This commercial absolutely stunning, the only thing I know about it is that it is from 2004 and it was directed by Gabe Ibañez. Really amazing.

[via the cool hunter]

Those crafty advertising agencies (TBWA\Chiat\Day in this case) are at work on an ad campaign to play with the English language, and make an observer wonder what it is that they are trying to communicate to the public.

I am, of course, talking about the campaign for Snickers. More specifically about the made up words that replace the space where “Snickers” usually appears on its candy bar wrappers, buses, billboards, and other public spaces.

The Snickers ad campaign is using the concept of word coinage to invent new words that seek to gain observers’ attention. Really what they’ve done is to combine morphemes, or base elements of internal word structure from other words in an attempt to define their product in a new, robust way.

1. hunger + ectomy
2. nougat + ocity
3. peanut + opolis
4. satis + fect + ellent
5. substantial + iscious

From this morphological breakdown, the linguist might determine that a Snickers 1) removes hunger, 2) is full of nougat to the nth degree, 3) makes you feel like you are in a city of peanuts, 4) satifies with excellence, and 5) is deliciously substantial.

I any case, Snickers is making up words to draw attention to itself. Similar marketing campaigns have used morpheme-play and word coinage to equal effect, e.g. Uncola (Un + cola). I doubt Snickers’ new words will be added to the lexicon, but one can only hope because they’re so fun and satisfying!

I love YouTube. Check out these cool production company logos! Many were before my time, but I remember a few. Perhaps this video will inspire a logo design… Retro always seems to be in fashion. 

This showed up on digg.com recently and was too great to pass up. Surely this says something about the current state of marketing.

via Tweebiscuit.net

I really, really like this Advertisement for a ski resort in Québec.

It’s so simple, cheap, and effective, it looks like something that would come out of a company like Adidas.

via AdGoodness

Hey All! This is Malia, Fearless Future intern, contributing my first blog post! I just wanted to share some interesting artwork I came across.

While working at the UA library, a good citizen turned in a few lost items one of those being a library card from the Tempe Public Library here in Arizona. I’ve got to say, I’ve never seen a cooler library card! I was intrigued and looked up Tempe Public Library under the assumption that they must have a really awesome marketing department. It turns out there are four specially designed cards by artists in Arizona that have references to the common theme of mass transit. Mary Lucking designed the one I came across, shown here.

Before looking up the design of this card, I had no idea what the image was about. A friend of mine guessed that the guy in the picture was simply taking the light rail. I thought it was a good guess, but it’s actually a scene from the artist’s favorite book called The Master and Margarita, when a cat tries to board a Moscow street car.

Also, here’s an interesting slideshow called Reading Tea Leaves and Campaign Logos I found while wandering around The New York Times website. It humorously analyzes various campaign logos for current presidential candidates. One of my favorites is shown here.

Just recently I read a quote from Don Joyce (of Negativland) on Wired and it seemed suitable to libraries and marketing. Joyce says:

“Selectivity becomes of prime importance, whether it’s looking for content or trying to find what you’re looking for in a thousand pages of search results. As Duchamp and Warhol predicted before they ever saw a computer, there is an art and a message in the act of selection itself.”

Working in libraries over the years, I have noticed one thing come up over and over again: librarians do not understand the fine art of selection. Yes, they are well meaning. When an undergraduate comes to a class or to the reference desk librarians always try to tell the student everything.

Instead we need to retrain ourselves to only impart exactly the information that is needed.

In marketing this means that we have to choose our images with great care. This is one of the reasons that Jonathan and I want to rid the world of clip art.

Both Warhol and Duchamp were excellent at picking out something in everyday life and calling it art. Warhol’s most famous piece of art is the Campbell’s Soup Can and Duchamp’s is the Urinal—and before you can say “I can do better than that”–the truth is you didn’t!—And that is the thing about art and selection and I think that we should all embrace this idea: every image we use to promote our services and activities has weight, so choice carefully!

Every person should consider themselves an artist when choosing, because in our overly media saturated world the choice itself becomes a kind of art.

Mary and I are testing out a new blog design. If you are reading this in a feed reader, come check out the new design and the new features.

Poke around and let us know what you think.

I’m posting the Annual Report that I designed for American University Library mostly for inspiration’s sake, but also because I think it turned out great.

Last year the report centered around this theme of a botanical field guide. For this year’s report, the highlights were maps from the library’s special collections. Since maps were the central focus, the report was designed around the core idea of a “Captain’s Log.” This idea allowed the addition of personal elements such as handwriting and handmade graphs, these personal touches helped to dispel the austere image that annual reports tend to portray.

One of the primary goals when designing this annual report was that it be a tactile experience. The cover was embossed with a leather texture on the spine and the four corners, and the paper is milled to feel like cloth. The ultimate goal was that this annual report feel authentic, and I think we succeeded.

Below, I’ve attached a PDF so you can look through the whole thing.

Spreadshirts’ Open Logo Project
I think this is a great idea that could seemingly work at any institution. Spreadshirt is offering a ton of great prizes to the designer of their new logo.

They have already gotten over 500 entries in less thank 3 weeks. It’s great publicity and the prizes (some of which are donated) are valued around what they would end up paying a design firm to design it for them.

I know of some institutions that have tried something similar, but not on this scale. It would be neat to not limit it to your institution and present it in a similar manner where you can get submissions from all over and allow people to comment on them. Of course, if you were at an art school or a school that had a strong design program you could limit it to just student work; this type of project would really help engender some ownership amongst the students.

You can view the entries they have received so far here.