Hate advertising? Make better ads

SYNOPSIS

ART & COPY is a powerful new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray (SURFWISE, SCRATCH, HYPE!), it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time -- people who've profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry. Exploding forth from advertising's "creative revolution" of the 1960s, these artists and writers all brought a surprisingly rebellious spirit to their work in a business more often associated with mediocrity or manipulation: George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Lee Clow, Hal Riney and others featured in ART & COPY were responsible for "Just Do It," "I Love NY," "Where's the Beef?," "Got Milk," "Think Different," and brilliant campaigns for everything from cars to presidents. They managed to grab the attention of millions and truly move them. Visually interwoven with their stories, TV satellites are launched, billboards are erected, and the social and cultural impact of their ads are brought to light in this dynamic exploration of art, commerce, and human emotion.

http://www.artandcopyfilm.org/

Rules to be happy

Yesterday i received an email (as I subscribed to daily newsletter) about a story of a donkey and a farmer.

Here's the story and what we all can learn :)

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well.

The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.
Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing.

He would shake it off and take a step up..

As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up.

Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well, and happily trotted off!
*****
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

Free your heart from hatred - Forgive.
Free your mind from worries - Most never happen.
Live simply and appreciate what you have.
Give more. Expect less


NOW ....... Enough of that crap. The donkey later came back, and bit the farmer who had tried to bury him. The gash from the bite got infected and the farmer eventually died in agony from septic shock.

MORAL FROM TODAY'S LESSON:

When you try to cover your ass, it always comes back to bite you.

-John Hope Bryant-

Scratch Mat | The Fun Theory

A great idea by funtheory



Most people enter a building without cleaning their shoes, often resulting in dirt all over the floor.
Could this nuisance be removed by making the activity fun to do? We think so.

Submitted by Felix Möller and Daniel Westhof - Germany

Do all the Good

Another words by John Wesley that I love to share with everyone today.

' Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can '

John Wesley

Send a Letter

We’ve stopped writing letters.

We send e-mails instead. But finding an e-mail in your inbox is not the same as getting a letter through the postal service. A letter has a personal touch; and it can be a real pleasure to get a letter that is not a bill or a piece of junk mail.

So what can we do to encourage letter writing?
Letter writing day is held in Japan in July each year. The Japanese postal service issues a commemorative 80-yen stamp to mark the day. July has traditionally been known as Letter Month in Japan, possibly because July 7 is Start Festival, when people write letters of wishes to their God. Letter Writing Day builds on this tradition.

International Letter Writing Week is held each year in October.
This is the date when the Universal Postal Union was founded in order to facilitate international mail. The week encourages worldwide cultural exchange and friendship as a contribution to world peace. The union organizes a letter-writing competition for young people to mark the week.

Each year, there is a different theme for the competition. The national postal service promote the competition and choose a national winner. UNESCO then chooses three overall winners. The competition is open to young people under 16. Letters must be between 500 and 1,000 words in length.

Past themes have included ‘How to build a better future’ (2003),’My views on human rights’(1998), ‘A letter to the person I admire most’ (1997),’How young people can help the children of a country at war’(1993), Themes are not always serious. In 2005, contestants has to write a letter to their favourite fairytale character.

Universal Postal Union: www.upu.int
Japan Letter Writing Day: www.post.japanpost.jp/english/kitte_hagaki/stamp/tokusyu/2003/0723_letter


Amnesty’s advice on letter-writing for activists:
www.amnesty.org/campaign/letter-guide.html

I refer these information from '365 ways to change the world' by Michael Norton, interesting book to read contains lots of ideas we can do daily.

The Day After Peace

The Day After Peace is the latest award-winning documentary film from Peace One Day founder and chairman Jeremy Gilley.

Jeremy Gilley was an actor before he founded Peace One Day in 1999. He had become disillusioned with his work, but understood the potential of film to positively affect people and create change in the world. So when he set out on his near impossible mission in 1999, he took a camera with him. Every journey made, every country visited and every person met – he got it all on camera. Ten years on, The Day After Peace is his story – the story of Peace One Day.

(info from peaceoneday.org)

DesignersBlock

Today I saw an article of designersblock and found an interesting 'united' on their site.

The text 'united' forms and connect u n i together. Design really speaks. I love it. :)

How to Be Remarkable

These article from art of great things tells us how to be remarkable - here.

Remarkable things are made primarily of wholly unremarkable parts. A phone call, a chance meeting, a spiral notebook. It’s the way these parts happen to fit, and the context in which it happens that makes all the difference. And according to Cal Newport, the fact that you can’t imagine a step-by-step model for something is exactly what makes that thing impressive.

We aren’t fascinated by things we can easily understand; we’re fascinated by things far greater than the sum of their parts.


-you don’t start something remarkable. You start something, then you make it remarkable along the way.-

Food Inc. - The Truth Behind The Food at Our Local Supermarket

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults. (info from Food Inc. Official Website)



HD trailer can also be found on their official website here

If We Ran The World - Human Intentions into Action

IfWeRanTheWorld, a site launched in beta this week at the TED conference that aims to harness human intentions into action.

Start by answering the question, 'If you ran the world, what would you do?' with a tangible, achievable goal: this will be your actionplatform. Then you'll be asked to break it down into the microactions that need doing in order to complete your actionplatform. Think small, simple, tweet-able. So small, simple and easy to do, in fact, that anyone you invite to microact can only say, 'I'd love to.'

It's a beta version, but it's such a huge voice contribution by people worldwide with actions! :)

Sony Foam City

In 2008, Miami was turned into the world's biggest bubble bath for Sony's "Foam City" advertisement. 120 million gallons of bubbles; 500,000 gallons of foam per minute was pumped out by a custom-built world's largest foam machine for this Sony's camera’s commercial.

sourced from crookedbrains

Though it's not a recent Sony commercial, it shows that foam can be really beautiful. Look at their happy faces! :D

Experience Life - Shake The World

Shake The World is an independent film production group that focuses its creative energies on indie film production and distribution.

The documentary showcases a variety of simultaneous events from 4:00pm Pacific Standard Time on the day of April 11, 2009. People around the globe were asked to videotape themselves for sixty seconds, and in those sixty seconds, they were given the opportunity to show the world life from their own perspectives.

You can experience life through the eyes of one unified moment.

Shake The World - Official Trailer 2009 from Shake The World on Vimeo.

Unplug Design

Well, I'm not promoting a company here, but just happened to find it on ambalaj.se website and I feel it's great when human+design=happiness ^^ .I wish one day I'll be part of those people in future. :D:D Here's some info about Unplug Design.

About Unplug design

The meeting between human and design,with happiness.

With the aim for the public weal and welfare of entire human society we, Unplug Design, always think about better days of entire human race.

Our design is not an element but an agent which makes things worthy. While making not only results of material production, but also spritual meanings, we are eager to participate in the changing process of our life.

Unplug Design Studio
2F 1435-8 Seocho-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul
137-865 Korea (Map)unplugdesign@hotmail.com / +82_ 2_ 6670_ 7363


:D

10,000 Dance for the Climate

In August 2009 over 10.000 people danced for the climate on the Ostend Beach in Belgium.

For more dance videos, you can check out their website http://www.dancefortheclimate.org/

You can contribute to dance for the climate by uploading your video on their site whether it's just you alone or thousands of people at a festival. Make them dance, shout, jump, whatever they like. Get it on video with some instructions - You don't have to mimic our movie, you can use any music you like (but watch out with copywrited material - Just Dance!

Country Details

Today I found some information about Singapore and I think it's worth to keep. So, I posted here. This is kind of info that i always want to check but everytime I end up in wikipedia which gives me too much info to absorb haha :D

Found it on www.dhl.com.sg

Venice Carnival 2010 / 6th - 16th Feb. 2010.

The Carnival of Venice (Italian: Carnevale di Venezia) is an annual festival, held in Venice, Italy



the Carnival in Venice was supposedly first recorded in 1296, when the Senate of the Republic issued an edict declaring the day before Lent as a public holiday. Much as in other cities, Medieval and Renaissance Venetians appear to have celebrated Carnival in several guises. On the one hand, it was an official festival, for the most part staged in Piazza San Marco, the Piazzetta, in the courtyard of the Ducal Palace, or out in the Bacino of San Marco – the basin adjoining the Molo. These events, especially during and after the sixteenth century, celebrated the founding and governing myths of the state – its tranquility, durability, prosperity, fairness, and piety. Some of these official festivities were violent – oxen and pigs were let loose in the Palace courtyard and then slaughtered – but they still conveyed the overarching theme of civic unity. On the other hand, a good deal of popular energy during Carnival was directed into group rivalries, between parishes or between large geographic factions that divided the city. These could be extremely violent at times, involving bull fights, the running of oxen or pigs down the streets, or mass brawls with sticks or fists, often on bridges.

By the seventeenth century the Carnival of Venice, like that of Rome, had become a regular attraction for tourists from Northern Europe – especially the so-called Grand Tourists: young aristocratic men who spent a year or more visiting the cultural attractions of Italy. (ref from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_of_Venice)

Origami-Between The Folds

We Explore Our Worlds Through Our Fingers


Between The Folds Official Trailer 2008



It's an interesting documentary film about origami and it really shows how we can create something through our fingers. Well, I think I'm gonna find out how they do it or at least templates and post them here soon! :D:D

GREEN FUSE FILMS' award–winning documentary Between the Folds chronicles the stories of ten fine artists and intrepid theoretical scientists who have abandoned careers and scoffed at hard–earned graduate degrees—all to forge unconventional lives as modern–day paperfolders.

As they converge on the unlikely medium of origami, these artists and scientists reinterpret the world in paper, and bring forth a bold mix of sensibilities towards art, expressiveness, creativity and meaning. And, together these offbeat and provocative minds demonstrate the innumerable ways that art and science come to bear as we struggle to understand and honor the world around us—as artists, scientists, creators, collaborators, preservers, and simply curious beings.

Check out here for more info on the film http://www.greenfusefilms.com

Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster (1912)

Daddy Long Legs

It's a very old story i heard when i was in primary school. It's such a sweet story, I think i need to buy one to re-read it. :D

These are book review taken from reading matters

It's a lovely story, and it's a surprise love story, but you won't realize who loves who until you get right to the very end. In the beginning, it is a series of letters, written by an American orphan girl, really just on the brink of womanhood. When we first meet Judy Abbott she is seventeen years old and still living in the John Grier Home for Orphans. She has done well at the local high school and one of the trustees of the orphanage offers to pay for her to go to college. But he insists on anonymity. All he asks is that she write a letter to him once a month to let him know of her progress through college. She is to address him as John Smith, and she is to expect no reply. So, you see, it is a rather one-sided correspondence!

Well, how would you feel if you had lived all your life without any family of your own and without anyone showing the slightest interest in you, and suddenly, quite out of the blue, someone started to shower you with kindness? I expect, like Judy, you would be desperate to know more about your mysterious benefactor:

I wish you'd come and take tea some day and let me see if I like you. But wouldn't it be dreadful if I didn't? However, I know I should.

Judy has a wonderful time at college. She makes new friends and studies many subjects that are entirely new to her. To begin with though she feels very strange and isolated because she has so little in common with the other girls:

I have a new unbreakable rule: never, never to study at night no matter how many written reviews are coming up in the morning. Instead, I read just plain books - I have to, you know, because there are eighteen blank years behind me. You wouldn't believe, Daddy, what an abyss of ignorance my mind is; I am just realizing the depths myself. The things that most girls with a properly assorted family and a home and friends and a library know by absorption, I have never heard of.

Of course, over the years of her study at college Judy grows into a lively and attractive young woman who takes enormous delight in the little pleasures of ordinary life. It's easy to see why Jervis Pendleton, her rich room-mate's uncle, finds her company so enjoyable. And it's easy to see why Jimmy McBride finds her fun to be with too. He's the brother of her other room-mate. And do you want to know who she falls in love with? You will have to read the book then.

East Fella

East fella/man from Singapore is what my photography lecturer had been called himself as. He has great passion in photography,advertising and internet marketing even after he suffered a stroke, he still spent his free time writing Ebooks (in digital format) on the many subject he is well versed in.

He likes the sound of being 'infopreneur', seller of information in the internet. He wrote some photography tutorials and it kept him busy while he was teaching us at NAFA. He had been a great lecturer for us, and I'm so thankful and also grateful, for having him as one of the most patient lecturer I've ever had.

I learn much from him, I belive we need to be passionate in something we're interested in regardless of any condition we're experiencing. Things might go wrong, but believe me,passion will keep it alive and it will encourage people just like us to continue the spirit, may it comes from others or from ourselves.

and it's great to share whatever we have to contribute to others, be it your story, things you see, feel, or anything you're really passion about. You may never know how many people or who will be motivated/encouraged out of it. Let us build up Hope to others by sharing urs.



'Success is a Choice', it is a journey begins with a first step. - James Ho


{God always be with him}

Design Process

Yesterday, I was in the library, browsing some books and found some comments made by designers when they're asked 'why 3d' (tactile design)?

Here're some of what they said and good to share with everyone :D

Antoinne+Manuele
For each project we begin the design process by inventing an entire system of forms, with its own vocabulary and rules. In this phase of conceptualizing, we focus on shape and on the story we want to tell.

We always keep in mind that the objects we create are aimed at an audience, and we want to provoke emotions. Since we are our first audience, this emotion has to work on us.


Colors and the Kids
Designs that are done without a computer are exciting, and the results are as lively as the process. If you pay attention, you can make errors and accidents part of the work. We are especially interested in combining works in real space with things produced on the computer to generate new visual worlds.


EDHV
Designing also means knowing when not to design. At EDHV we focus on research and concept before even thinking about how to design. This leaves open all possibilities until late in the process and leads to surprising results, drastic turns and bizarre discoveries. Something you would never have thought of at the start of the project.

Things like that only happen if you can find the courage to let go of the control factor, the dafe path, and embark on a journey into unknown territory error, failure, coincidence, and flaws are crucial ingredients ouf our creative process.

For Haiti

Check out smashingmagazine.com feb wallpaper 2010!

One of my fav and my current desktop wallpaper :D