urban tumbleweed


The Cans Festival
May 15, 2008, 12:43 pm
Filed under: Blek le Rat, creative, Stencil Art

For those of you who missed it or like me, live too far away to visit, here are some photos of the work that was created by a myriad of this countries (if not the worlds) best known ‘stencil artists’. Enjoy.



Emotional Baggage

virgin_wheres-willy.jpg

The mayhem continues at T5. Virgin Atlantic have advertising space in T5 for a year.

I couldn’t help myself.



Black gold (and a great brand)
April 3, 2008, 7:26 am
Filed under: advertising, coffee, creative | Tags: , , ,

I like coffee. Not the granulated stuff mind, rather the fine powdery brown stuff that gets the life squeezed out of it for my drinking pleasure.

Whilst wandering the streets of Barcelona (a while ago now) I discovered a coffee company that not only tastes good but sports the kind of branding that makes you smile when you see it pass you on the side of a van, a paper cup…er you get my meaning. Dibar Café now supply their cups (and saucers) online and very good they look.

dibar-pics.jpg

In a vain attempt to make this remotely interesting (if you’re not into branding) I discovered that by 8.14am yesterday the UK had drunk lots of cups of coffee (see graphic below). I have now idea how the UK Coffee Council (named something similar) could know this but there you go.

coffee-drunk-graphic.jpg

http://www.dibarcafe.com



So that’s why T5 doesn’t work.

Cadbury looks to airports for ‘gorilla’ follow-up

Cadbury has revealed its much-anticipated follow-up to the ‘gorilla’ Dairy Milk ad, is to be called ‘airport trucks’. The new ad, which like “gorilla” has been created by Fallon, is described as a “magical airport truck race” in which a small one-man vehicle plays the role of an underdog in a midnight race against an assortment of bigger and faster trucks, such as a baggage transporter and motorised stairs.

cadbury_airport_trucks1.jpg

The ad is light-hearted and fun in line with its predecessor, but unlike “gorilla” it will not feature a Phil Collins track. Apparently, “airport trucks” will feature an unnamed soft rock track from the late 1970s or early 1980s.

I look forward with some anticipation to seeing the T5 passengers baggage hurtling down the runway apron to the tune of REO Speedwagon (see what I did there – speedwagon).

Lets hope the ad is better than the service at T5.

The ad was written by Juan Cabral, the Fallon creative director who also created “gorilla”

The ad will be posted here once it has aired.

Ok so the ad is out and to be honest I think i’d have preferred the REO Speedwagon version I had in my head. Still, on the T5 angle somebody has already managed to spoof ‘airport trucks’ and as it has hardly changed from the original this is the one shown above.

Enjoy (unless you’ve flown British Airways recently).



Banksy? I smell a Rat

‘Everytime I think I’ve painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek Le Rat has done it as well. Only twenty years earlier.’ Banksy

Long before there was “street art” as we now know it, there was Blek le Rat. He was one of the first graffiti writers in Europe; one of the first people to use stencils to make public art on the street; one of the first, if not the first, to break away from the dominance of New York graffiti style; and one of the first to use icons instead of writing his name.

He has been an inspiration to artists all over the world, from JayBadbc to Oseas Duarte to Shepard Fairey to Banksy – whose work is often an homage to le Rat’s iconography.

A legendary figure in street art Blek Le Rat (Xavier Prou) was born in Paris in 1951. Thought by many to be the father of stencil graffiti as an art form Blek began his unique, complex and intelligent stencil works on the streets of Paris in the 1980’s.

His work has once again come to the fore (ironically thanks to the popularity of Banksy). There is a Blek le Rat book coming out, published by Thames & Hudson. Should be available in May 2008.

Enjoy the work of the ‘Godfather of stencil art’.



Are the Chip Shop Awards worth their salt?

I looked up the Chip Shop Awards website and found the attached. No links, no rules, no previous winners. Pretty sure this is a temporary glitch and the 2008 entry details will be posted soon enough.

chip-shop-awards-2008.jpg

The notorious Chip Shop Awards are part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme and all nominated work, is usually available to view in a local gallery.

The beauty of Chip Shop work is its simplicity – starting with the rules, which are the opposite of most awards. You don’t have to have any media spend, the client may not exist and you certainly should not be doing the work for money. The Chip Shop Awards invite you to create a campaign for any client with any spend you can conjure up: the focus is firmly on creativity without compromise.

Some of my industry colleagues have entered in the past and have indeed featured in the Chip Shop gallery. So if you’ve had a great idea for a campaign, one-off ad or had some great creative left on the cutting room floor you should pull out your pencil, de-fluff your mouse and get ready for action.

Definitely worth their salt. And sauce.