L.E.D. not I.E.D.

In January of this year, the television channel Adult Swim planted a series of small electronic placards around the Boston area of the USA. The placards displayed a battery-lit cartoon character from the animated television series Aqua Teen Hunger Force giving a middle finger to the audience. They were placed in such areas as traffic intersections and railway stations, in order to gain maximum exposure to the intended market.
On his way to work on January 31st, a commuter spotted one of the placards at a traffic intersection and called the police. The bomb squad were summoned and the entire area was sealed off. An investigation was launched to find the other placards and whoever was responsible.




It took the police six hours to realise that the devices were not dangerous, but this was not before part of Boston was brought to a standstill as major traffic routes were closed. The police found that the placards shared several characteristics of improvised explosive devices, but not the actual explosive itself.

The two men responsible for the devices, artists Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens, were arrested and put on trial for using a hoax to incite public panic. The trial went on for a few months, but when it became obvious that the two men did not intend the devices to incite harm, they were let off with 60 and 80 hours of community service. The marketing company, Interference Inc, and Turner Broadcasting were ordered to pay out $2 million in damages. And Aqua Teen Hunger Force got a hell of a lot more publicity than they expected.

As an exercise in gorilla advertising, it's a great example. The ads were placed in obvious places and were very distinctive. With a lack of copy accompanying them, those unintiated to Aqua Teen Hunger Force were left guessing what on earth the placards stood for. And besides the legal complications, the campaign was very successful due to the added publicity it gained from being an apparent bomb scare. One wonders if this was not the intention in the first place; after all, it wouldn't be the first time an advertising campaign was created to deliberately cause controversy.

The London Underground Map

The London Underground map is one of the most enduring pieces of graphic design the world has ever seen. London's subterranean rail network was first built by seperate companies in the late 1800s, but it wasn't until 1906 that anyone produced a unified map for it. Early maps, however, tended to contain a lot of information (such as streets and other local features) and were not consistent in their design.

The first proper map was designed in 1933 by Harry Beck. Beck was an employee of the Underground who realised that as much of the travel took place beneath the surface, the physical locations of the stations were irrelevant to travellers who simply wished to get from A to B. Thus, the best design for a map was to make it as simple as possible, making it topographical. Initially, the map and used the minimum of symbols, a tick mark for a station and a diamond for an interchange. Corners were all at 90 or 45 degrees.

Despite the complexity of the work, Beck was paid only 5 Guineas, but continued to on it up until 1960. The design has been updated and modified in certain ways, but Beck's design is still very much key.

For the legibility of the typeface, we have Frank Pick, Chief Executive of London Transport (1913-1938) to thank. Pick was very interested in the visual arts and was responsible for commissioning the font and the iconic Underground logo. Pick asked calligrapher Edward Johnston to design the font in 1915, and after collaboration with Eric Gill (he of Gill Sans fame), Johnston Sans Serif was produced.

The legacy of the map lives on with many tube networks around the world adopting Beck's simple and effective design. The map now stands as a symbol of London, with 60 million reproductions by merchandise companies every year. Additionally, artist Simon Patterson's 1992 work The Great Bear is an excellent spoof of the map, replacing the station names with those of famous characters throughout history.



Lastly, a quote from Frank Pick:

"The test of the goodness of a thing is its fitness for use. If it fails on this first test, no amount of ornamentation or finish will make it any better; it will only make it more expensive, more foolish."

Very true.

Oxo Tower, London

On a recent trip to London I went on a boat tour of the Thames. The guide pointed out lots of significant landmarks, but one I found particularly interesting was the Oxo Tower on the river's
south bank.



This building was originally constructed in the late 19th Century as a power station for the Post Office, but was subsequently acquired by the Liebig Extract of Meat Company, makers of Oxo beef stock cubes. The building was heavily modified in an Art Deco fashion by the company architect, and the plan was to build a tower that would be festooned with advertisements and the company logo. However, planning regulations were pretty restrictive, and Oxo was refused permission. As a result of this, a tower was built with four sets of three vertically-aligned windows, which just happened to spell out the company's name.





As you can see, it looks pretty stylish even now and is a clear advertisement for Oxo stock cubes without breaking any rules. It's a great example of good design's capability to get around a problem. I think the methodology actually adds to it; placing big billboard advertisements showing the logo and product were getting pretty old even then, and the subtlety of this makes it look pretty unique.

Nissan Qashqai by TBWA

The Nissan Qashqai is a new car from Nissan that's attempting to mix two established genres of car; the hatchback and the 4x4. Nissan decided that the best market segment to target this at would be young to middle-aged men, and so an advertising campaign was required to target the product correctly. TBWA came up with the idea of showcasing the cars in the fictional "Qashqai Car Games", a sport much like competitive skateboarding, where the cars would be driven off ramps and perform tricks.

The campaign started before the car's launch with a series of viral advertisments in which the cars, drivers and settings would be introduced. One advert shows some young men on the way to see an event hidden in a container dock, only to be rumbled by the police, and them running away. The stunts that the cars perform in the adverts are clearly extremely dangerous, not to mention largely impossible, so the advert is clearly computer animated. But I don't think the stunts lose too much from this; the urgency and speed that the computer animation lends them makes them look like real skateboards. It makes the cars look really nimble, which is exactly the point of a small 4x4.

Besides the fact that I personally find 4x4s morally reprehensible, these adverts are pretty damn good. They really work as virals because they're well enough shot as to create an illusion of reality surrounding the 'sport', leave you curious, and wanting more.

The rest of the campaign consisted of print and television advertisements, most notably the television ad being the one of a man standing on a Qashqai, 'skating' it around a city. The advert showcases the agility of the car, and finishes with the skateboarder sliding it perfectly into a car parking space.

It's nice to see car and advert producers doing something a little bit different, not only for the prospective consumer, but for everyone else who has to sit through adverts.

http://www.tbwa.com/index.php/disruptiveideas/1;1

Camouflaged Bibles

Picture the scene. You're a hunter out in remote mountains, with just your rifle for company. You see what could be your prize of the day, a large deer, and decide that before trying to bag this catch you'd like to pray with God. Problem is, you've only got a standard Bible with a rubbish red cover that would easily arouse suspicion. What do you do?



Never fear, Christian Outdoorsman is here. Offering a selection of camouflaged bibles for the hardcore Christian hunter, including the 'NIV Bible In Realtree Camo' ("It's finally here... a Camo bible in NIV! It is also The only Bible in Real Tree Hardwood Green!") and boys and girls models. What a crazy idea for a USP. Still, you gotta love people who are willing to chance strange ideas; after all, that's what entrepreneurialism and creativity are all about.

Only in America though.

"It's all swings and landmines to me"

"On Sunday 1st April artist and activist Will St. Leger placed 100 fake 'landmines' made from stenciled metal plates in (a) park around Dublin, Ireland. Will St. Leger: "The reason for doing this was to get people asking themselves "what if the world I walked in was littered with landmines?" By planting the fake landmines Will wants to highlight the lethal threat they pose to millions of people in 80 countries every day. " The only time that people really think about things is if they encounter them in their daily lives." A sticker on the back of the devices provides information on landmines. "They're nearly all gone now, the Police took away most of them when a tourist called the emergency number to report 'Landmines'. Afterwards, I wondered who the people of Laos, Cambodia and Iraq gonna call when they step on real landmine?"



A great idea for an ambient media campaign. As Leger rightly points out, people often fail to see things until they're right in front of them, and what could be more eye-catching than a bloody great landmine? Especially in such a setting, an oasis of calm where parents hope their precious ones are safe and sound. I think it would definitely have an effect on me. Kids can and do get blown up by landmines regularly, and the tradegy is that its all old news these days. Everyone's apathetic. In a Fathers For Justice stylee, this is exactly what needs to be done to get people's attention.

Leger calls himself an "artivist", a fusion of artist and activist.

Brands of the World & Ads of the World

Two invaluable websites that contain databases of famous logos and advertisements. Logos are all vector format, and images large JPEGs.

www.brandsoftheworld.com

www.adsoftheworld.com