iancul » advertising

When’s the last time you felt something, watching a TV ad?

Iancu — Mon, 31 May 2010 20:38:26 +0000

Funny how things go round — one year ago I saw a beautiful animation, called Father & Daughter, by Michaël Dudok de Wit. Yesterday I stumbled across a few other shorts by the same gifted author, from which I loved The Monk and The Fish. However, the following collection of TV ads really impressed me, managing to fill me with much more than indifference and nervousness, the usuals when it comes to advertising — mind you, I quit working in advertising 3 years ago and I’ve been off the TV for almost 9 years now.

I can’t really tell what makes them special — maybe it’s the beautiful watercolours, maybe it’s the music, maybe the slow pace — or maybe the credible slices of life told in less than 15 seconds. Either way, I’d sure love to see more advertising like this.

Design is honest

Iancu — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:32:51 +0000

Priceless. Gotta have one.

(via we â™¥ it)

Tongue-in-cheek advertising

Iancu — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:24:28 +0000

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)

Conversations with Paul Rand

Iancu — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 08:14:34 +0000

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)

The perfect typography billboard

Iancu — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:34:01 +0000

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)

IKEA – guts and glory

Iancu — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:33:09 +0000

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)

Cannes Lions gets a new section for design

Iancu — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:00:26 +0000

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)

The Ancient Way – Koi Klub trainers

Iancu — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 22:50:21 +0000

BIG KOI "The Ancient Way"
Uploaded by Koiklub_Berlin

(via designboom)

Cityscape typo

Iancu — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:21:54 +0000

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)

Advertising frustrations – seeing your rejected work done by others

Iancu — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 18:33:26 +0000

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.