It’s no secret that cyclists are particularly sensitive to the aesthetics of their rides—whether it’s a tried and true steel frame commuter or a state-of-the-art carbon fiber racer—yet adding anything to distract from the bike’s original form…
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Designed for the Fossil brand, the O Ring watch is a metaphorical symbol of the consistency of time which has no lapse. The open center piques the viewers interest when it becomes clear that the mechanical functionality doesn’t emanate from the center as we’re familiar with. On a side note, I’m suddenly craving a doughnut.
Designer: Eugeni Quitllet
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(A Void in Time was originally posted on Yanko Design)
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This week Chipotle announced that it has created a four-part comedy TV series that will launch on Hulu and Hulu Plus in February. CR gets the low down about the project from director Tim Piper and exec producer Daniel Rosenberg.
The series, titled Farmed and Dangerous, starts on February 17 and stars Ray Wise, of Twin Peaks and Mad Men fame. Like Chipotle’s previous short films Back To The Start and The Scarecrow, the aim of the series is to entertain audiences and in turn raise debate about industrial farming practices (while emphasising Chipotle’s commitment to sustainable farming). Wise plays Buck Marshall, a cartoon-like evil corporate figure who represents the Industrial Food Image Bureau, a department devoted to presenting the industrial agriculture business in terms that are palatable to the public. A trailer for the series is shown below.
Piper and Rosenberg, who work out of New York-based studio Piro, first became involved in the project a couple of years ago, when Chipotle made contact after seeing some of Piper’s previous work, which includes the hugely successful Dove Evolution film and the web series The Palace of Light for Post Shredded Wheat.
“Chipotle were just finishing Back To The Start and said they wanted to try a longer form of story based on their ‘food with integrity’ mantra,” explains Piper. “Perhaps live action, scripted, in a similar tone to what I’d done for Shredded Wheat. They loved the idea of comedy but weren’t sure if it was feasible given the seriousness of the subject matter. We asked them who the ‘villains’ and ‘heroes’ were in their world, and the comedy soon became apparent – it was all about the villains.”
Buck Marshall, a larger-than-life figure, was born out of this observation. In the trailer, he is shown in damage control mode after a security video from fictional industrial giant Animoil goes viral. The film shows a cow blowing up after being fed a new petroleum-based animal feed called PetroPellet.
Despite devising and funding the project, any mention of Chipotle is conspicuously absent from the finished series. “Chipotle specifically asked not to have a presence,” says Piper. “They wanted the show to be as entertaining as possible without chest-beating their own achievements and beliefs. The marketing strategy behind doing the show is to let people know Chipotle made it (with PR). They want to entertain people, not disrupt their leisure with obnoxious bragging advertisements.”
While the tone of the brand’s previous animated shorts has been earnest and emotional, with this series Chipotle is clearly aiming for out-and-out comedy. Alongside the trailer, there are also a number of other films that have been released on YouTube, which introduce the characters in more detail. In one, below, Marshall is even shown taking apart the Scarecrow short.
The approach here may seem very different, yet Piper feels it complements the brand’s earlier films. “They create these beautiful animated shorts, which are emotional and ultimately inspiring, and then manage to convey the same message with live action comedy,” he says. “Because they stick to high production values and high creative integrity for both, it seems to work.”
The term ‘branded content’ has been bandied around adland for years now, but there have been few projects that have really managed to pull off the delicate balance between creating something entertaining that also makes sense for a brand. From the trailer, this series looks promising, and it is clear that the team at Piro was fully aware of the dangers that can befall this kind of project.
“When brands overextend into the story, it is a let down for everyone,” says Rosenberg. “But when they inspire storytelling everyone appreciates it.
“In truth, advertising creative is typically quite different from storytelling creative,” he continues. “It’s a different creative muscle. While ads usually focus on a single, central proposition, stories focus on broader elements like character arcs, turning points and conflict to propel action and move the story forward. Chipotle’s internal creatives collaborated with Piro and TV and film writers in writers’ rooms to create the right balance between message and entertainment. Entertainment quality was the final measure of what stayed or went, but brand strategy, values and messaging were always at the forefront.”
Farmed and Dangerous begins on Hulu and Hulu Plus on February 17. To watch the trailer and teasers from the series, visit the Farmed and Dangerous YouTube page here. More info on Piro is at pirovision.com.
YCN Studio has launched a campaign promoting Plymouth College of Art’s creative facilities and the importance of hands-on learning in arts education.
While most UK art departments are facing funding cuts, Plymouth has invested heavily in new resources and opened a £7 million art, craft and digital design wing last September. YCN Studio was asked to create a campaign showcasing the college’s new facilities, and has launched a short film and poster series based on the idea of physical energy.
In a film shot on campus by director Pip, PCA students are captured welding, cutting wood, sewing, painting and developing photographs. The video features some beautiful close-ups of materials, including molten glass, charcoal, ink and ceramics, set to music by Brooklyn band Javelin.
Posters feature images from the shoot and key lines from the film in type distorted through water and glass, which YCN Studio director Alex Ostrowski says is designed to intrigue readers and ‘echo the physicality in the rest of the campaign’.
Producer William Teddy says the video was shot at a high-frame rate to slow some shots down and help people see different processes up close. “The idea was to get very close-up and cinematic, so we enlisted Pip, who’s also a photographer with an amazing eye,” he adds.
The college is also launching a social media campaign to highlight the need for physical facilities in arts colleges, and is asking users to submit photographs of their work or studios using the hashtag #YourEnergy.
In an article explaining the initiative, the college warns of the dangers of turning art schools into “offices and lecture halls”, and says it will be working to encourage “a greater focus on tangible facilities in UK art and design education, which…runs the risk of becoming over-reliant on desk-based creative learning.” You can read the full post here.
Creative direction, writing and design: YCN Studio
Film Production: Agile
Film Director: Pip
Film Producer: William Teddy
Music: ‘Susie Cues’ by Javelin
Le photographe américain Christoffer Morris, vivant à Paris, a fait la série intitulée « New York City Subway in 1981» qui nous replonge dans le passé. On y voit un métro plein de graffitis et de vieilles publicités, des gens avec des vêtements et des coupes de cheveux eighties. Plus de photos dans la suite de l’article.
Portfolio de Christopher Morris.
This is a video of boomerang lover Victor Poulin testing out his newly made 25-inch Batarang. It..(Read…)
Seattle studio Olson Kundig Architects has produced visualisations imagining the fictional scenes before and after a freight train carrying toxic chemicals haphazardly plunged into a lake where artist Jack Daws was building a house on stilts (+ slideshow).
As part of a project entitled The House That Jack Built, Olson Kundig‘s images accompany an account written by Jack Daws of an imaginary series of events whereby the artist tried to build an enticing retreat, but ended up with a refuge in a perilous environment.
The story tells of how Daws had become disillusioned by architects’ invasion of the art world and reacted by trying his hand at architecture.
Inspired by the houses of Seattle architect Tom Kundig, the artist planned a cabin at the centre of Walden Pond, Massachusetts, and built it on 24-metre stilts using tiles and rails pilfered from a local railway. This action destabilised the railway and led to the crash of the train.
Images and a model of the building are on show in the Mercer Gallery of Walden 3 in Seattle, presented as if the events genuinely took place.
“The installation is meant to be a starting point for self-reflection and a critical inquiry into contemporary society, engaging such topics as reincarnation, artistic attribution, admiration, false identity, thievery, tribute, injury and environmental degradation to ruin,” reads the exhibition text.
The fictional tale also extends to the exhibition opening, where architect Kundig is reported to have taken a punch at Daws over the attempt to rip off his style. This scene is also visualised in a rendering.
The House That Jack Built is the first project by Olson Kundig Outpost, the firm’s new visualisation studio, and forms part of the Itinerant Projects series of collaborations between the architects and various site-specific artists.
Here’s more information from Jack Daws and Olson Kundig Architects:
The House That Jack Built
Conceptual artist Jack Daws, in conjunction with Olson Kundig Outpost, present a new work entitled The House that Jack Built. The work will be featured at the Mercer Gallery at Walden Three from January 17 through March 16, 2014.
The House that Jack Built is based upon The Pond (a somewhat mystical account of my foray into architecture), Daws’ firsthand account of his efforts to build a cabin in the middle of Walden Pond only to have a freight train loaded with toxic chemicals plunge into its waters. The installation includes Daws’ story, a large-scale model of the cabin, and accompanying images depicting the pond before and after the environmental disaster. The installation is meant to be a starting point for self-reflection and a critical inquiry into contemporary society, engaging such topics as reincarnation, artistic attribution, admiration, false identity, thievery, tribute, injury and environmental degradation to ruin.
For Daws, and ultimately the subject of this exhibition, trouble began when he acted upon his growing irritation at architects for steadily eroding the boundaries of art and for taking art commissions he believes should be reserved for artists. His defiance led him to try his hand at architecture, and designing and building his own cabin – taking inspiration from the work of noted Seattle architect, Tom Kundig. Daws positioned his cabin, made from pilfered railroad ties and rails from a nearby railway, atop 80-foot steel rails in the middle of Walden Pond. Tragically, his theft of the rails led to the devastation of Walden Pond. In the post-accident image included in the exhibition, the wreckage of a freight train carrying toxic waste is shown spilling its contents into the idyllic setting.
Known to bend rules, Daws has made his mark challenging authority and tackling complex social issues. With The House that Jack Built, Daws threatens to challenge the boundaries of what an artist should be doing, and the territory they have no business meddling in. “I don’t care what my detractors think,” said Daws. “La historia me absolverá.” Greg Lundgren, executive director of Walden 3 adds, “Walden 3 prides itself on encouraging the artists it presents to take risks and challenge conventional wisdom. We do not censor their work or discourage their passions. But Jack took us to the absolute end on this one.”
Two new ventures for Olson Kundig Architects have supported this installation: Itinerant Projects is the firm’s new installation program which will locate four migratory collaborations in site-specific installations across the globe; and Olson Kundig Outpost, a new creative production studio that supported Mr. Daws with photography and visual effects.
The post Olson Kundig and Jack Daws imagine
a house on stilts above a polluted lake appeared first on Dezeen.
Our Image of the Month in the February issue of CR was a stormy shot of the South Wales coast from photographer Ben Birchall, which featured on newspaper front pages across the UK and beyond. CR talks to him about his career in photojournalism…
As a Press Association photographer, Bristol-based Birchall covers news across the South West of the UK, along with other editorial assignments and projects internationally.
In the February issue of CR, we featured Birchall’s photograph that captured a dramatic moment along the coast, as enormous waves towered over Porthcawl Harbour and crashed against the promenade. Onlookers standing beneath, watching the action and taking photos, appear to be enveloped by the surf. The resulting image featured heavily on newspaper front pages, and has become an emblematic picture of the strength and scale of the storms here this season.
CR: Your recent image of the UK storms (pictured at the top of this article) has been widely featured across the media internationally, could you tell me a bit more about the shoot?
BB: I was in the Porthcawl area because I wanted to see how dramatic the effects of the storm hitting the UK would be at high tide, so I made a special effort to travel there that day.
I used a Nikon D3 camera body and a Nikon 400mm f/2.8 lens to capture this shot. I also had another Nikon D3 with 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom lens fitted, which I got a few much wider shots, albeit nowhere near as dramatic. Shooting in incredibly windy conditions is tough, especially with a heavy and long lens. I had to select a reasonably high shutter speed to avoid blur and camera-shake. Added to the fact it was very cold and there was lots of sea-spray covering the camera, it was challenging. However, I was in a very safe spot away from the breaking waves.
Regardless of the sturdy harbour wall where the figures in the image are watching and photographing the waves, I would say there is always a risk being so close to unpredictable waves and violent seas. I’ve photographed from that position on less dramatic days and it’s horrendously wet, windy and the swell can be so random that rouge sets can get quite scary.
I’ve been extremely pleased with the exposure the image has been given and the praise it has received as a representation of the recent UK storms. I’ve had bylines in newspapers as far away as Canada and Australia. For a foreign picture editor to place a weather shot from a small Welsh seaside town in their publication, I feel, is testament to its iconic power as a dramatic image.
CR: Can you tell me more about your background – how did you first get into photography?
BB: Photography began as a hobby for me in the late 80s. I was fascinated during a science lesson at school where we were making pinhole cameras and developing prints in household chemicals. From that moment I was hooked and managed to acquire a 110 compact film camera, saving all my pocket money to buy and develop films at Boots. From there I climbed the photographic ladder stepping up to a 35mm Compact and eventually a 35mm SLR on my 18th birthday.
CR: What were your first subjects and which have been your favourite?
BB: My first forays into serious photography began with photographing local bands and covering gigs in Lincolnshire and the Midlands. I was also in a band at the time and had a strong sense that image was very important. It was a great period of experimentation with people photography, and I would say it’s where my passion for documentation and photojournalism really took off.
CR: Can you tell me more about the nature of editorial photography, documentary work and photojournalism?
BB: Great documentary and editorial photography, and ultimately photojournalism, is all about telling stories through pictures. In the digital and information revolution we are privileged to be living through at the moment, I’d say the appetite and ability to tell stories through images has never been stronger.
By its pure nature documentary photography puts the journalist at the core of a story or event, and personally I find it’s a better way of conveying the emotion and drama involved. A few seconds spent looking at a great editorial picture can save minutes reading a huge chunk of text.
CR: Who or what has most inspired you?
BB: I’d say that my first inspiration came from the great masters of photojournalism and documentary photographers of the early and mid-20th Century shooting for magazines such as TIME, LIFE and Picture Post. I learned a lot about off-the-cuff composition and the best way to get the most from a shoot by soaking up the fantastic images on those pages.
CR: What image has been most significant for you in your career so far?
BB: The recent picture of storm waves in South Wales has been received well both domestically and internationally and has obviously been a highlight.
However, back in 2002, before the viral nature of twitter and the internet, I managed a similar scoop that was splashed all over the front pages of almost every UK national newspaper. It was of an 11-year-old girl breaking into a supermarket and completely destroying the store. I documented the whole scene, including her trying to attack me and consequently being arrested. I was nominated for an award (up against the likes of Tom Stoddart) for that set of images and it was definitely a springboard for my career.
CR: You’ve shot on assignment in various countries where there is conflict, could you talk a bit about what it’s like being a photographer in these types of situations?
BB: As far as photographing in Afghanistan, I’d say that it can be challenging, both mentally and physically. Including two camera bodies and various lenses out on patrol, there’s the added weight of body armour and helmet. Once you’ve factored in three litres of water it can become difficult to just get up off the ground. The ballistic eyewear and dripping sweat doesn’t help composing through the viewfinder and most images I take are done pretty quickly on patrols.
The terrain can be very arduous too. The Green Zone and especially poppy fields are often flooded, rendering the landscape more like a muddy Lincolnshire Fen rather than a desert. Wading through endless drainage ditches is as nerve-racking as it is tough, because that’s where a lot of IEDs [improvised explosive devices] can be hidden by insurgents.
I’ve worked alongside all the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), both on and off operations, including the army and the police, and although I’ve not always felt safe in certain situations, the camera does become a kind of security blanket that is comforting to hide behind. The few times there’s been enemy contact during a patrol I’ve been on it’s always been dealt with so swiftly both from the ground and the air that it can be frustrating because there’s not much of an aftermath to document.
On the whole, being embedded with British forces, whether alone or on combined operations, is always exciting. They’re so accommodating and you really do become part of the team, sleeping, eating and shitting right alongside the soldiers, whether in a foxhole in the desert or in a comfy patrol base.
CR: Do you have any rules when it comes to your work, or lessons learnt?
BB: Every rule in photography should be broken at some point or another. I find the key to being a true professional is knowing instantly in any given situation when to take that calculated gamble and shoot something completely against the grain of how others are shooting.
The only hard and fast rule concerning editorial photography in a modern age of rolling news is to always capture the picture quickly and get it seen on picture desks as soon as possible.
CR: What items are in your must have kit?
BB: If my car was on fire and I could only grab one piece of equipment it would be my battered Nikon D3 with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens fitted, as I could carry on working for the day. If I had chance to also grab my Nikon 24mm f/1.4 lens I’d be a happy photographer.
CR: What’s the best thing about being a photographer now? And the worst?
BB: The very best thing about being a photographer today is quite literally having a global audience being able to see images from assignments almost immediately after the shoot. The internet has created the phenomenon of instant appetite, and it’s great when images are appreciated in far-flung corners of the world and go viral. However, on the flip side it creates the added pressure to shoot, edit and transmit quickly.
CR: What do you have planned for the year ahead?
BB: Along with the bread-and-butter news across the South West UK that I manage daily, hopefully there is a chance I’ll be off to Mali mid-February to see UK forces train Mali troops. There should be a couple more chances to get back out to Afghanistan this year, as the draw down continues and UK troops pull out of the country too.
Most of us who like building things loved Legos as a kid. There were just a few gripes: Inevitably you’d build something and run out of a particularly-sized piece, or you wished for different colors, or two pieces would become stuck together so badly that scientists at CERN couldn’t separate them.
Well folks, the future is here. Google has teamed up with Lego to release Build with Chrome, a free, browser-based version of Lego! (Works in Firefox and Chrome, I’ve not tried Safari.) You select whatever sized-piece you want and drop it into your construction with mouseclicks. It’s 3D, so you can rotate the build platform by dragging. You can change colors at will. And in the tutorials at least, the supply of pieces is unlimited.
Now I know that a large part of Lego’s appeal is the tactility, and the empowering feeling a child gets from constructing something with their grubby little mitts. But at least your pops isn’t going to step on one of these in the living room, accidentally teaching you, at perhaps too tender an age, words like “#*$&%@!!!”
The inaugural AETHERmoto ride in Los Angeles—hosted by Aether Apparel—was an experiment in urban exploration. Both Aether founders, Jonah Smith and Palmer West, are avid riders and have gone on numerous excursions with recordOutboundLink(this,…
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