sid lee comes to toronto

Montreal-based ad peeps Sid Lee (famous for bringing you such goodness as Darth Vader in Adidas commercials, and singlehandedly responsible for making the Pilooski edit of 'Beggin' the most overplayed remix of the summer) have opened shop in TO.

If you're wondering why Sid Lee's always markedly at the top of the awesome list in the ad world, it's really because they were the first to evolve advertising's tradition business model towards something more... experiential. They teamed with a zeitgeist-grabbing architecture firm to boost brand aesthetic spatially, creating a touch-and-feel type of advertising, and making a whole new soup out of the ingredients long reserved for a sight-and-sound-only tradition. They reformed themselves as an art collective - not the typically talent-structured hierarchy. They've been known to set a group of interns to a task as whimsical as 'hey, make a cool sculpture out of these running kicks'.

They turned the whole shebang on its head and got attention by putting inspiration first, form second and application last.

They celebrated their pretty gorg new digs in Toronto's Distillery last nite.

There was an epic art battle! And enough poutine to clog all the arteries in the western hemisphere! It was coolio. Here are some pics.

edgar allan bro

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oh noes

Who did The Gap pay to do their redesigned logo? A twelve-year-old with a new macbook?

mag-neato

Flash on the Beach is a speaker series held in Brighton, UK at the end of September, self-purportedly for anyone who's a 'designer, developer, coder, student, manager, game developer, artist, animator or a newbie' (covering all the bases there, I take it).

This year's promo/titles vid was a beaut - beautifully art-directed magnetic materials shot entirely in macro get their freak on.

When I was little, my Dad used to bring home the magnets veterinarians would stick in the [first] stomachs of beef cattle to catch anything they shouldn't eat but couldn't help sucking up in their great mow across the pasture. (The magnets were pre-cow of course.)

We used to rig up all kinds of Rube-Goldberg machina and neat sprung traps and tricks with those things, and magnets still hold a fascination for me. A great gift to get me for xmas would be a set of Bucky Balls, you know, if someone were getting me something. Just sayin.

look at these scary/awesome shoes

Just look at them.
In the grand tradition of pushing the fashion envelope a la Elsa Schiaparelli, Kobi Levi blurs the line between art and fashion with [maybe NSFW] footwear like no one and nothing I've seen.
I wouldn't wear ANY of these, but I LOVE them!






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just try to resist this sad little cuteness

DDB New Zealand pulled an epic homeward-bound for New Zealand Lotto with this spot, which I had to post since they winkingly used Nick Cave's heartstring-tugging tune, 'To Be By Your Side' as the soundtrack.

on october 1, 1958

Hunter S. Thompson applied for a position at the Vancouver Sun.

"[I've] developed a healthy contempt for journalism as a profession. As far as I'm concerned, it's a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. If this is what you're trying to get The Sun away from, then I think I'd like to work for you."

Read the whole crass and brilliantly candid letter here.

happy october 1!

It's my favourite month of the year and you're welcome to it.

I spend most mornings running the track at private school on Avenue, this morning I shared it with some varsity players out training, it was crisp enough that we all contributed to a thin cloud of steam rolling up into the clean air.

October reminds me of 'back to school' more than September does - it's the month when you really register the season change, the cooler weather is like balm after the stink heat of this summer. Today I retired my open-toed heels and pulled out my scarves and my suede boots.

But I didn't pull out any books.

If I would've, I wish they were for this curriculum - I love Wired Mag's illo of '7 Essential Skills you Didn't Learn in College'.

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tempestry

A while back I posted my excitement over Julie Taymor's new Shakespearian adaptation flick - The Tempest.

Criterioncast.com posted some stills today.

Zomg, excited again!

*just wants to be cuddled

I saw this stuffed pigeon and I was like, 'ew' because even stuffed pigeons seem gross.
They also have rat finger puppets!

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