Brilliant and simple

Via Billboardom, these brilliant posters for Google Video. Thank heavens for very simple, very brilliant, completely engaging ideas like this. Rather than telling you things are wonderful, like the aforementioned VW ad, this simply allows you to make things wonderful for yourself. And soak up the brand in the process, of course. This is the way it should be.

Enough already!

Having just bemoaned the lack of originality in TV ads, it was with a sinking heart that I came across the latest VW ad (via Scamp).



They're not making something physical this time, but is it necessary to point out the tonal similarities to all those other ads? That slightly kooky, hey-isn't-this-just the-greatest-world-we-live-in? kind of goofy/cleverness that infects all those cake cars and streamer rainbows? And of course there's the obvious similarity to Honda's Choir ad (splendidly spoofed here), as Scamp points out too.

Could we have something else now, please?

Digital/mechanical mirrors

I've just discovered the work of Daniel Rozin, who creates these quite incredible mirrors made of wooden pegs, tiles and other materials. The mirrors are linked to software that breaks a video image down into a sort of pixelated form, and then manipulates the pegs (or whatever). The effect is extraordinary:



This has nothing directly to do with words, I admit. But it's beautiful, captivating and unique. If only all words could be so...

(Thanks to the splendid Watchismo Times for the link.)

This man might just save the world

The latest of Vanity Fair's special 'Green Issues' includes a profile of radical architect William McDonough, who believes we can and should build things that, like nature, ultimately return all their raw materials to the earth, or at least to the factories, to be re-used.

He calls it Cradle to Cradle, one of those brilliant rallying-call phrases that captures an entire philosophy in an instant. Rather than the Industrial Revolution approach of cradle to grave, where things are ultimately disposed of and wasted, this is a way to stimulate economic growth, have the wonderful things we want, and still rescue ourselves from environmental oblivion. Can it be true? Read it now and see.

(McDonough has also co-written a book called Cradle to Cradle, produced using only materials that conform to the 'C2C' philosophy. (No paper at all.) A book that is physical proof of its own theory in practice: quite something.)

I'd forgotten it was April Fool's Day

But johnson banks haven't. This gave me a chuckle.


Image nicked with the best will in the world. Please don't sue, Michael.

Well, for starters...

I just saw this in my local branch. All my Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells instincts erupted in a moment.

Inside, they repeat the headline. But this time without the offending mark. So not only are they incorrect, they're also inconsistent.

Why oh why oh why, etc.