Everywhere West: Life On The Periphery

In college, I was never big into fictional literature, so I typically avoided enrolling in any English classes that were based in the genre. Now that I’ve been out of college for a few years, I still like seek more knowledge about my industry from sources other than my bookmarks bar. I picked this book up a few weeks ago. (And by ‘picked up’ I mean bought online). Here is the excerpt from Amazon:

“We are now living in a world with over one hundred brands of bottled water. The United States alone is home to over 45,000 shopping malls. And there are more than 19 million customized beverage choices a barista can whip up at your local Starbucks. Whether it’s good or bad, the real question is why we behave this way in the first place. Why do we telegraph our affiliations or our beliefs with symbols, signs, and codes?

Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits contains twenty interviews with the world’s leading designers and thinkers in branding. The interviews contain spirited views on how and why humans have branded the world around us, and the ideas, inventions, and insight inherent in the search.”

As you can see, I’m about halfway through. It’s pretty interesting so far. The book is formatted as a series of interviews with each chapter being a different interviewee from the branding/marketing/advertising industry.  So far, so good – I recommend it for anyone looking for a quick read on the subject.

This looks great. Being in a city surrounded by a bunch of small farm towns, it’s always awesome to see some ghost signs on brick buildings.

See more at: http://signpaintermovie.blogspot.com

SIGN PAINTERS (OFFICIAL TRAILER) from samuel j macon on Vimeo.

Love this video featuring the work of David A. Smith. This is the type of trade craft that cannot die:

The Making of John Mayer’s ‘Born & Raised’ Artwork from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

I came across an interesting article today at work that opened my eyes to an issue I had no idea existed. Like many, I watched the Oscars last Sunday and remembered two distinct points throughout the night. One: When the cast of The Avengers botched the intro to nominees of the Visual Effects category (seriously, why do they let Samuel L. Jackson continue to speak on live television [ google ‘Samuel L Jackson SNL f bomb’]). And Two: An award winner’s speech being prematurely cut off by the orchestra. That speaker, Bill Westenhofer, was giving his acceptance speech for the work done on ‘Life of Pi’. Turns out, through mismanaged contacts, over promising and under paying, producing this film bankrupted the visual effects company that employed nearly 600 artists on the project.

I feel for the artists in the industry who are getting snubbed in this situation. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of work that goes into inking Hollywood movie contracts, but here’s a case where 600 people worked their asses off only to have their company bankrupt. Hollywood has forever been one of this country’s greatest exports. It would be sad to see it have to outsource an entire industry just to keep more money at the top. It will be interesting to follow this story as it develops.

(photo from Wall Street Journal)

Ah, that wonderful time of the year has come and gone. With the Super Bowl (and football in general) in the re-view mirror, I thought I’d give my two-cents on my personal favorite spots.

Dodge Ram Trucks

I dig this ad for a couple reasons. One, the imagery is flawless and epic. And the way the photos are treated with a subtle 2 1/2D brings it over the top. The copy and VO is great and fits well this brand. It reminds of of the Wieden+Kennedy spot Levi’s featuring Walt Whitman. Though I didn’t grow up on a farm, some of my very best friends come from communities like these represented in this ad. Listening to them recall stories about farm life from their youth is both foreign and amazing to me. 

GoDaddy.com

This ad had me rolling with laughter. Excellent editing seamlessly binds the copy of several different conversations relating to purchasing a website for “that big idea.” Clever copy, no fluff, punchy ending. Solid commercial.

Deciding to discontinue using my tumblr as an image-sharing platform. Instead, I’m going to work to convert this feed over to my professional blog. Time to grow. Stay tuned.

mattwrightsonblog:

You have probably seen the immensly popular EF Live the Language promo videos featuring Albin Holmqvist’s typography. Now you can see the rest of the typographic logotypes he designed for the series. Holmqvist was commissioned to design type for 40 destinations, and he brilliantly captures the essence for each location. Check out more from the series here.

via Design Work Life

I stumbled across this ad tonight on the Chicago Egotist tonight. It’s a 15 minute ad for the country of Perú but filmed in a small Nebraska town called Peru. A bus load of real Peruvians arrived in Nebraska and took over the town and shared parts of their culture with the locals. Among the traveling representatives of Peru were chefs, dancers and musicians. Of course, there were the other stereotypical archetypes like a Alpaca farmer and long-locked surfer.

I’d like to think I know a thing or two about Nebraskans. Having lived here for six years (thank God not in that small of a town), I’ve picked up an understanding on how small town life is like. Unfortunately for the state of Nebraska, this is a very accurate depiction of those communities-small, guarded, hesitant, and ultimately low on the culture scale.

This is a good ad for Perú. Unfortunately it comes at the expense of exploiting a community that close to home. To anybody our there reading, I want to make a disclosure. The following ad is not a representation of the State of Nebraska but one, small town that happens to share the same name of the country.