Smörgåsbloggers
All the way from Småland, the collected views, amusements and inspirations of a bunch of copywriters working at IKEA Communications. Here comes the small print: "The posts here are the authors own and are not necessarily the views of IKEA." Hopefully nothing else we put on here will be as boring as that.
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156 posts tagged sarah
“Saving badass dogs from idiot humans.”
Three things I know to be true this morning:
- I want to rescue a badass dog
- Their dogs have THE BEST names
- I have never been more envious of a strapline writer.
The Badass Brooklyn Animal Rescue has rescued more than 750 dogs since opening in March 2011, and if NYC is too far away for your next dog, you can still look badass and non-idiotic by buying one of their T-shirts.
The world’s first blue box is getting a paint job. Battleship grey, in preparation for her next role as the IKEA Museum.
On a train journey recently I watched the teenage boy sat next to me reacting to a text message conversation. He would smile and blush, hold the phone tight, close his eyes, breathe out and then type a reply. And then he would wait. Noticeably. His whole body a mess of anxiety. The twitch reflex to check his phone - ‘why isn’t there a reply yet?’ hung in the air between his eyes and the unresponsive screen.
It reminded me of first love and steps toward independence, but it also made me melancholic. This boy was immobilised by his longing and there was no getting away from it. And yet, he didn’t really suffer, for another message of affection or affirmation was mere seconds away.
What penetrating despair I went through waiting for messages from my first love. The postman, calling only twice a day (and once on Saturdays!) could be a source of torment for days on end.
And then it would happen.
That handwriting! That stationery! Or maybe a picture postcard - so daring! An open message that my parents might see if they reached the post before I did. But of course they never did. A teenager in love will awake at 5am without a problem if she suspects, hopes, cannot live without the next letter…
So this - Lettres d’un Inconnu - while not letters of love, is a service I have joyfully signed up to. For the price of a couple of magazines I get two handwritten letters per month - from Paris no less. Now that’s romantic. And I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy checking my mailbox every day again.
Does the Canadian Space Agency win awards for brand communications? Based on this it really should.
Incidentally, the trailer for Alfonso Cuarón’s new film, Gravity was released this week also. Woah.
(via Cooking with insects: a minibeast maxifeast - video)
Those meatballs we love so much might not be on the menu in the decades to come. Many consider a diet reliant on meat to be unsustainable, but will we ever see cricket soup or roasted wood ants on the menu at IKEA?
My archive dive for D&AD
As briefs go, the one from 26 and D&AD has to rank as one of the most pleasurable. The task was simple, take a wander through the Awards archive and write a few words about something beginning with S.
There’s a great selection of work in there, no matter the alphabet, and I was easily distracted by all manner of things that I wasn’t supposed to be looking at. But back at S, and in Advertising, campaigns for Sony PlayStation and Scottish Courage were close contenders. In Graphic Design I beamed at johnson banks’ Black Pencil-winning stamps and swooned all over everything ever entered by Sagmeister and Farrow Design’s beautiful work for Spiritualized.
But it was Sound Design that won my heart. From the first time I saw it, to watching it again just now, everything about Street Music is simply brilliant.
It was made for 1xtra, one of a group of digital-only stations created by the BBC to explore DAB radio. Coming into the 21st century, popular radio seemed to be on its last legs, a victim of the ways in which people accessed and owned music. iPods, mobile phones and the internet were king. Mix tapes were consigned to geek history for this was the era of playlists, file sharing and school kids using their mobiles as horrible tinny mono ghetto blasters on the bus.
I never have been the target audience for 1xtra but that doesn’t stop this 1-minute film from touching me. Street Music gets to my heart. It reminds me of being a teenager and of how the airwaves were my holy grail. Too young for clubs, late night radio was the only way to get a musical education. I spent most nights underneath the duvet with Andy Kershaw, John Peel and a torch, my fingers ready over the pause record buttons.
When you’re young, music can be overwhelmingly important. Both an expression of and escape from the world you’re in, it can help to make sense of things. The people who made Street Music got that. In another context the location might seem grim, the montage menacing. Watch it on mute and you’ll see what I mean. Like many great films, the sound design changes everything. Suddenly there’s humour and insight, the world is a playground full of young people finding their place. That’s what’s magical about music and sound designers Parv Thind, Nick Gordon and Joe Guest (who also cut the film) nail it. I think it’s one of the most perfect 60 seconds of film you’ll see in the archive and a wonderful example of why a D&AD Award matters – because craft matters.
Here’s the spot:
1xtra Street music from we are fallon on Vimeo.
Have a gander at what other writers found on their rummage through D&AD’s archive.Archive Dive is curated by members of writers’ group 26.
“The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents - because they have a tame child-creature in their house.”
Frank Zappa (via snbblog)
A couple of values shared by IKEA, beautifully summarised and executed in four words on a wood saw blade. Wish we’d thought of it.
(via itshardtofindafriend)
Goddamnit, I’m a sucker for a hotstepper.
Years after launching their Campaign for Real Beauty, Dove have found a wonderful way to refresh the idea.
Dove and Ogilvy Brazil commissioned an FBI trained forensic artist to make two separate sketches of women, one based on their own description of themselves and the second based on the observations of a total stranger.
The differences are staggering and sorrowful as they prove that many (most?) women regard themselves with harsh, unloving eyes. Dove’s message: you are more beautiful than you think.
A really lovely IKEA hack from Heidi Andrea Nielsen across the water in Denmark, using vintage wallpaper from Retro Villa. Stealing this idea for sure.
I rather like H&M but their illiterate copy on these serviettes is driving me insane.
