Rationale

Inspiration - The basis of our summer brief. To analyse and critically review any material that we find inspirational. This brief was given to us at the beginning of what is probably our last ever summer holiday, which I wasn’t too pleased about – having to do work over our last summer!?

However, once I finally started blogging, I got quite into it and found it very interesting.

To begin with, I was not looking out for inspiration, but thought I would let it come to me, for inspirational material to leap out and catch my attention. This approach was not very effective and you can probably tell from the very limited blog entries from early on in the summer.

However, during my travels over the summer, I went around all these cities looking at all their architecture and museums, and at the time I didn’t even realise how inspirational it all was. It was only once I was home looking through my photos that I realised and thought it would be perfect to blog. Literally, some of the architecture was mind boggling, the stand out piece for me being the Cathedral in Barcelona – simply phenomenal. Obviously, other modern places such as the apple store and the Guggenheim in New York were brilliant as well, but in a different way.

I have noticed in my blog that there are quite a lot of music related posts. Music is a big part of my life, whether its playing or listening, I have always been influenced by it. One of my entries was about the artist Kandinsky, who’s art was influenced by the music he listened to as he painted it. I would love to be able to be influenced by music in this way – to be able to draw what I hear. Not only that, but the death of Michael Jackson, another of my posts, shook the world. Only a few weeks before he supposed to start his 50 date tour, he passed away. So many people heartbroken and sad that they would never get to see him live again. I for one was really sad, especially as I had tickets for what was supposed to be the greatest show on earth…

This brief has made me take much more notice of all the advertisements and other similar things in the world that are constantly around me. We are supposed to see something like 3000 advertisements every day in our lives that I never used to think was possible. But after this brief, now I have started to take notice of a lot more things around me, I’m starting to think that it must be pretty close to 3000!

An example of this is in one of my recent posts, after seeing Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs in 3D at the cinema, I went to the toilet and noticed an ‘FCUK’ advertising on my way out and thought it was really clever. Usually I wouldn’t have taken a second glance at it, but this brief has made me much more aware of advertisements, and I even went over and had a good look at it and a brief analysis in my head.

I feel even though the deadline for this brief is fast approaching, that I should still continue to blog things that inspire me. Viewing and commenting on fellow peer’s blogs has been very inspirational as well. I have noticed that a lot of my peer’s are inspired by a lot of similar things to me, however, they are also inspired by completely different things that I would not even consider to be very inspirational. Yet, on the other hand, I have seen a lot of things on others blogs that have inspired me.

Hopefully, soaking up all this inspiration over the summer can help inspire me with my work this year and I’ll be able to come up with some good stuff.

Street Art

I think this sort of street art is very imaginative. The perspective that it has to be drawn for it to work is ridiculous. I have included an example of this below. Not only is the actual artwork very good, but the fact that you can interact with them like the man in the picture above just ads even more to them.

Below is an example of the perspective that these images have to be drawn at in order to see them properly at one angle.

FCUK

After seeing Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, i couldn't help but notice an advert like the one below in the toilets. Unfortunately I couldn't stick around to look at it to analyse and i didn't have a camera to take a photo, but the image below is the closest i could find to it. This sort of advertisement has been around for sometime by FCUK, but i have never taken much notice of them until today. I thought it was quite clever so i've put it on here.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

I have literally just gotten back from seeing this film at the cinema in 3D with some friends (one of which will probably be posting this on their blog as well). I really liked it. The animation was fantastic, but I didn't really think the third dimension added much to the film and i would have probably liked it just as much if i had seen it in 2D. Although saying that, seeing burgers fly out of no where onto the screen was quite surreal. A machine that makes water into food - the perfect solution to solve world hunger. Or so you would think. I cant help but think that there is a hidden meaning within this movie as well. A witty movie about the excess food consumption and food waste of the earth, just like the movie Wall-e. Of course in the end of the movie, everything is sorted out and there are no more food problems and thus, no more mass consumption. But they also make a big point about the food thats wasted in the movie - its just all deposited behind a dam... there has to be a hidden meaning in there somewhere. The film has a killer script with lines such as: "That spaghetti twister is just an amuse bouche compared to what's on the way".

A great film for the whole family.

Smirnoff Campaigns

I have stumbled across 2 Smirnoff campaigns here using the same idea of using the Smirnoff bottle as a sort of beer goggle, but executing them differently. The 2 ads above have used a grotty looking place, but suggests that through the use of the drink, everything seems a lot prettier, which is generally what happens...

But the ads below have used the bottle in a different sense. They have taken a nice image and made the result of the alcohol almost malign.

I think its a very clever idea, but some of the ads below could give some people the wrong idea.

This ad with the babies may suggest that babies can drink the alcohol which would give out a very bad message.

I personally think they may have come up with the campaign involving the first 2 examples in this post after the others due to complaints from the public. But i could be wrong.

Absolut Vodka

Abolut are such a consistent brand with the use of their typeface and the shape of their bottle that they have been able to create such a range of advertisements that are all so different, but at the same time still very easily distinguishable.

I particularly like the use of the iconic image of Michelangelo's Hand of God giving life to Adam from the Sistine Chapel representing how pure this vodka is.

FedEx

For years i never realised how good this logo actually was until the arrow was pointed out to us in a lecture in first year. Its so simple, but actually quite hard to see - its almost like a subliminal advertisement. Since i was told about it, i have asked so many of my friends back home if they can see the hidden aspect to the logo and not a single one of them has spotted it. But after its been pointed out to you, its the only thing you look at whenever you see the logo the next time.

I have also found the equivalent of the FedEx logo from Dubai, written in Arabic. The whole thing looks as though its backwards compared to the one we are used to. The orangey/red 'Ex' is at the front with the arrow pointing the opposite direction, with the purply/blue 'Fed' is on the right. But still, i like that they have still managed to incorporate the arrow into Arabic writing in order to try and keep their brand personality throughout.