Pictionary Campaign, Ogilvy & Mather

Really like the simplicity of this campaign for Pictionary by Art Director, Juan Jose Posada of Ogilvy & Mather. However would it make me go out and buy Pictionary or would I just think to play it if I was really bored one day? Although it reminds me about the game, it doesn't give me a reason to buy the game as opposed to just playing it, I have no idea what the advantages are of actually owning it...

La Geode, Cite des Sciences, Paris

La Geode at the Paris Science museum is really very impressive. It's like a miniature planet that changes appearance with the weather, time of day and angle from which you look at it.


La Géode is a sphere with a diameter of 36 metres, consisting of 6433 steel triangles. It cost 130 million francs to build.

"The Bayswater Omnibus", 1895 by George William Joy and "They Could Not Imagine", 2009 by Gasan

The first of these paintings, "The Bayswater Omnibus", shows passengers inside a horsedrawn omnibus. The artist's wife and daughter posed as the mother and young girl on the left.

Joy described the passengers, "In the farthest corner sits a poor, anxious mother of children, her foot propped on an untidy bundle; beside her, full of kindly thoughts about her, sits a fashionable young woman; next to her the City man, absorbed in his paper; whilst a little milliner, bandbox in hand, presses past the blue eyed, wholesome looking nurse in the doorway."

The artist of the second painting, "They Could Not Imagine" said:
"I was interested in how the artist had different classes of society together, and wondered how realistic this was. The painting provides so much information about how people lived, from fashion to travel and advertising. I transported these people into 21st century life. The ladies are fascinated by what they see and the businessman has already adapted with his laptop. The smaller characters have been affected by the recession, but the balloons represent hope. The fading reflection of St. Paul's shows Christianity as a traditional lifestyle disappearing, which I think is sad."

Both photographed in the Museum of London.

"Viaduct", 1998, Michael Johnson

This painting from 1998 is a bitter comment on Modern Britain, made at the time when London was enjoying its reputation as the fashion "capital of cool".

It is set on Holborn Viaduct in London. On top of the viaduct are Arts Council officials, artist Damien Hirst, politician Peter Mandelson, businessmen, scientists and their mad-cow creations. Mandelson is holding the Millenium Dome and Hirst is holding a pickled sheep.

Under the viaduct are the poor, whose contributions to the National lottery keep the arts going.

Photographed in the Museum of London

Museum of London

I visited the Museum of London to see the "Exploring 20th Century London" exhibition. In amongst all the "history stuff" were some examples of the early advertising and a printing press dating from 1780.





1780s Printing Press:

Some examples of early promotional posters:

The more typefaces the better:
www.dollardreadful.com:


Link: Museum of London, Advertising

Espace Dali, Paris

I recently visited the Salvador Dali museum in Paris, Espace Dali. I didn't really know anything about the surrealist artist before I went and was suprised to find that I really liked his work and found it very interesting. Not long before I visited the Museum of Modern Art in the Pompidou Centre and had been really dissappointed by the works there so I was pleased to have my interest in art reinvigorated!

Salvador Dali (1904 - 1989) was particularly interested in the juxtaposition between the strength and fragility of life forms, in particular the snail, with it's tough outer shell protecting it's vulnerable, slug body.
"As Dalí believed that nothing occurred simply by accident, he was captivated when he saw a snail on a bicycle outside [Sigmund] Freud's house, connecting the snail with the image of a human head; more particularly, with the head of Freud. Dalí was also fascinated by the natural geometry of snail shells, and like the egg, the duality of its soft interior with its hard exterior." (Quoted from this site.) This is his sculpture, "The Snail and the Angel":Another animal that fascinated him was the elephant. Dali liked to exaggerate this contrast but giving the elephant long spindly legs in his pieces of art:


This work of art is particularly interesting as Dali has taken a proposal for the site of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to be used as the body and trunk of the elephant:" There was a pre-Napoleonic (1758) proposal by Charles Ribart for an elephant-shaped building on the location of the current arch." (Quoted from this site)

Here are some other items I photographed in the museum....

From his "Alice in Wonderland" series:
Sculptures:
Some of his furniture designs:


Espace Dali Website

"Dreamlands" Exhibiton, Pompidou Centre, Paris

The title of this exhibition came from the name of an amusement park built in 1904 at Coney Island in New York. Dreamland marked the beginning of a sensational new movement in architecture. Dreams were becoming reality.

Dreamland Amusement Park, 1907. This was to be a high-class entertainment village with elegant architecture, exhibitions, rides and thrills however the park was destroyed by a fire in 1911.

The exhibition had a section about Salvador Dali's "Dream of Venus" pavilion for the New York's World Fair in 1939. This was a piece of installation art before installation art had even begun. You can guess that the pavilion was a very weird and wonderful place; topless mermaids swimming around, a leopard-faced mannequin covered in shot glasses, Venus in her boudoir....

"Skyline" by Kader Attia is a collection of fridges covered in tiny mirror panels.

"Delirous New York" original cover by Rem Koolhaas.

“Nothing Stops a New Yorker” by Malachi Farrell. This was a quirky piece of installation art, the cardboard skyscrapers were at first made to do a work-out then that was interrupted by news reports from September 11th, terror alerts broadcasts and exerts from Public Enemy songs. It was interesting how the artist had surrounded the skyscrapers by junk. It seemed to show the collapse of New York's infrastructure and the nature of our "disposable" way of life accumulating in the streets. The installation was cleverly placed by the panoramic windows of the Pompidou centre, showing the city carrying on behind as if forever into the distance.

Museo Games Exhibition, Paris

I visited an exhibition held at the Musée des Arts et Metiers in Paris all about the history of video games over the last 40 years.

I learnt a little bit about the history of video games, but it's so brief that it's not particularly interesting. The exhibition was really there to re-play games-gone-by rather than to learn however. I think it was my first experience of seeing things that I used to have in a museum...except for the Spice Girls easter egg at the Museum of Brands, but we won't go into that! I have to say it was a bit surreal, I don't consider myself a "gamer" but I was pretty pleased/surprised to re-play RayMan!

One thing that caught my eye was this "Keaton vs Mario Scroll" (which i handily found on Youtube) which shows footage from Buster Keaton's "Seven Chances" (1925) and Super Mario Bros' videogames (1985 onwards).




Museo Games site

Mia's Website

I've been keeping an eye out for truly original website designs and I've definately found one.

Mia's website is mad. I don't think I have ever seen so many animated gifs at one time! I do however really love it. I felt like a hacker using the site, it feels like you have access to a personal computer and that you shouldn't really be using it.


Mia is well known for her political views. Recently she released "Born Free" which was accompanied by a video/short film directed by Romain Gavras which I know realise was acually working as a trailer for a film to be released in September this year, "Nortre Jour Viendra" or "Our Day Will Come".

Links :
miauk.com
dailymotion.com/
notrejourviendra.com/

Put Me to the Test - Stream London

I've now finished my third brief from my Put Me to the Test experiment given to me by direct marketing agency, Stream London.

Brief: Buddies are know to vets as the company that delivered the puppy pack - a free pack given to all owners of puppys/kittens. This good will means they can have POS in Vets promoting their pet insurance. The only real competitor in this environment is PetPlan. The proposition to pet owners is - Buddies - competitive pet insurance from the young pet specialists.

Target Audience: Owners of young pets (puppies, kittens)

Deliverable: Point of Sale Item

Deadline: One week

Solution:Sitting in the waiting room at the vets can be very boring especially for a family with young, restless children. My Point of Sale stand could hopefully add some fun to the long waits.

I wanted to make a POS stand that could be interacted with. The thought of the stands at the beach where the family put their heads through the holes and take a photo sprang to mind. Since the insurance is for puppies and kittens, I thought perhaps they could put their heads through the holes and the families at the vets can take pictures on their phones/digital cameras.

The idea behind the astronaut and biker suits was that the animals are ‘protected’ with Buddies insurance. ‘Insured pets have more fun!’ emphasises how insured pets are happier and healthier than uninsured pets.

I have added paw track stickers to the floor to encourage interaction with the stand.



Feel free to leave me feedback, that is the aim of it after all!
Plus, feel free to Put Me to the Test by clicking this button: