever so slightly homo erotically titled site www.eddielovescharlie.com.
Well done boys, and congrats on Kittcatt Nohr.

Barkley video

Check out this insane and beautiful video from Gnarls Barkley. Even the casting is perfect, the every couple, the you, the me, that breakup. These guys rarely disappoint with their videos, possibly because they are willing to take a risk and do something differnt.


The video reminds us of a lovely little shoot we did a little while back.

The art of commentry

Having started out enjoying the comment culture over at Jai & Wal's blog Creative in London, James and I are beginning to get a little surprised by the bitter taste of negative comments that seem to stalk many of their posts. It seems like they have an audience that deliberately go on their blog to leave scathing criticism. But Jai & Wal love it, as they still allow anonymous posting... which is great, so all opinions remain welcome.

Fortunately for James & I we don't seem to have that problem just yet. Averaging around -2 comments per post, our blog is like a silent ninja (The sexy way of saying no-one reads it). So amongst all this comment chat, we found ourselves reading an article by Toby Francis from Cracked.com. It's brilliant countdown of the top Obnoxious Internet Commentors out there.


#8. The Non-Believer

Maybe you could reply to this post as someone from the list? Or maybe not.

Sexy species

"The ugly redheaded stepchildren of the animal kingdom don’t get much attention compared to the perennial endangered animal favorites like pandas, polar bears, and owls" says Sara in a feature on webecoist.com. This particular feature hosts a handsome collection of "the world's weirdest endangered species".

Having checked out the showcase, I'm once again amazed by the everlasting power of looking at... freaky beasts. It certainly is a hard to match pleasure, and also vaguely educational. Who would have thought the below amphibian, technically half-snake half-man, would usually live to 100?


Mr. Olm

Here's another, less informative, site that exhibits some of the world's even better looking creatures. There's genuinly something for everyone, if you like cute check out the komondor, if you're more of a 'eugh' girl then knock on this Star-nosed mole's door, and who wouldn't want to go to the disco with this little shaker:


Mr. Axolotl

But if this is all too contemporary for your freaky beast needs, there's a collection of ten extinct animals here, some charming illustrations.

"Maybe if she looks at this image she will understand and become my wife again."

After reading about the sad extinction of Polaroid film on the This is how I roll blog I came across the above image by Vava Ribeiro.
It is part of Dazed Digitals article Polaroid Nation. Its a beautiful and emotive image, even more so when you read the artist's credit.
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Vava Ribeiro - 'This one I shot of the TV wile watching Brooke Shields on Blue Lagoon. That movie had such an impact on me. Here Brooke looks like my future-ex wife minus the blue eyes. I don't think she (my ex) knew that. Maybe if she looks at this image she will understand and become my wife again.'

Blogging made easy

We've known about Google reader for a while now, but have only recently started using it to its full potential. It's a great application that will make your blog browsing that little bit easier, collecting all the new posts from your favourite blogs and putting them in one place. Simple.


Google Reader explained

As part of our university course, our year group have been encouraged to keep a blog on anything they deem of interest. It's a great collection of around 100 students recording/ remarking on things they find intriguing in the world today.

By creating a folder in your Google reader and adding these blogs you can check on all the new posts without having to visit each page individually, making it very easy to keep up to date with everyone.

So, to save you entering all 100 or so of our coursemates blog links into your Google readers, we've exported it all here for you to download. It can also be found on our right hand bar for future use. Once you have downloaded the file simply go into google reader, click on Manage subscriptions (at the bottom left), then Import/Export, and just upload the file.

Hopefully, this application can help increase the activity across our blogs and start to see their full potential by seeing what people are talking about and increasing discussion in the comment sections.

After reading this particularly boring copy, here's some eye candy: