Okay. Paying homage to a font is either acknowledging an undervalued aspect of the cultural exchange, or else very clever fucking marketing. But how many typefaces do you personally know that has its own documentary and a show at the MoMa?
Yes. We saw the latter with our own eyes. Gawk at the marvel that is the Chicago Public Library ad. Note the rakishness with which American Apparel robs Helvetica of its innocence. Observe with what candor and personality it reports the names of the Beatles.
How can one disarming typeface be so multi-faceted? We thought it was perfection in simplicity, but it might be its 80 faces.
If you are a sucker (or a decadent postmodernist or maybe just a big font-fan) of exceptional proportions, nail a double-sided Helvetica notebook. But why stop there? Helvetica would be an awesome name for your firstborn. We're sure he (or she) wouldn't hate you at all when time came to do the resume rounds or apply for college.
See those ultra-luxe Camel No. 9's at left? Pretty, right? Well, Democrat Lois Capps of California wants you to know they're dressed to kill. And not in the sexy way.
The CA representative is the leader of a group that wants to get ladymag publishers to stop pushing these and other smoking ads. But editors have expressed apathy toward the campaign, with only 3 out of 11 responding to Capps' demand:
Vogue editor Florio says screw you, pass restrictions through Congress. Glamour states simply that while smoking is discouraged in its articles, smoking ads remain legal. And W, the Switzerland in all this, says it wouldn't mind engaging in a 'constructive dialogue' about the issue. (Maybe they just don't want to hurt her feelings.)
Capps screams "hypocrisy!" and marches on.
We wish we'd noticed this sooner. Jetpacks just celebrated his 365th post, commemorating a year since he began the blog we so enjoy reading.
To keep the seething throng happy, he's promised to add an "Open Mic Night" to his sidebar, through which he'll post homemade recordings open to "ridicule, scorn and derision." We just listened to the first one and felt chills.
Cheers, Jetpacks. And for all the awesome you brought us in the past year, we have decided to pay you in - yes! - groupies.
- While the statement "more money than God" really doesn't make any sense, Google certainly has a lot of the green stuff. Recently posting its Q2 revenues of $3.8 billion, the digital giant continues to grow with a 58 percent jump from last year and a 6 percent jump from last quarter.
- In Toronto, some are not very happy the Star has begun accepting cover wraps as ad units.
- Using the word "explosion" in an airport diorama gives good reason for the rest of the world to think those of us in advertising seriously do have a screw loose.
- 50 Cent is angered over a Shoot the Rapper banner ad on MySpace which contains the likeness of him. He's suing MySpace.
- Former Deutsch Group Creative Director David Rosen has published I Just Want My Pants Back, a novel about a 25 year-old man "searching for meaning, love, a profession - and a missing pair of pants" and who is..."in need of a functional vagina."
- If you haven't seen it, here's Al Gore's speech he gave at Cannes about climate change about how the advertising industry can effect it. It's in three parts. Here, here and here.
- The Age of Conversation, a book written by 100 marketing bloggers and writers the wordl over, just went on sale today. You can check it all out in this Advertising Age story.
- If you want to read blog posts by celebrities, politicians and business leaders who don't even know they are writing them, head over to News Groper.
- Google has released AdSense for Mobile beta.
Here's something that looks mildly useful. OpenAd.net, trade charity NABS and LIZ H have decided to take the ad world's talent disparity into their own hands with a wee guidebook called "Goodbye Uni ... Hello Job."
The book is packed with ditties from UK creatives like Ben Priest of RKCR/Y&R and Kim Papworth of Wieden+Kennedy. Some is really good, like the section on assessing a potential creative partner (don't pick one you "fancy") - and some advice is just iffy, like "Be one half of a dream team," which just sounds like it belongs on a poster with a backdrop of the clouds or something. There are also good tips on building a book, which we think is pretty critical.
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Hoping to make a profitable business out of the flurry of activity over digital media asset ownership and the associated royalties tied to the ownership if those assets, Virginia-based Digital Bazaar has introduced Bitmunk, a patented "watermarking and royalty distribution technology" which the company hopes will usher in an eBay-like marketplace for audio, video, documents and games.
As explained on its wiki site, "the Bitmunk software would handle all of the sales, receipt handling, monetary transfer, watermarking and ensuring legal compliance during the sale. The Bitmunk software is also used to transact movies, electronic books, medical records and many other forms of digital content."
You have to pardon the Rovion-powered blather which greets you as you visit this page of Boston-based agency Winsper Inc. which promotes its latest white parer, The 6Ps of Luxury Marketing (yes, you have to fill out a form to get it but it's a really short one). While Winsper Inc. President Jeff Winsper might appear to sound like any other Rovion-powered wind bag usurping the peace and quiet of your website travels, the man is smart. And knowledge of this comes first hand having worked with the man for four years. So give the guy a break for his Rovion rambles.
Anyway, the agency has published this white paper which, like those 5Ps (or is it 4?) of marketing, examine people, product, passion, pleasure, purpose and price as they relate to marketing luxury products. It's insightful. It's informative and it does a nice job explaining the process of luxury marketing, something Winsper Inc. has been doing since it launched five years ago.
There is life after Wieden + Kennedy's 12 school. Though not necessarily in advertising. After Rudy Adler completed his stint at WK12, he set out to document life on the U.S./Mexico border and called his work The Border Film Project. He and those that worked with him provided cameras to undocumented migrants hoping to gain entry into America and to the American Minuteman trying to stop them.
Adler has launched a website that documents the project and shares the pictures taken during the project. There's also a recently released book, Border Film Project, which is being sold on Amazon, in bookstores and in American Apparel stores.
Of the project, Adler tells us, "As a writer, it definitely inspires my creative process and keeps things interesting." Indeed. Inside the walls of a creative conference room is, ironically, the last place from which inspiration usually unleashes itself.
Perhaps giving eMarketer a run for its money, a new site and newsletter, MarketingCharts from Watershed Publishing, publisher of MarketingVOX and MediaBuyerPlanner, has launched to provide marketers with charts, graphs, tables and all manner of data for marketers, advertisers and agencies.
We are told, "Content will focus on daily updates of key marketing data, both traditional and interactive, and daily stories digesting the latest studies and other data-intensive developments. Users will be able to download Excel files of data for their own use." The site will be edited by former MarketingVOX editor Vahe Habeshian.
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