iancul

Priceless. Gotta have one.

(via we ♥ it)

It’s nice to see clients with guts from time to time, makes you keep going in this eternal client-creative fight.

(via Ads of the world)

Always inspiring. Still hard to understand. But, God’s permit, we’ll have a lifetime ahead of re-reading and re-watching until we’ll come to understand Mr. Rand. Dying trying is not that bad either. After all, there’s more than just one way to reach Rome, right?

Description from YouTube: A short film by Preston McLanahan interviewing Paul Rand, the great American Modernist designer. Filmed in 1996, shortly before his death he talks about his process, art, aesthetics, and design in general. A very inspirational video and soon to be released on DVD.

(via Swiss Legacy)

This is definitely the perfect billboard. The copy says (larger image here):

“The Perfect Billboard. Eggshell white with romalian type. Nice. Raised lettering, a subtle 7 inch bone border, and just look at the tasteful thickness of the headline. All perched on four evenly spaced 3.2 metre powder coated stanchions. My god, it even has a watermark.”

Only a designer can truly enjoy the quote from American Psycho :)
(via Ads of the world)

Beautiful work for IKEA by Karmarama. Be sure to check the tv ads (and the rest of their excellent portfolio). Freakin’ hilarious. It would be a pleasure to see this kind of advertising in Romania. Bold, fun, effective, no BIG prices and useless information about the product. And no big logo.

(via PPA Marketing)

One of the most (still) respected european advertising festivals gets a new section: design. Packaging Design, Brand Identity and also Environmental Design to be more precise.

Wonder if they’ll find a way to subscribe some ghosts for this section as well :)) Nothing’s impossible, right? Nevertheless, it’s still a good thing that design gets a little more attention and maybe it’ll become a little bit more popular (compared to the “coolness” of advertising - everybody wants to make comercials, few want to design brand guidelines). And *just* maybe design will become a bit better known in Romania as well. It’s frustrating to say you’re a designer and have to explain that no, you’re not a fashion designer but something more serious and useful.

(thanks the creative cheaters)

Great animation for Koiklub (made by Wu Yué & Yoske Nishiumi):

(via designboom)

After seeing this beautiful typo set on the net almost on every blog, i’m glad they finally decided to use them for something nice. Check out these ads for Renault Megane:

(via Ads of the world)

It’s very frustrating when you make something that you know is good, something you believe in, and the client just throws it away. But it’s one of the downsides of our job and you learn in time to live with it (but never accept it completely).

But worse than that is seeing some of your rejected work having being done by somebody else. That really pisses you off.

Last year I was still working for Lowe&Partners, as an art director, and together with my copywriter, Alexandra, we were the ones assigned to Unilever’s Axe account (our creative directors were Avi and Diana, they are now self employed at Mercenar - check their site for some nice award-winning works). We did a lot of things for them, some great, some not-so-great, many adaptations, as the client usually preffered to adapt foreign Axe campaigns from other countries than approve something new and original, made specifically with the local target in mind. Plus the eternal “small budget” problems. Among many unconventional ideas that we presented, one looked exactly like this (larger image on Ads of the world):

We presented the same concept, with similar execution.
Life isn’t fair, I know.

From what I hear, another nice concept we made, still for Axe, which got postponed many times, will be made by another ad agency (wouldn’t really matter anyway, since I no longer work for Lowe). At least I hope they’ll make it right, I’d be glad to see it well executed.

Works from Shinmura Design (I’ve been a fan since I saw them in “Japanese Graphics Now!” from Taschen):

Wonderful typo about global warming:

another great poster for Muji, the series is called “Be a happy camper” (we romanians could surely use some every month posters on this subject):

and last, a beautiful identity guideline for Shiseido (cosmetics and other healthcare products):