Really sorry guys about my lack of contribution to my blog as of late. Not been well at all recently but hopefully that will soon be sorted with a trip to the doctors next week. I promise I'll eventually be back on my feet and posting on here soon! In the meantime, here's a great advert what's been cheering me up immensely recently, I'm so glad it's back on TV:
And if you haven't done so already, the company have set up a great memorable way to remember the advert by including your face in it! I did some the other day, the outcomes are hilarious!
Just quickly checking in! Had a mega busy week of moving house and decorating etc so I haven't had the time to keep you guys up to date with my antics, I apologise. Love our new house and the painting I managed to get done before coming back up to Leeds. Nothing better than being back home in Sheffield for a while, especially being able to overdose on Henderson's Relish, the hidden treasure of Sheff!
After checking my stats and seeing the frustrating figure of 1999 views since my blog opened at the end of October 2010, I've just clocked up my 2000th after encouraging my fiance to click on it! Exam time tomorrow so I won't ramble on here for too long. Spent the past few days being the film buff that I am and watched several, out-of-my-comfort-zone films which I ended up really enjoying. My favourite in particular was 'Rules of Attraction'; an extremely weird film which often played backwards (which really made me feel strange watching it, especially with all the backwards music) and used clever camera angles and shots to convey the story. A film I'll definitely have to watch again, the chronology jumps all over the place and it switches often from speech to inner monologue and alternative experiences. Not really one for the faint hearted chick flick lover (which I tend to be to be honest) or for those who like a definitive, answered ending but I'd recommend giving it a try! I feel I need to read the book it's based on too now!
The film's really awesome promo poster
I also learnt a valuable lifelong lesson today: when you have new blue sheets, give em a wash before you sleep in them or you will wake up blue and look like a Smurf!
Relaunched last Christmas, I really love this advert, advertising, well, adverts! Helps that I'm a huge dog lover too! The piece won Advert of the Year 2010.
I love this advert too, Thinkbox's previous campaign (their first crack at TV advertising for their own brand). I end up singing along to practically all of these songs, really does show the power of advertising.
I really like the world of logos and branding and found myself enjoying the process immensely during my pasta brief. I've ended up spending a while on that site searching for logos old and new and appreciating the various vector illustrations both known and unknown companies use in order to represent them. Below are a few of my faves:
New Look
UK Clothing company
Love this piece for it's use of it's personal, minimal text and amount of white displayed. The effect of spot colouring draws in the eyes and reflects the girly clothing of the company well
FedEx
Delivery company
Although not an amazingly exciting logo on the offset, I have been amazed ever since a lecturer in my first year pointed out the deliberate arrow shape created between the 'e' and the 'x', emphasising the fast, straight forward delivery services offered by the company
Muse
Band logo
As my fave band of all time, you all knew it wouldn't take long for their logo to appear on here didn't you! The pure simplicity of this works so well, something which when I first saw the piece created an air of mystery of what it was all about and led me to Google them. The design translates well into different designs and colours which has been of great use to the band in terms of promotional material and merchandise
Batman
Franchise logo
Although I'm only really a fan of the later Batman films, the use of the same logo across the original comics to the Hollywood blockbusters has created an iconic logo, recognised by practically everyone. Even when not in full colour, the use of the one image of a bat is automatically associated with Batman, with no words even needed
During my rather unrelaxing weekend of getting ready to move/return to Leeds/revise, I found the time to sit down for five minutes and have a little gander through a couple of newspapers when a photography article caught my eye (with the images featured especially gaining my attention). As a huge fan of countdowns and competitions, I enjoyed reading about Digital Camera Magazine's Photographer of the Year 2010 competition and having a look at the overall winner and other subcategory successes. Really made me realise that not only photography skill is involved but also the ability to seek out and capture a particular moment, with some involving skill and time and others created merely via luck. Below is a link to the competition page and a few of my particular favourite entries which perked me up during a time of burst pipes, decorating ideas and houses that lack electrcitiy!
Overall competition winner, Jon Wright with his piece 'Exit Wave'. Really stunning piece which took me away from my winter blues and this miserable whether we've been having recently
Fire Fighter by Buchachon Petthanya. This was the piece what really dragged my attention to the article in the newspaper, coming second to the overall winner in the adrenaline category. Unbelievable how he managed to capture this piece and highlights a photographer potentially putting his life in danger for his art
This piece, 'Jump', by Wayne Lawes was unbelievably achieved in one shot, taken for the photographers own entertainment and for the dancer's portfolio. To say it portrays such a strong and powerful man, it conveys a great sense of elegance and beauty at the same time. Wish my camera was waterproof!
Even though this image wasn't shortlisted in the competition and only commended, I found myself really drawn to it whilst looking through the entries. As a person who loves to shoot water, as seen with my hydrophobia work, I love the shifts in focus on this piece, with some droplets blurred and others not. Seems a bit magical!
Hope you guys enjoy following the link and picking out your own favourite photos, let me know which ones you liked and what you reckon to my favourites! I may have to upgrade my camera sometime soon so I can try and achieve some of the detail captured in the images above!
Well, I was rather shocked when I opened my curtains this morning! Snow again, and lots of it! Not that I'm moaning, I love the stuff and having the excuse to wear my silly wellies! In other news, we got the keys to our new family home here today so I took up the opportunity to pick up my camera and have a nosey in the garden at all the lovely snow as a break from revision (note: the quality of some of these photos is a little off as I didn't realise that the windows I were taking them through were mucky until I left haha).
I tend to have a thing for capturing water and water droplets, especially after my Hydrophobia brief (see http://www.liannamaydesign.co.uk/). At the time, sadly the falling snow had turned to rain
Peg love! Whilst inspecting our new back garden, I found these two having a little peg hug. The cutey girliness inside of me is reflected in the image, bless!
Taken through a mucky window like a nugget but kind of like the grainy effect achieved
Milk Bottles
Not the best pictures I've ever taken but it was nice to be running around with my camera again, first time in a while, especially seeing as Photography 2 module starts when I return to uni!
Back to the routine of my normal blogposts from now on seeing as Christmas is over! You'll have to forgive me if I miss a blog entry here and there are it is rather hectic here in Sheffield at the moment; I'm cramming in some revision for my exam on the 18th but also we're moving house so there are endless amounts of boxes and things to be packed around our home. Plus I have to get my things packed to get back to Leeds, eek! Anyways, enough of me rambling about my personal life and times, here is my advert of the week (I apologise that there's been a few this week but New Year has provided TV with some great new adverts, excluding DFS and their never ending sale mind haha).
(You wouldn't believe how long it took me to find that ad)
As someone who is totally car illiterate, I don't tend to pay attention to their advertisements. They all seem to be slow mo and elegant blah blah. It was for those reasons why this one caught my eye. There's nothing funnier than something that is willing to take the mickey out of itself. I love how it deconstructs all other car adverts in 30 seconds in terms of how you make them. The black backgrounds, red text and sexy music and reminiscent of the stereotypical car advert and without the slides of text, it really would seem like just another car advert. It's those little sections which make you want to wait around and watch the advert again to make sure you actually read it (well, I did haha).
I know I've recently been tormenting you all with my current favourite TV advertisements (though my figures and stats seem to be showing you all like it); here's another one which caught my eye today!
(Sadly it's so new Innocent Smoothies haven't included an embedding option yet)
Please have a visit. Excellent parody of the Queen song, the tacky use of sticks are wires to hold the bottle work brilliantly and overall, it's a really good giggle! What more do you want from a TV advert, certainly made me remember it!
Hope everyone had a great New Years! Sadly now all the fun is over and it's back to the grind. The grind for me being designing, so not much of a grind! As I told you before Christmas, I have one project due in on the 10th and an exam on the 18th. Well, luckily due to my overactive desire to work, I literally have one bit of a page to finish and a 500 word report to complete for the project so if it isn't sent off tonight, I'll be doing so tomorrow which will be nice! After I've sent it off, I'll hopefully upload a few images on here for you guys to have a gander through (though not many, the proposed minimum of 15 pages has somehow changed into 19 or so in my case, oops!).
Anyway, enough of me rambling about my work, here's the real reason why I'm back on here (even though it isn't even advertisement of the week time). I'm sure you've all noticed the increase in adverts on TV, showcasing New Year sales, holidays and insurance, as is always the case in the New Year (I'm not even going to mention weight loss adverts ha). One which I literally saw for the first time literally ten minutes ago and felt the need to pop on here and share was the new Virgin Airlines advert. All I can say is pure genius once again!
I've got to admit, as one of the biggest Muse fans you'll ever know (trust me on that, I've become a serious traveller following them to their gigs), it was the song what originally pulled my head up from my laptop screen to look at the TV. I love how this new advert has the Bond titles sort of feel and the colours used really does make you feel like going on holiday! The final line also gave me a giggle, I love the juxtaposition of the classy and flash advert with the localised accent at the end. I've got to admit, I've been a big fan of Virgin adverts for a while now, enjoying their retro feel and how they have gone back to the routes of their airline (including the burlesque advert featuring a woman displaying circular cards with the offers on to cover her private areas, very risque!). Below is another Virgin advert from last year (for their 25th anniversary) which I also really enjoyed for its retro feel, use of brilliant song and overall great piece. Bravo Virgin!
