Hasta La Ideas

Something more fun for a second here. While Paula Scher and company worked to put together the new face of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, elsewhere at Pentagram, partner Abbott Miller was assembling a book for photographer Martin Parr called Everybody Dance Now which is about pretty much exactly what you think a title like that would mean. It’s a collection of 35 years of Parr’s photographs of people dancing and Miller’s work, along with Kristen Spilman, is about as bright, colorful, and shiny as they come, fitting perfectly with Parr’s intimate shots to people getting loose. It’s just the thing for scary times just as these. Here’s a bit:

The cover of Everybody Dance Now appears in metallic rainbow, reminiscent of a flamboyant party decoration — a fitting design for a photographer famed for his depictions of British working-class life. Page edges are coated in silver, and like the cover, are so reflective the reader can catch glimpses of himself in the surface. Inside, the layout continues the silver and rainbow theme as it references the postcards Parr is so well known for collecting.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

All Unitasker Wednesday posts are jokes — we don’t want you to buy these items, we want you to laugh at their ridiculousness. Enjoy!

The Chompr is a device to help you eat your hamburger without the mess. It is a concept design that will surely launch hamburger eating into the 21st century. Why use a knife and fork to cut the hamburger in half, when you can reach for the Chompr instead?

I can see the infomercial now: Billy Mays screaming into the camera about how hard it is to eat hamburgers only to assure the viewer that all their hamburger eating prayers have been answered in the form of the Chompr. “Now you can enjoy your hamburger without having to shower afterward!” 

According to the designer, the Chompr will be marketed to high-end restaurants with clientele that can’t afford condiments dripping from their hamburgers. The Chompr will surely be the benchmark for which all restaurants will be measured. Is your dining establishment considered high-end? If you want the high-end clients, you’ll have to make sure that all hamburgers are served in an elegant walnut and polished aluminum Chompr.

Thanks to reader Chris for bringing this unitasker to our attention.

It’s true that Toy Fair was a bit lackluster this year–with the pall of the economy hanging over the convention, the smaller exhibitors downstairs had a decidedly more desperate vibe than last year–but there were still a few notables, mostly in the categories of vehicle design and eco-consciousness.

HaPe International is a company sticking to their green guns. Their bamboo E-Racer Vehicles are more difficult to produce than wood toys, as bamboo presents challenges in sawing, filing, dyeing, and bending, but after putting years into studying how to design for bamboo and get the production methods down, the company is proud to roll the line out.

Sprig Toys’ vehicles and characters all smell like fresh wood, but they’re actually made from recycled wood and even plastic, adhered together with special glue made from sawdust. And there’s no batteries required to power the toys’ on-board lights; kinetic energy provides all the juice needed.

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There’s some more cell phone design buzz on the wires, this time for Porsche Design’s P’9522 phone. I’m not crazy about the thing–style-wise it seems like a throwback to the ’80s, with some 2000s tech touches thrown in: It’s milled from a single block of aluminum (where have we seen that before?) and has a 5MP camera with flash. The disappearing backlit numbers are a neat, if somewhat gimmicky, touch.

Interestingly enough, while most of us dislike getting fingerprints all over our shiny doodads, you’ll need to get yours on this one; PD has substituted a fingerprint reader on the main screen, rather than a password, to unlock the phone.

via autoblog

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“Let us help you save money,” coos NatWest in its latest ad. “Is this the most insincere bank ad ever?” reply bloggers

With bankers high up on most people’s hit lists, and banks facing a barrage of negative publicity, how do advertising agencies tackle the tricky task of promoting them?

The first banking ads since the start of the recession are beginning to be released and the approach seems to be one of directness – reassuring voices telling customers that despite everything they’re reading in the media, they are the bank that can be trusted. This is evident in Nationwide’s recent print and poster campaign, which simply announces that they are ‘Solid. Stable. Dependable. Exciting aren’t we?’

Nationwide’s new slogan

Others are taking a similar route, with an added emphasis on making banks appear more human and friendly. NatWest’s latest series of ads (one shown top) emphasises its Money Sense advisors, who are on hand in branches across the country. The ads show a series of smiling customers exchanging banter with engaged and interested bank staff. This is perhaps not an experience that most of us are familiar with, and as a consequence the campaign has already engendered some backlash online.

Halifax stresses its human touch in its new ad campaign

Halifax’s new spot feels similarly patronising, if a little more imaginatively performed. This one shows groups of bank employees forming human ladders and pyramids to present individuals with a five pound note, representing the money that is given each month by the bank to reward current account holders, “as a way of saying thank you”. It isn’t until the small print at the end that it is revealed that you only receive the money if you deposit £1000 a month.

HSBC Lumberjack ad – is this type of campaign still relevant for banks today?

Is this really the right tack? Certainly bank advertising of the HSBC ilk, whose ”world’s local bank” campaign was becoming increasingly obscure of late (see Lumberjack spot above), feels inappropriate in the current financial climate. But short of releasing a film of bank CEOs pleading for forgiveness while being whipped by disgruntled customers, how can banks use advertising to win back consumers’ confidence?

The “we’re really trustworthy, honest” approach may seem the only available avenue at the moment, but are any of us really likely to believe it? How would you like your bank to talk to you?