Ads I'm not sure about: Hotmail The New Busy

Ok I don't love this campaign, but it's interesting and has made me think so I'll share. It's more 'Ads I love to think about' really. I'm not actually sure if I like it. I think it's clever... or is it just really annoying and arrogant?

You've probably seen the adverts, they're all over the place; in the tube, in the paper...

From http://www.litmanlive.co.uk/blog/2010/04/the-new-busy-is-not-like-the-old-busy/

From http://el-nicol.com/?p=95

So the concept is 'The New Busy....' and then some slogan boasting about how they can do loads of stuff while still being ridiculously busy. And not stressing at all, and seeming to have an amazing cool life, while working 12 hours a day, and so on. Which clearly doesn't exist. Is it aspirational? I'm sure most of us wish we had a full diary while not having any kind of stress/pressure on us at all.

I'm not entirely sure why Hotmail are advertising, and why this applies to them. I've had a hotmail account since I was 13, and still do, and most people probably do too, but generally have a 'real address' as well. I don't give my hotmail out in a professional basis. Hotmail is not professional. It screams 13 year old girl. And probably always will. They can add all these 'useful' functions like calendars that synchronise with your cat and so forth; but I'm pretty sure 'The New Busy' has an iphone or a blackberry and does all their organising on there. Not on a free, web based, advertising plagued, email service. They just don't.

Plus, wasn't hotmail, MSN Hotmail, and then Windows Live Hotmail? What is it now? Just Hotmail again? It's like when they changed MSN messenger to Live Messenger. We kids still called it msn. You know, back in the day, before myspace or facebook. 'You going on msn after school?' 'Yeah! LOL!!!! :p (Y)' etc etc. Stop messing with the brand names. We don't care.

Some of the slogans are quite good. Some are just weird. Some are just a bit scary:

Crazy eyes? Shut up! It's not my fault I have to get up at 5.45am every day so am generally exhausted mon-fri! Jeez. Don't be mean. I work hard. I'm just not superhuman like this 'New Busy' seems to be. I'd love to be 'New Busy'! It sounds like have some kind of major career focus yet still do the student-stamp-on-the-hand-where-did-we-go-last-night thing:

I miss that! Waking up with stamps on your hands. And face. But I didn't zing out of bed, do some pilates, get the train to work and create something amazing before 11am. No. I texted my friends incoherent words, then found some kind of bacon-type substance. And I did not check my emails. Or schedule my day.

What I don't like about it, is it echoes this pressure in our modern lives to be awesome 2.0. It's crazy. And I'm not immune to it; I do play 'Fill the diary':

And I usually fail. I do 'see things others miss', generally. But that just comes from my general observation powers. And I do wish I had time to exercise, and time to illustrate as well as my full time graphic design job, and I wish I had time to go to cool bars every night, and travel whereever I want on a whim, and time to chill out and not feel guilty. But I don't. I try to do all these things - and I'm just tired.

So I hate The New Busy, with all their smugness and superhuman time keeping skills. I'm pretty sure they don't have hotmail to thank for it though. Actually, do they even exist?

This campaign just makes me feel bad. And guilty for not being The New Busy. And wishing that I was. And knowing that if I was, I would probably be awesome 2.0. But I'm not. I'm just tired.

You can play around with this silly interactive thing if you want. It's not that silly I suppose, it's kind of interesting.

The most interesting part of this campaign for me though is they managed to get an experiential element in there. OF COURSE. The New Busy is allll about the experiential. They practically demand it, from their skinny lattes to their brainstorming sessions:

 'Blue Screen Lagoon' at various places, including Canary Wharf. Well of course, bankers are the The New Busy. Basically, you could go along and pretend you were doing crazy awesome things like tight-rope walking. 'All from the comfort of a blue (or even green) screen - oh, that's so New Busy.' What?? That doesn't even make sense!. I hate you, New Busy. It was happening yesterday (28th May) and guess what - I couldn't check it out. Why? Because I was busy. WORKING. Yeah, take that New Busy.

New Busy would probably tell me to shut up and get him a skinny latte.

'Frivolity Fields' - 'The New busy likes nothing more than extreme knitting, circus tricks, sideways guitar....' Ugh. It sounds sickeningly awesome and pointless. If I was New Busy I wouldn't have a 9-5.30 job. Nope. I'd be freelance and could saunter over and do some extreme knitting. See, New Busy just makes me feel bad.

Props to Madmedia though, they came up with it, and it did look good: http://themindtonic.blogspot.com/2010/05/madmedia-are-new-busy.html


If I was New Busy, I would've been one of the marketeers coming up with these crazy ideas. Extreme knitting sounds exactly the kind of thing my busy mouth would have said. But alas, new graduates really aren't New Busy. We're just trying to have some kind of career.

Happy Birthday Blog! 3 years old...

I nearly forgot this. My blog turned 3 years old (that's quite old in blog years, I feel proud) last monday, on the 16th. Hurrah for me!

It all started rather inconspicuously towards the end of my first year at uni, here, as a way for me to publish my university illustration work. I then started rabbiting on about stuff I liked and my life, and it all spiralled from there. 200 posts later (I was never that prolific, I write much more frequently now) and here I am.

Actually not much has changed, except I now write more coherently (at least I know what I'm talking about) on subjects like fashion, illustration, design, advertising, things I covet, food illustrations and recipes, things that are cool and inspiring, sustainability and of course my work.

Any suggestions about things you want to read on my blog? There are quite a few of you merry little minions subscribers now, so don't be afraid to chip in, I love comments like I love cake.

Coveting: Computer Arts Book of Inspiration

This is a fairly simple thing to covet - it's not out of my meager price range so will probably be in my happy hands in no time. I thought of waiting until then but I want to share it now - it looks so tasty. Computer Arts' Book of Inspiration:

 All images from Computer Arts

Looks pretty sexual doesn't it. "The Book of Inspiration is a new luxury volume from the makers of Computer Arts magazine, featuring 192 pages of the world’s very best digital art, design and illustration."

It's £14.99, and has interviews and work from some really inspirational people - James Jean, Non-Format, Neville Brody, Airside, Hort, Vault49... It's also got a  foil blocked and die cut cover, which is always a winner with design fetishists. Like moi.

I wouldn't say that it's particularly groundbreaking - I can't see any emerging artists there, just established ones with amazing work. Which is nice, but these people already have their work everywhere. Inspiration comes in many forms, and it is nice to have books like this to flick through. 

Once I've bought it, I'll tell you more...

Exciting Happenings: Me and my work featured on Crushable.com!

I did this interview a couple of months back, and then my life went into overdrive with my new job that I completely forgot to actually talk about it! Which is crazy seeing as I was damn excited about it.





The really awesome Tom Rosinski, who is a writer and graphic designer at Crushable.com, contacted me saying he really liked my work and wanted to feature me! Click here for the full interview.


Crushable is a really great fashion/design/entertainment/culture online magazine, based in America, I suggest you save it as one of your bookmarks.

Woo!

Inspiration: Turning Leaf and Basso & Brooke

Wine. Everyone loves wine. Nice nice nice. I generally prefer the red variety, on a friday night to melt away the worries of the week. Or, as tonight, on a tuesday night because it was already open and I like to numb things. Wine labels are quite fascinating to me, as an illustrator/designer it's nice to look at the care (or not, in some cases) that are gone into their designs. Who hasn't bought a bottle of wine because the label was nice? (especially if it's half price, that's always good too.)

 So imagine my glee when I discovered that Basso & Brooke, those crazy fashion designers best known for their fearless prints, have teamed up with little known wine company Turning Leaf (well I'd never heard of them) to design these amazing bottles. The first image is from this spanish(?) site, the larger images were kindly emailed to me from Turning Leaf themselves after they saw this original post. Aren't the designs amazing? Here is bit more about the collaboration from Turning Leaf themselves:

- As well as curating a blog for Turning Leaf, where Basso & Brooke will open up their little black book of secrets, the designers will also be developing a range of bespoke, limited edition products with Turning Leaf. 

- Some limited edition products will be available to Turning Leaf customers and others via exclusive retail partners.

- The blog will reveal ‘what’s hot’ during the Spring/ Summer months and will be hosted on the Turning Leaf Wines website 

- Over the next six months Basso & Brooke will also be launching a series of Turning Leaf events, including an exclusive retail partnership and a pop up shop in April.

 - Basso & Brooke will be visiting the Turning Leaf vineyard in California's Sonoma Valley near San Francisco, following their London Fashion Week show on 23rd February

The pop up shop sounds amazing - more info from me on that soon....


Here is a good article from the FT about the collaboration - discussing their inspiration from Jeff Koon's collages, with this great bit - "Brooke presented Dennison with the flamboyant bottle and said, “It’s not particularly conservative.” Dennison inspected it. “And Turning Leaf has traditionally been a conservative brand,” he said.
“But you’ve got to be on people’s lips,” said Brooke. “You’ve got to think out of the box.” Dennison warmed to the idea. “This is going to catch their eyes,” he said. “Then catch their fantasy.”

I think that idea is great - Turning Leaf's motto is 'Taste the Colour' and you certainly get that feeling from the designs, which have snow leopards and volcanoes (how apt) intertwined, among other things. Wine is always seen as so serious - even when you drink it, you feel somehow more restrained, and sometimes wine is fun and you want something that isn't all Serif fonts and cream, heavy matte paper. You know?

As soon as I find more of the shots of the bottles, I'll post them. In the meantime, Basso & Brooke's website is here -beware, you can do nothing but click to open an email, but it's still pretty, and Turning Leaf's site. Here are some images of Basso & Brooke's amazing fashion design to get your juices flowing...

From http://vagarms.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/inspiration-basso-brooke/

From http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050706/biz.htm

From The Swelle Life

From Handbags & FagHags

Just beautiful examples of what can be created with digital printing techniques and genius handling of colour. Oh, to wear something like this... and have the legs for it... ah.

All images credited to where I found them, etc etc.

Ads I love: Travelodge's Mr Sleep and the Zzz Squad

Now, clearly I'm a sucker for furry animals, but ones with an east london mafia theme and cockney accent? I'm so there.



Travelodge have come up with this great advert for the Zzz Squad, with some great lines in there. Also I do enjoy the shredded pillow and 'Lucky Frank' (not so lucky) on the front of the dustcart. There's some definite 'ahs' in that advert (especially Jon AKA Mad Dog) which I'm sure Mr Sleep would tell you to man-up or something.

Considering most hotel adverts are cheesey or have Lenny Henry in them, this is pretty out there, for hotel-land. Still gets across that you'll have a great nights sleep (apparently) as you'll be looked after by some cute mafia-types who will scare pigeons for you. Rock.

Here's travelodge's little page for you. I'll leave you with this:

Company High Street Edit: Looks I love

You're getting a plethora of fashion posts, I must say. Lucky you.

I bought Company's first High Street Edit the other day, mainly because it's printed on lovely matte paper. Simple things eh? But seriously, the design layout of it is great and I really enjoyed reading it. There are loads of great looks and trends in there and I'm in danger of wanting it all. Here's one look that caught my eye:

I'm not a fan of khaki usually but it's out there a lot and these high waisted culottes are quirky. What I'm interested in is the layering of cycling shorts under more shorts. Hmmm, I thought, I like that. I finally ended by long hunt for lace cycling shorts with a find on missguided, and also by cutting up some lace tights I bought that were too long for my little legs.

So I've now taken to wearing them up skirts and shorts a lot. I don't own any culottes though; I have awful memories of some blue cord ones I had when I was about 8 and that is a horror that's hard to shake off.