Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey

The recent decision by a judge to clear street artist Shepard Fairey poses some troubling scenarios in the future regarding what is art and what is stealing. This site I found illustrates very well where creation leaves creator and vice versa:

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Monday, January 10, 2011

Comedy Central's New Logo Looks More Like... | Gather

Yet another knee-jerk, corporate move to make an established logo that was well liked and well known, well, more corporate.

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Thursday, January 6, 2011

Starbucks unveils new logo - Holy Kaw!

This is a case of stream-lining a logo too much. The brand is well known, but the logo is a major reason most people are initially drawn to this product. Starbucks touts this as a way to incorporate all of their products under one brand, but the Starbucks name is just as powerful as the logo art. To take the Corporate name away from the mermaid art is very risky. I'm not sure if this works for me, a long-term fan, but it may be a sign of how other corporate brands follow suit.

Two tragic examples of branding changes that people rejected recently were The Gap from last year: http://tinyurl.com/2eg6ux5, and the orange juice company, Tropicana back in 2009: http://tinyurl.com/qfucjq.

The corporation is often chided as being too dominant and, well corporate. This logo literally solidifies this opinion and is unwise.

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HowStuffWorks "10 Awesome Ad Campaigns You've Never Heard Of"

awesome ad
George Marks/Retrofile/Getty Images
Everyone's heard of the "Pause that Refreshes" Coca-Cola campaign -- which is why it's not included in this list.

There are a lot of innovative and creative minds toiling in the field of advertising today. Thanks to the advent of user-friendly desktop image manipulation and design programs like Photoshop and Illustrator, bending reality to an ad executive's whims is easier than ever. Because of these two factors, agencies worldwide have been churning out a treasure trove of awesome advertisements.

But not all of these ads make their way across the globe. Due to social mores, some are too racy for some Western sensibilities. Others speak more to a particular nationality or cultural group than others. And some, on the other hand, are hyper local; the campaign is too expensive to create more than a single billboard in one location.

Whatever the cause, some of the great ad campaigns around the world don't make it across all borders. As such, we present 10 of the better ad campaigns that may have slipped below the radar.

The one in Columbus was amazing.

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