The grin of a rich man

Everybody loves Jamie Oliver, the essex boy done good. The cheeky chappy who calls his nan Tiger (How endearing). The man is a PR machine constantly churning out the image of a lovable, organic, clean cut, accesible, family orintated, ball of enthusiastic food worshipping energy. Dont get me wrong I bought into the brand Oliver when he burst onto the scene in 1999, i bought into it big time. However i cant shrug the feeling that in the years since, genuine enthusiasm has given way to bullshit... very profitable bullshit. This feeling has recently been reinforced by my first attempt to tackle one of 'Jamies 30 minute meals' which actually ending up taking over an hour. It appears i am not alone in my lack of speed, in yesterdays Evening Standard Miranda Bryant wrote about a cookery school in London that is offering disgruntled Oliver fans the opportunity to learn how to genuinely make a meal in half an hour. L'atelier des Chefs is offering the classes after hundreds of complaints about Jamie's latest book and its 'misleading' premise. So i suppose the question is do you blame him? If you were offered a massive bundle of cash to put your face behind a deceptive but ultimately harmless campaign would you? If you were sculpted into a characterture of yourself to please to public in return for fame and money, would you lose sleep?..... Probably not....fair play to the man.

High Society - Wellcome Collection

A fascinating exhibtion currently exhibiting at the Wellcome Collection in Euston, exploring drug use throughout the ages in art. It aims to look at the role of drugs from 16th century tobacco to twentieth century MDMA (ecstasy). Well worth a visit, highly recommended!

Bad Things That Could Happen...

Made by some friends of ours - THIS IS IT collective - see what you think..

Check out more of their animations and videos at http://thisisitstudio.blogspot.com/

How could the passing of time be portrayed to highlight the product's benefit?

Great bit of advertising from Bic permanent markers

JEREMYVILLE

 Have loved the work of this crazy Frenchmen for a while now. He produces prints, posters, skate decks, books, toys.. to name a few. Everything he touches is very loud, vibrant and beautifully laid out. The content of his work is evidence of a very active imagination, you can spend ages interpreting his visual 'stories' and personally, i dont get bored of them.
  To me Jeremyville is one of those illustrators who has bags and bags of creativity and has nailed down his style... the result of this is copious amounts of quality work. Check out his website www.jeremyville.com 

Hello Kitty collaboration.
Typically packed with energy.

Try this at home

Still cant figure out exactly how this was achieved. Whatever the method the end product is very cool.

Searching made easy

In this ad for the search engine Yahoo!, a real haystack pierced with a giant needle was placed next to a motorway, to show that Yahoo! makes it much easier to find a needle in a haystack.

Grind it in deeper

Pretty sure this campaign will have been banned in lots of places and understandably so. However doesnt detract from the fact that it is a clever piece of advertising. Bold, funny and immediate, made us smile.

Budweiser Fruit Remix

Think this video speaks for itself.

Put your dukes up

Sometimes things just work. This simple piece of graffiti is a great example of someone seeing something in the most mundane of objects and bringing it to life. I defy you not to smile.

Worth a watch

 

If you've got a spare moment I highly recommend spending it watching this. These guys have bags of talent and combined with some well edited time lapse they have produced a wicked little video. Really nice to see the process aswell as final product.

Got to start somewhere

This is for all of us who have had what seemed to be a ground breaking idea only for it to be completely belittled when you put pen to paper. Dont lose faith, ideas grow, evolve and blossom. Here is the original sketch for social networking site Twitter, not exactly the most intruiging visual spectacle or for that matter complexed equation, however turned out to be not such a bad idea in the end..

The History of Brands

These photos were taken at the 'Museum of Brands' in Notting Hill.  It shows package re-branding from the 1950s, after world war 1, up until a year ago. You can really see the similarity within all the products as they evolve through each decade.

Golden Voice

This is a must see. Ted Williams a homeless man finds a job and home after viral video success.

Billboard Liberation Front, Marlbore

Unfortunately not our handiwork, wish it was. Funny and fitting all the same.

Imminent splash

Love this

Cant quite figure it out. Have a go.

Natural Yawn

 Photography by Joe George

Farm Yard Yawn

Photography by Joe George

London's new skyline

Little people in the city- Slinkachu

Mixing sharp humour with a delicious edge of melancholy, Little People in the City brings together the photographs of Slinkachu, a street artist who for several years has been leaving little people in the bustling city to fend for themselves, waiting to be discovered.

Being a dickheads cool

Been out for a while, seems applicable to the fixie post.

Fixie bikes

The fixie bike has not only become a fashion statement but it has evolved into a contemporary piece of design. Through the simplistic use of line, shape and colour the bikes have become sculptural pieces of art in themselves. Seems a shame to ride them.

Beards are back?

This multi-media illustration by Jonas Bergstrand contrasts the ancient history of the beard with it's on going struggle to become a fashion accessory.  Personally I think they are dated, some stubble's fine but after a while you got to ask yourself, what am I hiding?

Black Swan Film Posters