Recently in Art Category

Daphne, who used to work in the LA office with me has an excuse for missing these viral Dove Ads - she's in our Sydney, Australia office.

But me, who sits at his computer all day in the second largest city in America, blogging about media stuff?

Sadly, no excuse.

But! To make up for it, in case any of the rest of you are recovering Luddites, I'm including two of the films from Dove's Self-Esteem gallery. (On a side note, I've watched these a number of times and my self-esteem remains remarkably low.)

There's been a heck of a lot of controversy about these films and Dove "taking on" the beauty industry. There's even been venting at Ogilvy, who produced these film, because they also produce ads for a well-known girl's doll that is not so loved by many women.

I'm not sure what I think of the campaign as a whole, is it whitewashing or just a step in the right direction?

Either way, the visuals in these films speak for themselves. Whether that changes your decision whether or not to pop into Victoria's Secret or Abercrombie & Fitch, is up to you.

Onslaught

Evolution

Interestingly, Greenpeace posted their own YouTube response ad (below), protesting Dove's use of palm oil in their products. They claim the palm oil industry is destroying the Paradise Forests in Indonesia and that "as the biggest single buyer of palm oil in the world" they need to help stop it.

As a result, Unilever met with Greenpeace and "agreed to support the call by Greenpeace for an immediate moratorium on deforestation for palm oil plantation".

So maybe one step in the right direction, the Real Beauty Campaign, is leading to other right steps?

And Getty down...

There's this interesting brainstorming device on the Getty Images site called Moodstream.

Dial up your mood on a sliding scale Happy to Sad, Calm to Lively, Humorous to Serious, Nostalgic to Contemporary then let Getty overwhelm you with stock photography and footage, plus a soundtrack from Pump Audio (it does skew Adult Contemporary).

Editor in Chief at CreativePro, Terri Stone used to recently to help her writer's block starting her newsletter. But it's mainly a good place to see some of Getty's great images and get the juices flowing for creative design work.

Definitely worth a look - just click here.

Flashforward 2008 just announced their Film Festival Finalists which, happily, you can look at here at their site.

For those of you who just love to be a little more interactive yourselves, they're holding a whole People's Choice Awards (which is not trademarked as is TV's popular People's Choice awards) that allows you to look at the pieces and vote on your favorite.

Sadly, there is no ballot stuffing.

You know, there's a public act that's just gone out of favor.

Regardless, this should get your primed for the November elections.

If you're currently on assignment through us, you probably get a number of emails from your Agent about what's going on around town during the summer, but I've been WOEFULLY poor at keeping up on events on this blog.

I'm sorry, so very, very sorry....

To try to make up for my lamedness, I'm giving you the hip tip on tomorrow's designer roundtable down at Barbara's at the Brewery. It's a group called Kernspiracy and is hosted by our friend Spencer Cross, and is absolutely free.

Okay, you have to buy the drinks.

But the friends, networking, business advice, and cold AC are all included in the price of admission.

More info by clicking below.

The great thing about being a Designer, or just appreciating design, is that great design is absolutely everywhere.

(Sadly, it's also the worst thing, as bad design is everywhere too. But I'm getting off the topic here...)

It doesn't surprise me that many of the print Designers I meet also love architecture, but I rarely hear one talking about the structure and feeling of a great city. It's an odd thing, I think. Just as a great coffeehouse can seem to inspire a design, novel, or a romance, think of what creativity a great city like Paris, Amsterdam, or San Francisco produces.

Which is why, if you're a design aficionado, you should check out the Projects for Public Spaces site, which is a non-profit "dedicated to helping people create and sustain public places that build communities."

These are the people behind encouraging local farmers markets, mixed-use developments, thriving downtowns, and better use of public transportation.

I mean, how can you not love their motto? Building Community, Creating Places, Using Common Sense

Maybe you won't agree with all their ideas (and truly, for Designers, dissension is vital part of the process, right?), but it's always great to see their takes what makes a city so right, and what makes it so wrong.

As it may raise your cholesterol level and put you at risk for coronary heart disease.

I like beef, but I find these cliffs disturbing in a bad-modern-art way, which is probably not the intention of the Beef: It's What's for Dinner people.

When I look at these, I'm thinking "Beef: You're Soaking In It".

But that may just be me.

Check out more Beefscapes (yes, Beefscapes) here at their site.

(But I included the one below just for kicks)