Hasta La Ideas

Summer haters being kept in the cold, an illustrated ditty on the perils of ill-advised transgressions on railway lines and a turbo-charged chain-reaction video feature in our latest round-up of entertaining, and endearing, ads from around the world.

From the makers of the award-winning ‘Dads in Briefs’ commercial, Buenos Aires-based Del Campo Saatchi & Saatchi, comes another cinematic masterpiece to celebrate the unsung benefits of BGH Air Conditioners. It features a sinister character peering through his shutters, pondering the “stinking people, sweating away their dignitiy”, the “arm pits”, “piss in pools, rancid smells” and downright “nauseating beings” of the scorchio world outside. Luckily BGH keeps this particular borderline-psychotic ‘summer hater’ confined to his well air conditioned home.

‘Dumb ways to die’ is part of the ‘Be Safe Around Trains’ campaign for Metro Trains by McCann in Melbourne. It combines a catchy title, with a tune impossible to get out of your head and endearing animation by Julian Frost to make a public awareness message eminently viral. Since its release last Friday, it has become the fastest spreading Australian viral video on YouTube. A week on, you will still be singing the refrain – the mother of all earworms.

New Zealand online bookseller Good Books, which donates all its profits to charity, secured the services of String Theory and The Mill’s McBess and Simon for this lush animation ‘Havana Heat’. It’s the second in its Great Writers campaign and is inspired by the cleavage-heaving language of Mills & Boon.

BBDO New York’s Christmas commercial for cable network HBO lends Yuletide-giving an office politics twist. Nothing conveys pent-up loathing quite like an HBO boxset.

Barclaycard’s ‘Toys’ commercial by BBH is a live-action homage to Toy Story featuring a hapless customer who gets stumbles on a store’s secret level entirely populated by living toys.

In true Red Bull style, the brand’s ‘Kluge: The Ultimate Athlete Power Machine’ video was two years in the making and takes the idea of chain-reaction mechanics to another level. Produced by Andy Carlson with Adam Sadowsky, co-founder of Syyn Labs, the film combines 12 ‘machines’ set in motion through a domino-effect sequence of triggers with 11 Red Bull athletes such as golfer Rickie Fowler, hurdler Lolo Jones and snowboarder Pat Moore that keep the action going.

Havas Worldwide Sydney plays on some universal pretensions of amateur DSLR-camera users in its amusing series of clips for Sony’s YouTube channel to promote the NEX camera. From the ‘F-Stop Fusspot’ to the ‘Macro Freak’, these wannabe photography pros are instantly recognisable – you might be one of them.

Finally, McCann Oslo, created this health-and-safety-defying stunt for Microsoft Norway to coincide with the launch of Windows 8 operating system. The ‘Live Tile Experiment’ invited passers-by to experience the software’s Live Tiles feature in the real world.

CR for the iPad

Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here.

CR In print

In our November issue we look at ad agency Wieden + Kennedy in a major feature as it celebrates its 30th anniversary; examine the practice of and a new monograph on M/M (Paris); investigate GOV.UK, the first major project from the Government Digital Service; explore why Kraftwerk appeals so much to designers; and ponder the future of Instagram. Rick Poynor reviews the Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design; Jeremy Leslie takes in a new exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery dedicated to experimental magazine, Aspen; Mark Sinclair explores Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery show of work by the late graphic designer, Tony Arefin; while Daniel Benneworth-Gray writes about going freelance; and Michael Evamy looks at new telecommunications brand EE’s identity. Plus, subscribers also receive Monograph in which Tim Sumner of tohave-and-tohold.co.uk dips into Preston Polytechnic’s ephemera archive to pick out a selection of printed paper retail bags from the 70s and 80s.

The issue also doubles up as the Photography Annual 2012 – our showcase of the best images in commercial photography produced over the last year. The work selected is as strong as ever, with photographs by the likes of Tim Flach (whose image of a hairless chimp adorns the front cover of the issue, above); Nadav Kander (whose shot of actor Mark Rylance is our Photography Annual cover); Martin Usborne; Peter Lippmann; Giles Revell and more.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

It’s the subject no-one wants to talk about, but we’re going to try. The January issue of CR will have a major feature all about cold, hard, cash. And we’d like your help.

We want to know what topics you would like us to cover. Would, for example, you like us to explore that hardy perennial – how do you decide what to charge?

Would you like us to look at salaries and how they compare across regions and sectors?

What about comparing earnings around the world – what does a designer or art director earn in, say, India, compared to Brazil or the UK?

Or the highest/lowest paying jobs people have ever had?

What about working pro bono – when does it pay and how?

How about costs? One thing we were thinking of looking at are start-up costs for a studio – how much would you need to get going?

Or would you rather we were a bit more prurient? Which photographer has the highest day rate, for example? Or what was the most expensive commercial made in the last year?

We want to look at this subject from a variety of angles – from practical help to just being plain nosey.

Please let us know in the comments below what you’d like to see in the issue because, reluctant though we are to contradict esteemed songstress Jessie J, this time it IS about the money, money, money

CR for the iPad

Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here.

CR In print

In our November issue we look at ad agency Wieden + Kennedy in a major feature as it celebrates its 30th anniversary; examine the practice of and a new monograph on M/M (Paris); investigate GOV.UK, the first major project from the Government Digital Service; explore why Kraftwerk appeals so much to designers; and ponder the future of Instagram. Rick Poynor reviews the Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design; Jeremy Leslie takes in a new exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery dedicated to experimental magazine, Aspen; Mark Sinclair explores Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery show of work by the late graphic designer, Tony Arefin; while Daniel Benneworth-Gray writes about going freelance; and Michael Evamy looks at new telecommunications brand EE’s identity. Plus, subscribers also receive Monograph in which Tim Sumner of tohave-and-tohold.co.uk dips into Preston Polytechnic’s ephemera archive to pick out a selection of printed paper retail bags from the 70s and 80s.

The issue also doubles up as the Photography Annual 2012 – our showcase of the best images in commercial photography produced over the last year. The work selected is as strong as ever, with photographs by the likes of Tim Flach (whose image of a hairless chimp adorns the front cover of the issue, above); Nadav Kander (whose shot of actor Mark Rylance is our Photography Annual cover); Martin Usborne; Peter Lippmann; Giles Revell and more.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subsc

In 1837, the world’s first publicly funded design school opened in Somerset House on the Strand in London. Later, the Government School of Design was to change its name to the somewhat more grandiose Royal College of Art, change its location, and, just for good measure, change the world. A major new exhibition shows how

To celebrate its 175th anniversary, the RCA is staging The Perfect Place to Grow: 175 Years of the Royal College of Art, an exhibition of the work of its distinguished former students and staff (past and present) which opens to the public today. And it’s quite a show.

Composition (Thrust), David Hockney, 1962, Mixed media on board, © Royal College of Art Collection, painted while Hockney was a RCA student, and as it appears in the show (below left)

Hockneys (above) jostle with Hepworths and Rileys with Rhodes. Could any other institution put together such a star-studded accumulation of alumni?

Underground Roundel from Westminster Station, Edward Johnston, c.1930, © TfL, from the collection of London Transport Museum [Calligraphy staff 1901-39]

Originally, the School of Design was set up in order to train young craftsmen and artisans for work in the ceramics, textiles and ornamental crafts of Britain’s manufacturing industries. The show (co-curated by Dr Paul Thompson, Rector of the RCA and Robert Upstone of the Fine Art Society) is split into four sections, one of which, Art and Industry, examines these links and the tension they came under due to the emergence of fine art at the institution.

The Politial Expression section of the show features Bladerunner, directed by former student Ridley Scott

Stop the War campaign, David Gentleman, 2003, © David Gentleman [Graphic Design student 1950-53] and, below, as it appears in the show, alongside work from Jonathan Barnbrook

The Victorian notion of art in service to industry is contrasted by a Personal Expression section which looks at how those ideas were challenged in the 20th century. Political Expression (above) covers artists and designers whose work is overtly aligned to causes, including work by suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst who was jailed while a student at the RCA. The fourth section of the show, Public Purpose (below), concentrates on the RCA’s role in transforming Britain’s health, transport and built environments.

The Public Purpose section of the show features posters by Abram Games and Kinneir Calvert’s road signs (far wall)

Why Not Associates’ Sensation poster sits alongside its Comedy Carpet project and posters by RCA professor of illustration Andrzej Klimowski

Rolling Stones logo screenprint by John Pasche, who was commissioned by the band while still an RCA student

Ilustrations by Ian Dury (right) alongside work by Sir Peter Blake

Dany Bubbles, Ian Dury, 1966, Graphite and coloured pencil on paper, Courtesy of The Dury Family © Estate of the artist

Tracy Emin installation

The exhibition was designed by Casson Mann and Research Studios. An accompanying book, also designed by Research Studios, is published by Abrams & Chronicle

The Perfect Place to Grow is at the Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU until January 3, rca.ac.uk.

Exhibition photography supplied by the RCA

CR for the iPad

Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here.

CR In print

In our November issue we look at ad agency Wieden + Kennedy in a major feature as it celebrates its 30th anniversary; examine the practice of and a new monograph on M/M (Paris); investigate GOV.UK, the first major project from the Government Digital Service; explore why Kraftwerk appeals so much to designers; and ponder the future of Instagram. Rick Poynor reviews the Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design; Jeremy Leslie takes in a new exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery dedicated to experimental magazine, Aspen; Mark Sinclair explores Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery show of work by the late graphic designer, Tony Arefin; while Daniel Benneworth-Gray writes about going freelance; and Michael Evamy looks at new telecommunications brand EE’s identity. Plus, subscribers also receive Monograph in which Tim Sumner of tohave-and-tohold.co.uk dips into Preston Polytechnic’s ephemera archive to pick out a selection of printed paper retail bags from the 70s and 80s.

The issue also doubles up as the Photography Annual 2012 – our showcase of the best images in commercial photography produced over the last year. The work selected is as strong as ever, with photographs by the likes of Tim Flach (whose image of a hairless chimp adorns the front cover of the issue, above); Nadav Kander (whose shot of actor Mark Rylance is our Photography Annual cover); Martin Usborne; Peter Lippmann; Giles Revell and more.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

Modern Toss character Sneezeman is the unlikely hero of a new iPhone game app in which players must sneeze their way through no less than 60 levels to escape an ever-following pollen cloud…

Players of Sneezeman: Escape from Planet Sneeze, developed by Sensei Games, must guide the hapless hero across five themed worlds and through over 60 levels whilst using various modes of transport and avoiding an assortment of baddies including zombies, ghosts, rats, aliens and robots.

The object of the game? To help Sneezeman collect pils vital to controlling his incessant sneezing and enable him to make it to the each level exit in the best possible time.

Here’s a demo video:

Sneezeman: Escape from Planet Sneeze is priced at 69p and promises future updates with more levels, more vehicles and, of course, more sneezes.

More info here.

CR for the iPad

Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here.

CR In print

In our November issue we look at ad agency Wieden + Kennedy in a major feature as it celebrates its 30th anniversary; examine the practice of and a new monograph on M/M (Paris); investigate GOV.UK, the first major project from the Government Digital Service; explore why Kraftwerk appeals so much to designers; and ponder the future of Instagram. Rick Poynor reviews the Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design; Jeremy Leslie takes in a new exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery dedicated to experimental magazine, Aspen; Mark Sinclair explores Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery show of work by the late graphic designer, Tony Arefin; while Daniel Benneworth-Gray writes about going freelance; and Michael Evamy looks at new telecommunications brand EE’s identity. Plus, subscribers also receive Monograph in which Tim Sumner of tohave-and-tohold.co.uk dips into Preston Polytechnic’s ephemera archive to pick out a selection of printed paper retail bags from the 70s and 80s.

The issue also doubles up as the Photography Annual 2012 – our showcase of the best images in commercial photography produced over the last year. The work selected is as strong as ever, with photographs by the likes of Tim Flach (whose image of a hairless chimp adorns the front cover of the issue, above); Nadav Kander (whose shot of actor Mark Rylance is our Photography Annual cover); Martin Usborne; Peter Lippmann; Giles Revell and more.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

After an unprecedented level of entries (over 900) and some tough deliberation, we can reveal our winner of the series of Noma Bar/Haruki Marukami cover prints. As an extra surprise, we’re also offering up two sets of the new Vintage editions to both a second and third place runner-up…

As you can see from the original post, we had a lot of entries to this competition. To be in with a chance of winning the prints (made for the covers of Murakami’s reissued backlist by Tuckshop at Print Club London), we asked you to suggest a suitably Murakami-like title for a story. Thank you to everyone who entered. Your suggestions did not disappoint. Among them were numerous references to jazz, plenty of cats, some fish, teeth, ears and moons, and even some Beatles songs.

And if you’re thinking of starting a band, you could do worse than scour the list for inspiration. We’d pay good money to see either of Clowncar Autobahn (suggested by ‘Jon’), Giraffe Arms (courtesy of ‘Alexor’), or Team Baby Fat Lips, & the Tale of Watertooth (‘Michael Serro’).

A special mention also has to go to Daniel Kimball whose 38 suggestions included, Consider A Tulip While I Steal Your Things; and Ana Rapsing whose 39 attempts peaked with Six Years Two Elephants I Can’t Remember.

However, a few of the titles really stood out for us. And so here, in no particular order, are seven we liked very much – with our third, second, and first placed winners listed after those.

Second and third you say? Yes, thanks to Vintage we were able to select two other winners, who will each receive a set of the reissued Murakami books.

Super-Realisitic Cakes and the Lumbering Siberians
Werner

Why Leaves Fall on the Heads of Weeping Dogs
Edda Bild

Even Giants Have Splinters
Harrison Pierce

Typhoon in Apartment 2609
A M H

The Girl on the Rooftop Who Did Not Want to Jump
Irina

Tall Cool Ones From The DaDa Glass
Kyle Miller

Washing Your Face With a Smile
Harrison Pierce

Winning a set of the books each, our second and third place winners are:

You Cannot Kiss A Laughing Mouth
Bobby

Soft Serve Jukebox
Alison Green

But, our chosen winner is the following entry:

A Dog, From the Inside Out
Thomas Laker

Short, simple, but still brilliantly bizarre, Thomas’ title also has a touch of Groucho Marx about it, namely his famous joke about books: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

Congratulations to Thomas, who wins the set of 13 signed prints; Bobby and Alison who scoop a set of the books (we’ll be in touch about getting the prizes out to you). Thanks again to everyone else who entered, and to Vintage for sorting out some great prizes.

We will also be offering a set of Noma Bar’s prints as our Gallery prize in the December issue of CR, out November 21.

CR for the iPad

Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here.

CR In print

In our November issue we look at ad agency Wieden + Kennedy in a major feature as it celebrates its 30th anniversary; examine the practice of and a new monograph on M/M (Paris); investigate GOV.UK, the first major project from the Government Digital Service; explore why Kraftwerk appeals so much to designers; and ponder the future of Instagram. Rick Poynor reviews the Phaidon Archive of Graphic Design; Jeremy Leslie takes in a new exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery dedicated to experimental magazine, Aspen; Mark Sinclair explores Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery show of work by the late graphic designer, Tony Arefin; while Daniel Benneworth-Gray writes about going freelance; and Michael Evamy looks at new telecommunications brand EE’s identity. Plus, subscribers also receive Monograph in which Tim Sumner of tohave-and-tohold.co.uk dips into Preston Polytechnic’s ephemera archive to pick out a selection of printed paper retail bags from the 70s and 80s.

The issue also doubles up as the Photography Annual 2012 – our showcase of the best images in commercial photography produced over the last year. The work selected is as strong as ever, with photographs by the likes of Tim Flach (whose image of a hairless chimp adorns the front cover of the issue, above); Nadav Kander (whose shot of actor Mark Rylance is our Photography Annual cover); Martin Usborne; Peter Lippmann; Giles Revell and more.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.