LasseU

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Funny spot for a talent training and outsource company. Behold the power of competency. (Or the lack thereof). 

Metal Potential? Bronze.

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Y&R Melbourne decided to demonstrate that creativity actually works. Refreshing approach instead of the usual crying from agencies about clients not getting creativity. Show – don’t tell!

The London Design Festival has commissioned Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram to design this year’s Trafalgar Square installation.

From September 16 to 23, their project entitled OUTRACE, will empower the general public to take control of eight industrial robots on loan from Audi’s production line. Both visitors to the square, as well as a global web audience will be able to interact with the installation online. Each robot arm weighing over 1200kg with maximum reach of 3.1 meters is fitted with fluorescent lamp controlled to “draw” a letter. Logging in to http://www.outrace.org/ with a mobile device or computer, a global audience will be able to send text messages to the robots, directing the paths of the lights held by the robotic tentacles into the letter forms of the user’s text message. Long-exposure cameras capture these interactive light paintings and will email them back to the original author and the project website.

In the weeks leading up to the event, the OUTRACE installation is being built up and tested in a hall at Audi’s Ingolstadt headquarters.

Dates: 16 – 23 September, Trafalgar Square, London, UK.

Follow the development on OUTRACE Facebook page.

(Thanks Pieter)

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Outrace [Events] is a post from: CreativeApplications.Net | Follow us on Twitter - Facebook - Flickr - Vimeo

Related Posts:

• Feedback [openFrameworks, Events]
• Youth Music Box [Environment, Sound, Events, oF]
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• onedotzero – Call for Submissions! [Events]
• Swarm Light [Inspiration, Events]

The fantastic Graffiti Analysis 3.0 application by Evan Roth and Chris Sugrue is now available for download! For those unfamiliar with the project, GA is an extensive ongoing study in the motion of graffiti. Custom software designed for graffiti writers creates visualizations of the often unseen gestures involved in the creation of a tag. Motion data is recorded, analyzed and archived as Graffiti Markup Language (.gml) files, a specifically formatted XML file designed to be a common open structure for archiving gestural graffiti motion data. GML files are saved in an open online database, 000000book.com, where writers can share analytical representations of their hand styles.

The 3.0 app includes the following new features:
- Input from iPhone + anything you can strap the light onto.
- Audio input which affects particles generated from the tag – perfect for live events
- Keyword based RSS .gml player / search for a keyword and let the app play all the tags
- 3D Printing Integration – Print your tags!!
-  ”Interactive Architecture” – allows interaction of projected graffiti with objects that receive the projection (buildings)..
- Laser Input – tag buildings from long distances.. (need  big a** monster projector)
- Stereography..

More + download at graffitianalysis.com (mac OSX only for the time being..windows/linux soon)

See also Evan Roth’s recent EyeWriter Presentation at Future Everything embedded below.

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Graffiti Analysis v.3.0 [Mac, openFrameworks] is a post from: CreativeApplications.Net | Follow us on Twitter - Facebook - Flickr - Vimeo

Related Posts:

• GMLStenciler [Mac, Windows, oF]
• SoundyThingie [iPad, oF, Mac, Windows]
• MmmTsss [Mac, Windows, openFrameworks, Sound]
• iJumpman [iPhone, Games]
• ONull Vector Generator [Processing]
• Fat Tag Deluxe Meet Projector [iPhone, openFrameworks]

These digital sculptures by artist Peter Root were all created in Google Sketchup. Some of the stills look a bit more striking than the videos themselves. But it's a really interesting idea, and something that could easily became a permanent layer in Google Earth - easily allowing artists to create and show work in a digital space.

Read more about the project and the artist here:
http://www.peterroot.com/index.php?/projects/google-earth-sculptures/

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I have not watched the film "Iron Man 2", starring Robert Downey Jr., but I am glad I watched the short documentary movie (below) summarizing its extensive VFX effects. From dense information dashboards over 3D architectural holograms to highly responsive real-time 3D interfaces, the movie demonstrates some impressive futuristic views of intuitively manipulable depictions of data.

In fact, it is somehow remarkable to notice how the featured 2D screen layouts seem overly cluttered (well, except of a visually-clashing YouTube movie embed), in contrast to the 3D holographics that seem to successfully exploit the scalability of space. My personal favorites? The life-size table of Mendeljev and the surprising hologram 'throw' ("SCORE!").

For those interested, there are plenty of early concept renderings available here, here and here. Alternatively, one can also explore some high-rez screengrabs and behind-the-scenes footage at the website of the special effects designers, Prologue Films [prologue.com].

See also:
. ooo-ii: The Design of the Star Trek Movie Information Displays
. Mark Coleran, Visual Designer
. Stranger than Fiction Movie Infographics
. An Inconvenient Truth Infographics

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The following is my opinion and doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinion of my agency, my partner, my clients or anyone else I know or have ever worked with. It’s just one of my working theories on producing great creative.


 
Most people don’t like “out of the box.” They may say they want it. They may demand to see it. But in the end, they rarely buy it. In fact, they usually kill, kill, kill the most out-of-the-box things. This does not make them bad people or stupid or shortsighted or anything at all. This makes them human.

We all have our boxes and we love them. They’re warm, comfy and safe. Outside the box is strange and scary. Think about it, you have things you’re perfectly comfortable doing, but if someone pushed you beyond your safe area you’d reject the idea. I love the thrill of roller coasters, but there’s no way in hell anyone will ever get me to bungee jump or skydive. The thrill may be better, bigger, cooler, grander, whatever. Still, ain’t no way in hell I’m jumping off a bridge with a rubber band around my ankles.

So why do we expect our clients to be any different? After all, they’re people, too. More than that, they’re brands and institutions with a lot riding on their decisions. Their boxes protect them from doing stupid things like jumping out of airplanes or changing their secret formula (usually).

Having said all this, let me make one thing very, very clear, I am in no way advocating mediocrity or mundane creative. I am firmly committed to creating, producing, and pushing outstanding ideas. My point is that we need to respect the box and use the box to our advantage.

Use the box?

Yes, use the box. Our job as creatives is to find out the size of the box, and learn everything we can about it. How, when and why was it built? What keeps the box where it is? Who owns and controls the box? Then, once we know all that, we can use that knowledge to guide us as we fill the box. I mean really fill it. Find every corner, every seam, every little nook and cranny, and put as much stuff (ideas) in that box as you can. Everything in the box is in the comfort zone. Some stuff will be right in the center while some will be out in the corners, but it will all be in the box.

Once the box is full, we start pushing on the sides. We have to push as hard as we can and make that damn box bigger. The bigger the box, the more it can hold and the further out the corners get. Eventually, things that used to fall outside the box suddenly begin to fit. Ideas that previously made the client blanch are now considered real possibilities. They’ll still have their no-go zones, but their comfort zone will be larger, giving us more flexibility and freedom to do more creative work.

Who knows, maybe you can get the box big enough that the occasional out-of- the-box idea won’t die a fiery death on take-off. It might actually make it to round two reviews.

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What follows is one of the single most interesting passages I’ve read in my 50-some years of reading. It’s from a marvelous book called 1939: The Lost World of The Fair, by David Gerlernter.

It paints a picture of an America that no longer exists.

“Question: What is wrong with this picture? [Rhetorical; there was no actual picture in the book.] It appeared in a 1939 survey of New York City: a construction site with pedestrians walking past in front, leafy trees and apartment buildings to the rear. Painted on the fence around part of the work site are the words ‘DYNAMITE STORED HERE – DANGER EXPLOSIVES DANGER.’ It is a tall, solid board fence. But there is no barbed wire, no policeman; Women and children [walk] by a fenced-off magazine of high explosives,” the caption reads.

I find this observation amazing.

To think that there was actually a time when you could safely store dynamite in an unprotected shack in New York City; and to feel so certain of the character of your fellow Americans that a simple danger sign would be sufficient to keep people away. It’s hard to believe such a world ever existed but clearly there was some social force in play that kept this dynamite safe. This force, Gerlernter proposes, was the fact that in 1939 “people lived in an ‘Ought’ culture.”

Such a marvelous insight, and all gleaned from one photograph in a yellowing magazine – America as an “Ought culture.” We ought to eat our vegetables. We ought to doff our hats in the presence of ladies. We ought to report neighbors who we suspect of communism.

Later on Gerlernter expands the definition to what I’d describe as “Authority culture.” In fact, it’s arguable the entire period from ‘30s through the early ‘60s was all Authority culture. Citizens trusted authority entirely, wherever it was; in a corporation; in a policeman’s uniform; or just the voice over the radio. (“Hold on, ladies and gents! I’ve just received this important telegram!”)

For purposes of discussion, I tender here a few advertisements typical of the times, copied from my collection of old magazines. I regard advertisements like these as windows into the soul of the times; emotional Polaroids of ancient evenings; the zeitgeist in rotogravure.

Note how Plymouth baldly states – with neither hesitation nor proof – that big-ass cars are glamorous. Saying it’s so, makes it so. General Electric decides for us that spring has a new color. And don’t get me started on this ad for Gaylord shaving supplies ad. I will note however also that illustration seemed to be the preferred visual style of the ‘40s through the ‘60s. Screw photography; illustrations let advertisers show life the way they wanted it to be and showing it so, of course, made it so. Note, too, that all three ads use exclamation points. (Hey, when you're an authority, you can bark your orders.)

Simply running an ad in a magazine made you an authority. (“See, honey, it’s printed right here. In a magazine!”) A cigarette ad could claim there wasn’t “a cough in a car load.” The government could deny radioactive iodine 131 was in the nation’s milk supply. Facts didn’t count. Authority did.

Pick up an old magazine sometime and see if you don’t agree; almost every ad and every article feels like a pronouncement from an authority.

Sometime in the mid-‘50s, however, this omnipresent voice of authority started to lose its credibility. How this came to be is perhaps a story for another day, but it happened. Somewhere in the cultural whirlwind of the times (the dethroning of McCarthyism, the quiz show scandals, the arms build-up), Americans developed the ability to be skeptical; to doubt; to question authority.

For my generation, I’ll wager many of us date the last days of unquestioned authority with the Vietnam war – its final public humiliation, the resignation of Dick Nixon. America finally had evidence – on tape even – that authority could be more than just wrong, it could be corrupt.

FROM AUTHORITY TO AUTHENTICITY.

Let’s turn the yellowed magazine page now to the year 2010.

Imagine we were to run that Plymouth ad in next week’s Time magazine. I’ll bet that even if we updated the ad’s look and feel, its presumptuous tone (“Big is glamorous, dammit!”) would still make today’s readers snicker at its authoritarian cluelessness. We simply wouldn’t get away with it today. It is a different America now.

We’ve become a nation of eye-rollers and skeptics. We scarcely believe anything we hear in the media any more and marketers can’t make things true simply by saying they’re true.

So, what I’m wondering today is this: where people once looked to authority to tell them what was true and wasn’t true, perhaps what people look for today is authenticity.

Merriam-Webster says something is authentic when it actually is what it’s claimed to be. Which makes authenticity in advertising an especially tricky proposition given that advertising is at its heart self-promotion and driven by an agenda. And yet while Americans today are suspicious of anyone with an agenda, being authentic doesn’t always require the absence of an agenda, only transparency about it.

Admitting that your commercial is a paid message with an agenda is one way to disarm distrust. Under-promising and over-delivering is another. Even self-deprecation can help establish authenticity; VW’s “It’s ugly but it gets you there” being perhaps the most memorable example.

DDB’s early Avis work was similarly authentic whether it was admitting to shortcomings (“We’re only #2.”) or giving customers with complaints the CEO’s actual phone number.

In my opinion, Canadian Club’s masterful print series is an excellent modern example of an advertiser leveraging reality, warts-and-all, to sell its wares. An unapologetic statement of “Damn right your Dad drank it” coupled with images of ‘70s dads (somehow still cool in their bad haircuts and paneled basements) leveraged authenticity instead of authority.

So too does a marvelous campaign for Miller High Life. Here the beer truck delivery guy takes back cases of his beer from snooty people who aren’t truly appreciating the Miller High Life. Grumbling on his way out the door of some hoity-toity joint (“$11.95 for a hamburger? Y’all must be crazy.”), he is himself a spokesman for authenticity.

But even with these good examples of authentic messaging, it’s now time to question the supremacy of the format itself – that of paid messaging. It worked fine in the ‘50s when TV was new and citizens were happy to listen to the man tell them Anacin worked fast-fast-fast.

But everything is different in 2010. As Ed Boches said, “In an age when the manufacturer, publisher, broadcaster and programmer have lost power to the consumer, reader, viewer and user, … the power of controlled messages has lost its impact.”

AUTHENTICITY IS THE WALK, NOT THE TALK.

It may be getting to the point now where marketers can’t make anything happen by employing messaging alone, no matter how authentic. Doc Searles, co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, agrees, stating that a brand isn’t what a brand says but what it does. What all this suggests is that perhaps the best way to influence behavior and opinion in the year 2010 is to do things instead of just say them.

Where it once served our clients to make “claims” on their behalf, it may be better now to do things that are less claim-based and more action-based, or reality-based, or more experiential – to demonstrate in the ad itself a brand’s promise or a product’s benefit.

For example, a print ad promising that VW is a fun brand, well, that’s nice. But bringing this claim to life with a subway stairwell of working piano keys was more powerful in a number of ways. Instead of making some happy claim about an emotion, it created the emotion right there on the stairs. And of course there’s the P.R. talk value of such an interesting execution.

I’m reminded also of Denny’s offer to America: a free breakfast during a recession. This is an event as much as it is an ad, and America took them up on it. Also from Goodby came the Hyundai Assurance Program, which allowed customers who bought a new Hyundai to return it if they lost their job within the year. These are not ads so much as they are events. They are not “claims,” they’re actions.

In the end, these musings suggest several possibilities.

• Marketers cannot simply list a product’s benefits and tell customers why they should want it. It doesn’t work very well anymore.

• Persuading a nation of eye-rollers requires a message, tone, or platform that is authentic.

• No matter how authentic your message, you cannot become X by saying you are X. You must actually be X. So, after you figure out what your brand needs to say, figure out what it needs to do.

• Same thing with customers: after you figure out what you want customers to think, what is it you want them to do?

• Similarly, don’t try to tell customers how they’re going to feel. Help them actually experience the emotion by doing something.

The bottom line: Brand actions speak louder than words. Brand experiences speak louder than ads. Walk beats talk.

BIG PHILOSOPHICAL CLOSING

My college psychology professor once wrote on the board, “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” It means the life of the individual organism is often reflected in the life of the species.

I confess I see in my own life a similar pattern of authority-to-authenticity. As a child, I blindly ascribed authority to many things (first was my parents; second, the Beatles) and in so doing came to know the world. But as I grew up, black-and-white authority became nuanced with the greys of authenticity.

Perhaps the nation grew up the same way. We don’t need Dad-Brands anymore, wagging their fingers at us with nothing by way of proof beyond “Because I said so.”

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

I got some much-needed advice on this essay from the delightful and brainy Nicole McKinney here at GSD&M.

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Welcome to agirlstory.org. The world’s first donation-based film series. The story begins with Tarla – a young girl who dreams of an education. Whether she realizes this dream, however, is up to the user. Her story progresses only when the audience makes donations, which unlock new chapters in a chain of you tube videos. Each donation not only has immediate filmic consequences, but real life consequences as well.

So much great work out there at the moment, I wanted to share it with y’all.

Sekret Firmy Magazine
Russian infography seems to be on the rise. Here are some great visuals from a publication apparently called ‘Sekret Firmy Magazine“. No idea what it’s about. But my eyes just don’t seem to care.

Update: Secret Firmy Magazine is the monthly business magazine of Kommersant, the Russian equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. (Thanks to Bruce Bennett for the info)

Damn Tourists!
Twinned with the Touristy Map Of The World is this amazing set of visualisations from Eric Fisher detailing concentrations of tourists in cities around the world, using geotagged photos. Blue are photos taken by locals. Red by tourists. Gorgeous concept and look. [via Burrito Justice]

If Crime Was Elevation
The peaks of San Francisco. Great concept converting crime figures into topology from coder Doug Mccune. Thanks to @calflyn.

How Much CO2??
Here’s a little interactive thing we did for GE’s EcoImagination initiative. A little window landscaping the relationship between driving and CO2 in America. Coded by the excellent Daniel Goldsworthy.

quickies

• Depth Charge – Not loving all the design elements but I scrolled right down to the end
• Visual Medical Records – Nice early idea
• Meet iPad’s competition – Another great viz from SectionDesign
• Marca World Cup Schedule – About a quillion people have sent me this.
  (Thanks Nuno Monteiro, Tom Broughton, Richard Stewart, Feisal, Onur Yirmibesolglu etc)

As ever, if you’ve spotted any goodies, send them over. Thanks! David.w

In Hey Whipple Squeeze This, I wrote: “Creativity is like washing a pig. It’s messy. It has no rules. No clear beginning, middle or end. It’s kind of a pain in the ass, and when you’re done, you’re not sure if the pig is really clean or even why you were washing a pig in the first place.”

The creative process is basically chaotic at its core and, for me at least, the washing-a-pig metaphor works on several levels.

•••••••••••••••••••••
The account person walks in and says, “Dude, the client’s coming here at 3pm and I need you to wash that pig over there.”

So you go online to see if there’s any advice or inspiration, kinda hoping you’ll find titles like “So You Want To Wash A Pig” or “Pig Washing: The McGuire 4-Step Method.” But you don’t.  So you find your partner, grab a hose, maybe a bucket and some soap. And you just sorta start.

You’ve never done anything like this before and so you feel kind of stupid at first.  All your first attempts fail messily. The pig keeps getting away from you for awhile and you think you won’t be able to do this.

Around 2:00 your partner tries distracting the pig with some vanilla wafers and suddenly between the two of you, you think maybe the pig is starting to get clean. As the client pulls into the parking lot, you’re both drying off the pig and second-guessing your work: “Is the pig really clean?”

Usually what happens here is that the client walks in and says, “Hey, instead, could you guys maybe wash a wart-hog?”

So you go home wondering many things, mostly why you spent the day washing a pig.

•••••••••••••••••••••
I’m not the only one who thinks washing a pig is a decent metaphor for the creative process. A professor in the Advertising Department at FSU, a fellow named Tom Laughon, turns out he thought washing a pig might make for a good “lab experience” in chaos and creativity. You can see his class in the picture above. More photos are online. 

In the photos you can sorta see where they figured out the part about vanilla wafers, which is basically the moment of inspiration that moves creative jobs into the completion phase. But without that inspiration, dude, you’re pig’s gonna stay dirty.

The problem with inspiration is it visits whenever the hell it wants. It’s random. With a handful of creative jobs inspiration may come quickly; but most days it seems our muse is sleeping off a crack binge in the stairwell of an abandoned federal building. And it’s because inspiration is random that it’s very hard for a creative person to say exactly when a job will be done.

It is from this uncertainty that all the pressure and insanity of the agency business is born.  In fact, any enterprise where someone pays someone else to perform a creative act has this tension built into it; whether it’s a client paying an agency or a studio paying a screenwriter.

This simple observation about the role of inspiration in the creative process, though a no-brainer to most creative people, is lost on many. The fact is, most normal people have jobs where they can survey the amount of work needed, make an estimate, and then complete the work in the allotted time.

We, on the other hand, have to wash a pig. It’s really hard to say when the pig’s gonna be clean. 3 o’clock? Maybe. Maybe not.

My old friend Mike Lescarbeau wrote this about the creative process:  “Coming up with ideas is not so much a step by step process as it is a lonely vigil interrupted infrequently by great thoughts, whose origins are almost always a mystery.”

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