coffee and pie

One of my favourite blogs booooooom is currently running a competition with Converse Skateboarding called Hack Job The idea is to make a skateboard out of random materials you find.

There will be an online gallery at the end and Converse will be giving some prizes to the five most creative submissions. Seems like a nice targeted project from Converse. A few of my favourites below.

I am in love with this new Cadbury ad for Flake. It looks more like a high fashion ad campaign or installation and has nothing to do with chocolate. But then again neither did gorillas or eyebrows.

The ad airs tonight 8.30pm on Channel 4.

Via creative review

Two minute film for the Dulux Lets colour project. The people in the film are not actors, they are real people who rolled up their sleeves to transform their community. I’ve already written about how much I love the project and watching this film has only increased my excitement about it.

The film was shot by multi-award winning director Adam Berg over four weeks in Brazil, France, London and India.

Hair Conditioner from Jonathan Gurvit on Vimeo.

The Westfield Fashion Detector

Westfield have just created this Fashion Detector. It totally taps into how people (women in particular) are inspired by the way other people dress, you only have to look at the rise in fashion blogging, outfit posts and lookbook to see this influence.

Based on an old project I’m really interested in the development of fashion and technology particularly from an ecommerce perspective. Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

I came across Philips Lumiblade Creative Lab through Jason Bruge’s piece Mimosa. Philips OLED Lumiblade (organic light emitting diode) is the first commercial module available and to showcase its capabilities they have partnered with leading designers to explore the possibilities of OLED lighting in design and construction.

The Lumiblade Creative Lab is an actual lab in Germany where various professionals from a range of backgrounds have come to explore what this new technology can do.

Jason Bruges Studio in Milan was commissioned by Philips to develop a light installation for the 2010 Milan furniture fair.

Mimosa is an interactive artwork displaying behavior that mimics responsive plant systems. The piece was inspired by the Mimosa family of plants, which change kinetically to suit their environmental conditions.

Mimosa by Jason Bruges Studio from Bruges Studio on Vimeo.

Jason’s project is lovely and it’s really to exciting to see a brand highlight the value in its products through these innovative partnerships. As discussed on my blog in the past all too often – especially since the surge in social media marketing – we see companies try and sell products through making them look good but without fully committing to an idea. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes out of Philips Lumiblade lab next.

The 100 Brands Project from Robin of Shoreditch on Vimeo.

An anonymous group of creatives are coming up with 100 ideas for the top 100 brands to help with the ongoing relief efforts in Haiti. Each brand will recieve a solution to a business problem. All they have to do is pay one ten-millionth of the value of their brand. Nice idea! Looking forward to seeing this develop. The ideas and progress will be recorded on their blog here.

I’m liking these posters produced to promote Manchester City’s four big premiership fixtures this season. I found them over at Creative Review’s blog. They were commissioned by Design company Music who worked with illustrators to produce four posters for each game against Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United.

It’s so refreshing to see Football presented and promoted through art and illustration. It would be nice to see some more of these unique and cultural approaches to football promotion.

Lets Colour‘ is “a worldwide initiative to transform grey spaces with colourful paint”. Dulux have gathered a group of bloggers as well as some of their management team to tour the UK, France, India and Brazil painting gray spaces with bright colours.

As Contagious pointed out advertising colour in an original an impactful way is no easy task since both Sony and Apple’s campaigns – but Dulux have got an idea here that communicates across multiple channels in multiple ways. I was drawn to this for the amazing photography but there is an emotion they have tapped into by focusing on communities, change and making something better.

Let’s Colour doesn’t just sell an idea to you it makes you want to take part or at least value the people who have and appreciate the differences it has made. Most importantly you can see its real which is probably my favourite thing about the project. This project whether born from a ’social media meeting’ or just an ideas meeting is truly reflective of the way people share information.

It’s so nice to see such a huge idea carried and executed across social channels. I hate that social media is still tagged onto the end of an idea or project. Social media was born out of behaviours and how people are interacting with certain platforms. This should be taken into consideration when coming up with any idea.

As I mentioned the pictures are what drew me into the project and you can see all of these on their Flickr. The blog is full of more info on the day to day work as well as completed projects. They have a twitter account and there is a different Facebook page for each country where there are some great competitions for users to get involved with the project.

I’m looking forward to how this project will translate to sales and the everyday consumer strolling into homebase at the weekend, as well as the TV campaigns – with a documentary filmmaker involved I’m sure there is lots more to come.

I really love the French Connection rebranding and thought it was brilliant how they had extended it from store windows to their website – something still not seen often enough in other retail brands.

Their latest strategy is an interesting next step and may perhaps seem slightly off brand for their new messaging. However I like how they have taken the new site – Chatroulette, which is doing the rounds across the Web and is primarily know for men exposing their genitals and created a competition that moves away from that subject.

The messaging (below) may hint at the more explicit side of Chatroulette but the entries will have to challenge the (what feels like) default behavior, and communicate with others in a much more realistic face to face way – forcing people to explore the site and maybe utilise the positive aspects of it.

“So we’re challenging men to venture into the dirty, smelly swathes of ChatRoulette to find a woman. And seduce her. The best man wins £250 to blow at French Connection Man on a decent outfit to seduce real ladies in the real world.”

Obviously it could all fall flat on its face but I’m pretty sure being the first brand to partner with such a new and controversial site can only be good for their brand awareness.

Either way after my first experience of Chatroulette I’m not planning a second visit anytime soon but it’s a good example of fashion brands getting their hands dirty with social media.