As a creative agency, we're lucky to come across some pretty awesome stuff every day. In this blog we're each sharing one thing in particular that caught our eye over the last month or so. Enjoy!
Dan’s pick: Jimmy Turrell meets Elvis
I’ve been a big fan of Jimmy Turrell’s work for a number of years. It’s always distinctive, a great mixture of handmade collage, illustration, screen-printing and painting alongside more digital techniques.
He has produced work for huge clients such as Adidas, Hugo Boss and Creative Review, as well as an extensive portfolio of work within music, producing artwork for the likes of Beck, Aretha Franklin, BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend. And closer to home, various artwork for Newcastle-based band Smoove & Turrell (his brother is the singer!).
This month he has produced an official animation video for the release of Elvis’ classic hit “Can’t Help Falling In Love”, and its a lovely piece!
Erin’s pick: Brands Against Humanity
This month I have chosen ‘Brands Against Humanity’ by Ellie Daghlian and Elisa Czerwenka as my Fresh Pick. Not only is the expansion a great play on the Cards Against Humanity format, but it is also educational, exposing real horrific actions, campaign blunders and fake activism from real corporations. Some of the white cards include ‘No bathroom breaks in Amazon warehouses’, ‘M&S selling LGBT sandwiches so people think they care’ and ‘DuPont poisoning over 70,000 people by dumping Teflon in their drinking water’
Although not all of the issues are necessarily recent, they’re still very real. These days with the constant barrage of social media, these issues can be circulated a lot but it feels like very little can be done about them, and often just wears us down. I think Brands Against Humanity does a great job of using humour to educate and remind us what large corporations do, and through playing the game itself it’ll help these facts stay in players’ minds. Ellie and Elisa also urge players to donate money to charities which directly respond to each white card.
Ellen’s pick: Silver Linings
Full disclosure, this one’s from the beginning of the year. But I came across it and it made me smile so hopefully some of you will like it too.
Design studio, Greenspace, created a website with 21 good news stories to kickstart 2021. ’21 silver linings’ is designed to share uplifting news stories because, according to The World Health Organisation, reading and sharing optimistic stories is good for our mental health. Not surprising really!
I, for one, have avoided watching the news recently as it seems to be pretty down in the dumps every time I do, so this was a nice distraction for me.
The website is apparently going to be turned into a physical exhibition and printed silver linings review at some point, so I’ll be looking out for those.
If you’re in need of some positivity in your life (and a nice website to look at while you’re at it) then get over to 21silverlinings.com.
Katie’s pick: Instant brand recognition
I know it’s only been a couple of months since my last ketchup-related pick, but I couldn’t resist sharing this. Plus, I do really love ketchup so it’s a pretty accurate representation of my personality, I suppose…!
Anyway, recently creative agency ‘Rethink’ led focus groups around the world where participants were asked to draw what they thought a ketchup bottle looked like. Almost everyone drew a Heinz bottle.
Turns out the focus groups were funded by Heinz and they used the drawings as the basis for a global advertising campaign consisting of out of home adverts and bottle labels made from the drawings. Genius.
It just goes to show the power of a strong brand! Would you have drawn a Heinz bottle? I think I probably would have.
Jai’s pick: Chelsea Creates
This month has seen the launch of “Chelsea Creates”, which is a collaboration between Chelsea F.C. and Copa90. The aim of this project is to give the best emerging artists the opportunity to create artwork featuring the stars from the famous London club. Helping to kick off the project this month was the Swedish artist Alva Skog who created a series of illustrations depicting the Blues literally taking over London. Featured in these illustrations are key players including Tammy Abraham as well as their new manager Thomas Tuchel as giants proudly roaming London and stadiums like Stamford Bridge. Similar in style to Alva Skog’s “On Top of the World” series the figures are cleverly drawn on top of photographs. Personally I love the style of these illustrations with their bold colours and intricate line work. Even though I might not be the biggest fan of Chelsea, there is no mistaking that Alva Skog does a great job of celebrating their standing as one of the city’s biggest clubs.Laura’s pick: The Real Art of Faking
This month I’m loving Converse and Bandulu’s The Real Art of Faking collaboration. Bandulu are self-professed street couture clothing brand who teamed up with Converse to challenge the traditional art and sport relationship.
I’m a fan of anything that looks purposely messy and disorganised, so was instantly drawn to the use of embroidered paint splatters. At first glance, they look like an accident, but they’re actually hand sewn silk! It was even more interesting to learn that Bandulu’s paint splatters are a distinct style, developed in art school to cover up stains and to upcycle vintage clothing.
Henry’s pick: The beauty of Scotland
My fresh pick this week is simply stunning! Designer and photographer Daniel Freytag has created a glorious feed that explores the beauty of Scotland through colour using his own photographyAnd that’s it for this month…
We hope these have given you a little something to enjoy today, or maybe even a little bit of inspiration. If you’d like to bring some creativity into your own campaigns, we love discussing ideas. Just shoot us a quick email to hello@vidacreative.co.uk.
We’ll be back in a month or so with more stuff worth sharing. But until then, you can keep up with what we’re up to over on our Instagram.