A CLEAR BRAND MESSAGE

ADVERTISING - In a time of 'brand blandness', it is even more important for brands to step up. American Apparel has a pedigree of doing this, although its efforts are sometimes over shadowed by it founder's [Dov Charney] somewhat questionable behaviour.

For this advertising campaign American Apparel gets eleven out of ten. It takes courage for brands to take the lead and it can leave them somewhat vulnerable to the press if their credentials don't stand up to scrutiny. If the brand can withstand the pressure, why not step up, be counted and make an impression?

joes[a]fiend

SUPERMARKET FASHION

SPOTTED - The term ‘fast fashion’ has become common in recent times, as of last week it gained a whole new meaning for me. I found myself with half an hour to spare before a meeting near Topshop [Oxford Street, London], so thought why not pop in have a little look around to kill some time?

Whilst loitering in the store, observing what people were picking up and generally being nosy I heard a familiar voice. Not the voice of a friend, family member or celebrity, but the voice of Tesco. When I say this I don’t mean from an advert, I mean the voice that summons you to a vacant cash register to pay for your uninspiring lunchtime sandwich. This provoked a whiplash inducing double take. I moved closer to the till to confirm my initial hunch. To my shock it was the automated voice of lunchtime doom, moonlighting by beckoning the followers of fashion to ‘till number 4’.

In my line of work we talk about the ‘Theatre of Retail’, this includes the level of detail required to ensure the physical retail experience is a memorable one. TopShop offers a great retail experience. They just need to remove the voice of the supermarket from their store. Why not use the voice of an employee? Wouldn’t it be nice to be served by the voice that came over the loudspeaker?

joes[a]fiend

FANCY DESIGNING THE COVER OF WALLPAPER* MAGAZINE?

PUBLISHING - Wallpaper*, the home of wonky legged chairs and expensive 'lifestyle' items is inviting readers to design their very own cover for its August Handmade issue [on sale in July].

Budding designers can access the application at Wallpaper.com where they can create a cover. On the site you can select and manipulate images, graphics and patterns by James Joyce, Nigel Robinson, Anthony Burrill and Kam Tang.

Each reader’s cover will front their own copy of the Wallpaper* Handmade special issue.

Editor-in-chief Tony Chambers says, 'Wallpaper* readers are a very creative bunch and they are going to love this. After all, they’ll be joining the ranks of Philippe Starck, Zaha Hadid, Anish Kapoor and Karl Lagerfeld – all of whom are previous Wallpaper* cover artists.'

joes[a]fiend

30 YEARS OF ALLY CAPELLINO @ THE WAPPING PROJECT

EXHIBITION - We finally got down to the Wapping Project to see the 30 Years Of Ally Capellino exhibition and were throughly impressed with the retrospective of British designers work. The exhibition runs until the 6th June, if you're in the area it's worth a look.

joes[a]fiend

Images via Akira Chatani

MANYSTUFF #1: ONE POSSIBLE CATALYST

PUBLISHING - Graphic design blog Many Stuff have just unveiled their beautiful printed publication 'One Possible Catalyst'.

Many Stuff explain the publication as 'A graphic design publication with the objective to use the printed support, paper, to fix a laboratory of experiments and meditations released from formal and theoretical prejudices.'

joes[a]fiend

TUBE TRACKING: CHROMAROMA

DIGITAL - Chromaroma is an online multiplayer game played out as you travel the city with your Oyster Card. By using Oyster data they are able to show you your Tube travel, and every journey means you amass points, taking a few steps further along the way to owning London.

Chromaroma is a type of location-based top-trumps. Where you collect places, identities, modes of transport and passengers as you travel around the city; discover and investigate mysteries attached to different locations and build alliances with fellow passengers that share your journeys. It's a game you can play on your own, or part of a team.

Location gaming is all the rage at the moment, Nike utilized payphones with their Nike Grid and Starbucks is using Four Square. It's going to be interesting to see how location gaming evolves..

joes[a]fiend

VIA Dave Haynes

UPDATED: NIKE MUSIC SHOE

ADVERTISING - So after much digging we found out that the Nike Music Shoe video is by Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo Lab, the track is by Hifana.

I do like the disclaimer at the end of the video, "Shoes sold at retail will NOT make music when bent or twisted."

joes[a]fiend

SPOTTED [VOL. XIV]

SPOTTED Whilst is Soho [London] taking a stroll I spotted this amazing Rapunzel like art installation in the Riflemaker Gallery.

joes[a]fiend

SONAR AUDIO/VISUAL

AUDIO/VISUAL - This is a post that is hard to describe but incredibly easy to justify. Sonar, by Renaud Hallée, is an award winning short flash animation made up of nothing more than dots, dashes, bleeps and ripples – anything more and it would certainly be ruined. Think Pong meets 1960s sci-fi book covers.

We were impressed further to read that the animation is script free; made manually bleep by dot by bleep.

Disarmingly simple, Sonar is well worth the two and a half minutes of sanctuary from whatever you’re up to right now.

[J] ALLAN

UNPLUG: DISCONNECTED HOLIDAYS

DIGITAL - 'DisconnectedHolidays.com is the sweetest escape from the everyday life cycle. It is a service that helps you to disconnect from the things that stress you. You can send your mobile phone, laptop or calendar away for a certain period of time. By doing so, you disconnect from the rest of the world and concentrate on yourself and your loved ones.'

For a while now, we have been talking about 'The Big Disconnect', we live in a world of omnipresent Internet and highly networked lives. With devices buzzing and screens blinking for our attention, where does it stop? Our hunch is that in 2012 we will see the first big digital switch off to coincide with the final broadcast of an analog television signal [in the UK].

Just a few weeks ago we blogged about the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine, we predict there will be a wave of new digital products to help you unplug and switch off. Perhaps our nAPP app wasn't such a bad idea...

joes[a]fiend

LEAVE YOUR SHOES AT THE DOOR

INTERIORS - I love this concept by Dominic Wilcox, the aim of the project was for Dominic to make his living room more welcoming. To make it even better there is a patch of carpet where the door mat should be.

Not sure if I'll be doing this in my flat.

joes[a]fiend

CAN YOU RESIST WALKERS CRISPS?

ADVERTISING - They don't make 'em like they used to. A little bit of inspiration for your weekend.

joes[a]fiend

A BLOGGER IN NEED, IS A BLOGGER INDEED

TECHNOLOGY – I’ve had my digital umbilical cord ripped out, phoneless, app less and uncontactable. So we reached out to Nokia who kindly gave us the new Nokia X6 to test, which I’m in the process of doing now.

First impressions are good; the unboxing of the device was a great experience, so good in fact after it was all unboxed I put everything back in and did it all over again.

Recently, I wrote an article entitled ‘Music 3.0’, it looked at the current state of the music industry and the future of the industry. One of the things I touched upon was the Nokia Comes With Music service, which is a blessing for a music fan like myself. The only thing I would say, is I was overwhelmed by the choice, it would be awesome if Nokia developed a plug-in for iTunes and help me find new music from artists I like and are available from Nokia Comes With Music.

The biggest difference from going to an iPhone to an X6 would have to be the camera, after a while I found myself not even bothering taking pictures on the iPhone. The X6 has a 5 megapixel camera which is a joy to use. The only thing that is lacking is a New York Times app, I used to read the NYT on my iPhone on the way to work. If this was available in the Ovi Store [Nokia’s app store] it would be a very complete package.

More to come soon…

joes[a]fiend

IT'S NICE THAT: ISSUE 3

PUBLISHING – The guys from It’s Nice That dropped us a line saying we could have a sneak peak at the forthcoming issue of the It’s Nice That publication. How could we say no? The spreads look fantastic and are a joes[a]fiend exclusive.

It’s Nice That Issue #3 has some big hitters in its beautifully designed pages who span the creative disciplines, included in the seven interviews are graphic design legend Milton Glaser, fashion designer Sir Paul Smith, furniture designer Tom Dixon, filmmaker Keith Schofield, illustrator Tom Gauld and artist Maisie Broadhead.

The team behind It’s Nice That have given free-rein to creatives to write about a subject that excites and interests them, with articles including Illustrator / designer Geoff McFetridge, writing about his frustrations with graphics in comparison to the written word.

If you want to get your hands on the publication do so NOW! All pre-orders received before midnight on March 31st will receive an exclusive, large-scale screen print from world-renowned illustrator Parra. The print is 980 x 550mm when unfolded and has been commissioned exclusively for everyone who orders the publication early. It is available nowhere else in the world.

www.itsnicethat.com/shop

joes[a]fiend

SOPHIE HULME A/W10

FASHION - Sophie Hulme has lived up to her reputation of being a young British designer to watch. Each season her contemporary women's wear range gets better and better. Above are a few images taken at her A/W10 presentation.

joes[a]fiend