T.S., Sweetheart

Growing up, "T.S." was my Dad's way of telling me I was out of luck. Fortunately, a new site has popped up which provides a much more pleasant meaning to the initials: Typography Shop

By browsing their site, you can tell its still in its infancy. Most pages are clever teasers asking viewers to be among the first to email them, but you can order their first offering, the Helvetica Neue Descending shirt, or purchase from their kids' line. Despite its youthful appearance, its apparent the Typography Shop is on the road to becoming a child prodigy. They're helping develop some creative prodigies as well—a portion of the sales are donated to design education programs. Bonus!


My super thoughtful boyfriend bought me one of their shirts before I even knew the shop existed (he knows me so well) so I'll be sure to update the post once it arrives.

Three's Company

I know, I know, its been too long since my last post, but I'm making it up to all of you by tripling the daily peeps today! I've come across alot of eye-catching threesomes lately (no, not that kind, dirty birds) that are worth sharing. Check them out:


Commands by Atmostheory

By now you've probably already seen these, but they're too awesome not to include. So simple, yet so meaningful to us Appleseeds. Lucky for us, this trio is available for purchase as a series of 5x7 digital prints at mylittleunderground.







Listerine: Kills 99% of Germs Campaign

I love this approach—capitalizing on the misery of that lonely 1% of the germs that are unfortunate enough to survive the power of Listerine. Not so tough without your friends, are you little germ?! The combo of the simple layout and adorable illustration make these ads as effective as the product.




Advertising Agency: JWT São Paulo, Brazil
Creative Director: Roberto Fernandes, Mario D'Andrea
Art Director: Fernanda Salloum
Copywriter: Myla Verzola
Illustrator: 6B estúdio
Published: May 2008

Peeped at adsoftheworld


Earth Hour: See your world in a new light.

I'm a sucker for lighting in photography, especially when it serves a purpose greater than just making a photo look nice. In this campaign, Earth Hour uses super subtle, yet dramatic lighting to communicate its message.





Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett Sydney, Australia
Executive Creative Director: Mark Collis
Creative Director: Stephen Coll
Art Director: Nils Eberhardt

Peeped at adsoftheworld

Daily Peeps!





Alka Seltzer


I definitely wouldn't want this collision going on inside my stomach, but I get the idea...Alka Seltzer doesn't mess around.

Agency: BBDO, Bangkok
Chief Creative Officer: Suthisak Sucharittanonta
Creative Director/ writer: Subun Khow
Art Director: supparat thepparat
Copywriter: kongpope siriwattanagarn
Photographers: Anuchai Sricharunputong, Nok Pipattungkul
Retoucher: Remix Studio Bangkok


Playboy: Subliminal Message


Sometimes less is more. In this case, I'd say less is about a 42FFF. Nice Headlights.

Agency: Philipp und Keuntje, Germany




Sharpie: Fingerprint


Advertising School: Miami Ad School Europe
Art Director: Dennis Wagner, Ratko Cindric
Copywriter: Thomas Kuhn


Save the pillars. Fiat Stilo with parking sensor.



Advertising Agency: Giovanni+Draftfcb, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Creative Directors: Adilson Xavier, Cristina Amorim, Fernando Barcellos
Art Director: Felipe Gomes
Copywriters: Fábio Penedo, Bruno Pinaud
Published: March 2008


Viagra: Freud


Advertising Agency: Arnoldvuga, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Creative Directors: Martin Mol, Radovan Arnold
Art Director: Barbara Hiti
Copywriter: Martin Mol
Photographer: David Fartek
Account Director: Tanja Gvozdenovic
DTP: Andrej Juvan
Published: February 2008

Creative Simulator

If you're like me, you want to see your design in application before final production—especially outdoor elements such as billboards and signage. Usually creating this preview involves a rendevous with Photoshop for transforming, masking & placing based on estimated proportions

...sigh...

How great would it be if there was a program to create the preview for you? and accurately!

Although I have yet to find that wonder program, I peeped something pretty close today: The Creative Simulator from Clear Channel Outdoor.

With the Creative Simulator, all you have to do is upload a jpeg of your artwork and then drag & drop to your heart's content to test your design on a variety of locations all over the world. Options include billboards, airport kiosks, bus shelters and transit vehicles (to name just a few) set in cities, countrysides and every environment in between. The program shows you the original distance the camera was from the subject to help gauge the effectiveness of your message. You can zoom in or out and even print or save out a jpeg of the final product straight from their user-friendly, easy-to-navigate interface.

If only I had a personal software guru to create a customized version because despite its awesomeness, the Creative Simulator distorts artwork if the aspect ratio's don't match. Also, since its international, most measurements are in meters so some unit conversion is required if you can't easily relate to the metric system.

Even if the simulator isn't perfect, it's definitely a good insight into the possibilities of previewing design in the future. It doesn't hurt that it's simply fun to play with either.

Here's a preview of the UI and a jpeg of what the Eye Spy header would look like on a billboard in Poland:

Design 21: Allumonde Ring

On a visit home to CT last weekend, my mom suprised me with an unexpected gift: a set of Allumonde rings from DESIGN 21. The ring, designed by Richard Hutten, is the symbol of the Social Design Network, the online community of socially conscious designers who believe social change can happen through the power of design. As they say on their website, "Better design for the greater good."

According to the Design 21 site, the rings range from $25 for an acrylic set to $2500 for an 18k gold version, however, the acrylic set of 3 I received was marked $6. 19% of the proceeds from your ring purchase go to the charity of your choice and 2% goes to UNESCO.

The rings are sleek and simple, yet the gap at their peak adds a bit of curiousity and intrigue. I'd love to ask Mr. Hutten about his design concept of this little beauty.

I absolutely adore my set—I have the black, turquoise and clear children's acrylic set and wear all three daily on my pinky. Check out the pics below and view all versions on the Design 21 site.

In this industry, we're all pretty much married to design, so we may as well wear its ring!

Loud as a Mouse

Today I came across one of the most successful logo designs I've seen in awhile. Johnson banks of the UK recently re-branded Microsoft's digital advertising awards, named Mouse. The company set out to embed a mouse image withing the type, and as you can see from the graphic: mission accomplished. By utilizing the copyright symbol, changing the color of the "o" and subtracting a specific shape from the word, they were able to create an intriguing, yet simple logo for the awards.

If you could have a pet logo, this would be mine...no contest :)



Read the full story and see more images here.

2007 Feltron Annual Report

People choose to document their lives in different ways—some keep diaries, some make scrapbooks, some blog (wink). Until recently, I've never heard of anyone creating a personal annual report as a means of documentation, but thats exactly what NYC's Nicholas Feltron produces every year. He compiles every statistic imaginable for a young Manhattanite: taxi fares, miles walked, vacation days taken, iTunes tracks played, even the percentage of his day he spent measuring everything for his annual report.

The end result is a super clean, infographic masterpiece. The stats don't mean much to us, the reader/viewer, but the report provides definite entertainment and some pretty sweet infographic design inspiration. Check out the report in its entirety here.

You can also view more of Feltron's professional work here.

Daily Peeps

JWT Coat Drive




Check out this striking installation piece created by JWT to illustrate & promote their coat drive. A giant homeless person was painted on a wall along with strategically placed coat hooks. As people hung their donated coats on the hooks, a coat is formed. Julie Rutigliano, is an artist who paints murals and volunteered her time to paint the sixteen foot homeless figure.

JWT ended up with too many coats to cover the figure in the end...about four times too many! I guess that means the installation was a success.

Agency: JWT, New York
ECD: Kash Sree
Copyriter: Scott Bell, Kash Sree
Art Director: Christina De La Cruz
Artist: Julie Rutigliano

found at adgoodness



Museum Des Sciences Naturelles


As a New Year greetings for 2008, a dinosaur museum sent colleagues and main sponsors a block of plaster and a hammer & chisel with an invitation to amateur paleontologists to dig, not for the bones of a mighty T-Rex, but to find the museum's greeting card.

Agency: McCann Erickson, Belgium.

found at directdaily


Pedigree: For the Love of Dogs


Translation: They don’t judge. They don’t hate. They don’t give up. For the love of dogs.

Advertising Agency: TBWA, São Paulo, Brazil
Creative Director: Cibar Ruiz
Art Director: Caio Grafietti
Copywriter: Marcelo Arbex

found at adsoftheworld



Suzuki Motorcycles



Invade their airspace.

If you're wondering what that font is, I believe it's Bleeding Cowboys. There's a free download for personal use here.

Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett Melbourne, Australia
Creative Director: Jason Williams
Art Director: David Poncedeleon
Copywriter: Andrew Woodhead
Published: January 2008

found at adsoftheworld

Daily Peeps

Every time I peruse ad & design blogs, I am amazed by how much amazing, inventive work is out there! People are so clever, I love it. Check out some of today's peep-worthy pieces:

Teknograd: Mac Support




Agency: 2008scandinavia

This project is the company's FIRST campaign! Talk about a good first impression :)

From their site: "A few weeks after the start, 2008scandinavia proudly presents the communication collective´s first campaign. This print campaign for our client Teknograd, a pc- and mac-support-company, targets the creative business, like ad agencies, graphic design agencies, well, creative mac-users, to make it short."



Mont Grand Fonds


Blue paper + sticker = simple & effective.

Agency: Blitz, Montreal
found at adgoodness





Guiness Dot by Psyop



Client: Diageo
Product: Guinness Ale
Title: “Dot”
Length:00:60

Agengy: IIBBDO, Dublin
Creative Director(s): Mal Stevenson
Art Directors: Jonathan Cullen.
Copywriter: Rory Hamilton
Producer: Onagh Carolan
Beer Stylist: Thomas Power

Found at motionographer
Higher-quality video here.



Scottex: Mailing on kitchen paper towel.


Direct Mailing piece to communicate the strength of Scottex kitchen paper towels to restaurant owners. They created a mailing made from real Scottex kitchen paper towels. These mailings were posted "as is", without an envelope, and sent to restaurants all over Belgium.

Agency: Duval Guillaume Antwerp, Belgium.

found at directdaily


Reebok "Butterflies"

How better to emphasize the shoe's lightness, colorfulness and versatility than by comparing them to butterflies. Perhaps a comparison to live butterflies would have been more relevant, but you get the idea :)

Agency: Serviceplan Munich, Germany.

found at directdaily

99.9999999% Effective

You have to see the new Clearblue Digital commercial (if you haven't seen it already). It has art direction & filming reminiscent of luxury automobile spots (think Jag-u-ar) and an oh-so-memorable tagline: "The most advanced piece of technology you will ever pee on…" Check it out:



It's nice to see Clearblue agreed to take the humor & surprise route to promote their typically unexciting product. Props to AmalgamatedNYC for talking them into it.

It's "unclear" how effective the spot will be with their target audience of potentially expecting women and paranoid teens, but its definitely noteworthy amongst us design & ad junkies.