As a sometimes-careless girl in her early 20s, I’ve had my share of laptop mishaps. Crashed hard drives, soda spilled on the keyboard, freak accident involving a burst rain pipe (most of those just weren’t my fault!) — name a computer-related tragedy and it’s likely I’ve experienced it. And since I’m far from wealthy enough to be able to afford a replacement laptop every time something goes terribly wrong, I’m not about to take my chances when it comes to my battle-weary notebook getting stolen. The solution? Make it look like a piece of junk with this Undercover Laptop Sleeve! Made to look like a crappy old envelope, the waterproof sleeve is actually quite heavy-duty in its protecting qualities with its tear-proof padding, yet its disguise is something thieves won’t even give a second look! Just make sure you don’t bring your incognito laptop with you to mailroom — accidentally shipping it off to China is one thing this sleeve can’t protect against.
John Maeda, president of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), has written a long article in the MIT Technology Review on how he recalls the Processing programming language and development environment taking shape in the creative hands of Ben Fry and Casey Reas.
“Processing was written and developed by two boys next door who are also visual and computational geniuses. Fry and Reas wrote it for themselves–and also for the world at large, to help everyone share in the rich vocabulary of computational expression. Processing exemplifies my core belief about education today: let the new generation do their thing and just get out of their way. Download it today, and play.”
During his time at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy [where I worked as well], Casey Reas crafted the Processing tool, also with the help of many of the Institute’s students – a fact that is mentioned in a comment by Victor Zambrano (“argonaut”).
Photo: Casey Reas uses Processing to create high-resolution photographic prints. “This image was generated by thousands of autonomous software agents carrying out their instructions,” he explains. “Shapes are drawn as they intersect-the size and colors are determined by the agents’ behaviors.” Credit: Casey Reas/Bitforms Gallery, NYC
Jeans always get front and center when it comes to icons of American style. But everyone knows the silent star is really the T-shirt. Where would James Dean, Marlon Brando, or Michael Jackson have been without the super simple, super sexy white t-shirt? There are several elements that elevate the standard tee: color, graphics, fit and, most importantly, fabric. The latter is what makes Market tees so amazing. The recently debuted line believes in simplicity. So they limit their collection to a variety of plain, cotton t-shirts that still manage to be infinitely comfortable and sexy. Drew Barrymore, Blake Lively and Lindsay Lohan have all been snapped while wearing them. What drives them to the brand is what will make you fall in love, too: buttery fabrics, rainbow colors, and the perfect fit. We got to test-run these tees and got more compliments than we can count. They’re perfect paired with jeans and sneakers or a chic mini-skirt and heels– and the prices are equally attractive at $24 to $35. Click over to our friends at The Frisky to check out Market’s latest styles and colors and find out where to buy them online!
Une campagne d’affichage réalisée par l’agence Mayo Draft FCB, autour du plaisir de la lecture. Destinée à la librairie Rayuela, il s’agit d’une belle illustration de l’imaginaire déclinée en 2 principaux thèmes : l’univers des contes de fées, et la peur.
We’ve seen a few high-profile cultural institution bailouts, from Eli Broad‘s massive donation to keep Los Angeles’ MoCA alive and most recently the quick turnaround on keeping LACMA‘s struggling film program afloat. But what happens when it doesn’t work? Toward the end of last year, you might recall that Scotland’s national center for architecture and design, The Lighthouse, was inching ever closer toward demise until, about a month later, the national government and its city council stepped in to pump some money back in. Unfortunately, while the financial injection has kept The Lighthouse running these past eight months, it looks like they’re back in the same boat as they were before, already in deep debt and announcing that it will have no choice but to shut down by next week unless it receives additional funding. And while the last crisis seemed like it had some momentum behind saving it, this time around, having depleted their resources so quickly and getting into a huge amount of monetary trouble once again, there doesn’t appear to be as much support. Here’s a bit:
“The last rescue package was done in the hope that the board could find a way of improving the situation,” the source explained. “But The Lighthouse has proved just too expensive to run, it’s not being managed efficiently.”
The Scottish Government said no extra funding would be made available. A spokesman said: “We commend the excellent work The Lighthouse does and hope to see it overcome its present problems.”
Last week saw CR stage our first event in Asia – Click Singapore, which brought together speakers from China, Japan, the UK and the host country to discuss the future of digital creativity
Staged at Dempsey House – part of what was once a British Army barracks but that is now a complex of restaurants, bars and shops – Click was a one-day conference covering all aspects of online advertising.
Probably the most hotly debated issue of the day was how to sell digital work to clients, with our audience anxious to hear the advice from our international speakers. Their answer? That for a client to buy digital work requires a great deal of faith and trust. They may be used to a world where they can buy a guaranteed audience of x million for a TV spot at an alloted time – digital work often requires the audience to come to it. If it’s good enough, people will want to view it, but, although agencies can help via PR, seeding and so on, an audience cannot be guaranteed in the same way that it can on TV or in the press. Secondly, you are dealing with technology that often has to be built first before a client can get a true idea of what it looks and feels like. Tom Sacchi of Unit 9 explained how they draw up schematics and simple animations to show clients each step in the process, but even this requires a leap of faith to truly ‘get’ what the final work will be like.
From left to right: CR editor Patrick Burgoyne, Daryl Arnold of Profero, Benjy Choo of Kilo Studio, Mateo Eaton of Mindshare SIngapore, Nicolas Roope of Poke and Tom Sacchi of Unit9 discuss the problems of selling digital work
Sacchi also stressed that “people think digital is quick and cheap – it’s neither”. He stressed that it takes “small steps” to sell innovative digital work to clients, so that trust builds cumulatively. Nic Roope of Poke reinforced this, stressing that Poke’s work for Orange was only possible because it had been working with the client for some time, pushing things a little further with each project.
With the day interspersing individual presentations with panel discussions there were plenty of other discussion points – on education, on ex-pat versus local talent and also on the future for digital agencies. Here, the prevailing view seemed to be that so-called ‘traditional’ agencies will continue to develop digital capabilities while specialist digital shops will continue to benefit from their ability to innovate and lead technological development. Those looking vulnerable, our panel thought, may be the digital arms of traditional agency networks who are finding themselves squeezed between the main agency on one side and the small digital specialist on the other. All were also agreed that ‘digital’ agencies will no longer need to describe themselves as such – they will just be agencies. Daryl Arnold of Profero’s take was that his agency is positioning itself as an organisation that uses technology to help businesses solve their problems – so this may or not involve any visual communications.
In Nic Roope’s presentation, he showed a piece developed by Poke for the Design Museum’s Super Contemporary show charting just how much change there has been on the digital scene in London
Roope (above) also showed BakerTweet, a very nifty device installed by Poke at the Albion bakery across the road from its offices. As the below film explains, BakerTweet is a wall-mounted box that sends a message to Albion’s Twitter followers, alerting them each time a fresh batch of croissants, rolls or whatever emerges from the oven
One of the other more intriguing presentations came from Daryl Arnold, Profero’s global CEO. He talked about Factory, the centre for young creatives that the agency has recently opened in Shanghai (and which we alluded to here). Factory has a restaurant, event space, recording studio, digital studio and pop-up retail space, housed on the ground floor of Profero’s Shanghai building.
They offer young creatives in Shanghai the chance to come in and collaborate with one another using Factory’s equipment. They also bring in visitng VIPs such as Jimmy Choo and Quincy Jones to speak to and work with the young talent.
However, Arnold revealed that it has not been as easy as you may think to attract people to the space. Thanks to the one child per family rule, he claimed, young people in Shanghai have grown up with a huge sense of entitlement and, in some cases, expect opportuitites to be handed to them rather than having to strive for success. As an example, he revealed that Factory had set up one young musician with the chance to work with Quincy Jones in their recording studio one evening. She didn’t show up, explaining that she had deciced to have dinner with friends instead.
For more on Factory’s activities, check out the website here
We had some great feedback from the day and hope to return to SIngapore next year for a bigger and even better event. Next stop, Click New York on October 1 (info here).
Also, at Click SIngapore, Mattias Hansson of HyperIsland talked about how the school’s unique approach delivers such great results
Droga5 Sydney’s Sudeep Gohil explained how the agency comes up with its ideas
Morihiro Harano, Creative Director of Drill Inc in Tokyo
With CR’s Patrick Burgoyne, Johan Vakidis, Executive Creative Director, AKQA (China), Dirk Eschenbacher, Executive Creative Director/Managing Partner Asia Pacific, Tribal DDB and Richard Bleasdale, Regional CEO Asia Pacific, Iris Nation
Thanks to all our speakers (complete list here) and to everyone who came along. Thanks also to Yong Ping Loo for the photos. See you next year
This week, we want to know how you go about charging for your creative work…
Tim Fendley, creative director at AIG, recalled the late Alan Fletcher’s advice on how to charge clients on the CR Blog in 2006:
“Think of the right number and then double it. If the client doesn’t have a sharp intake of breath then you’ve shot too low,” was Fletcher’s inimitable take on it.
So how do you go about the business of making money from your work?
Do you work out a day rate for jobs? Charge per hour? Does the size of the client involved make a difference to your pricing?
How do you ensure you get a good rate of return with each job?
Do you ever take on a client knowing that you might even lose money – but that the long term benefits of doing the job outweigh the initial costs?
What about those jobs you do just for the money? During a debate between Rick Poynor and Pentagram’s Michael Bierut that we featured in CR in 2004, Bierut said:
“Speaking as someone who enthusiastically sold out, every time I’ve done something just for the money, no matter how much they paid, it was never enough.”
Let us know what you think.
Question of the Week is produced in partnership with MajorPlayers
Tra i nostri artisti preferiti compare anche la mitica Geneviève Gauckler che ha rilasciato questa serie limitatissima di mini-book illustrati. Ne hanno prodotti solo 50 esemplari serigrafati da Eugène & Pauline che purtroppo, sono già andati tutti a ruba. Speriamo in una ri-edizione! [Via]
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