Going, going...

GONE.

You can find the updated blog over at http://www.mandemagency.wordpress.com see you there.

We're moving...

This blog has run it's course i'm afraid to say but stay tuned for the rebirth in a day or two when it shall arise like a phoenix from the flames over at that there Wordpress looking all jazzy in it's new clothes.

Link to come.

Money, money, money...

Must be funny,

In a rich man's world.

To see more of Mark Wagner's work visit: smokeinmydreams.com

Type is Art

This has to be my new favourite thing. It would have been nice if someone had told me about it before as it's been around for about 6 years... ach well, we're here now, let's get busy.

"Parts Of A Character is a typography project that originated as an educational print, aimed at typography students, created by artist and designer Susanne Cerha. The print in turn inspired José Rodriguez of JRVisuals to create www.typeisart.com. Here, visitors are invited to create their own visuals, using parts of characters as abstract elements, removed from their communicative capacity."

Basically you use bits of letters to make your own pictoor, aye?

I just find it fascinating the amount of different outcomes and the endless possibilities that can crop up from using the same set of shapes. It's in much the same way that I like collage art and I also enjoy the fact that I don't have to draw any of them myself. It's all in the manipulation... Away and have a wee go.

If you have a look through the galleries you can find some pretty nifty stuff. Also if you leave the screen inactive for ten minutes it will start to randomly generate past creations. There are two different versions on the site so make sure you have a look at both.

Here's my first couple of attempts with these strange, abstract efforts:

Mother, tell your children not to Blog my way.

December came and December went, now it's nearing the end of January and without a blog post to be seen... sorry bout that. My dog ate it... my sister spilt juice on it... my pipes burst? One of those excuses is at least true.

Now i can afford to do this because i'm not a company and I'm not really looking to take over the Blogosphere with my amazing content (I wish i was a company, would make getting a job a lot easier). If you look at it from a business perspective then blogging in relation to your product or service can be hugely beneficial providing another platform for lead generation, increased traffic and search results, building conversation and making your voice heard within a community. However, the golden rule is to do it regularly (at least weekly) and in line with a strategy about who you are talking to and how you want to say it.

The following were proposed by smartbugmedia to be the top ten lame excuses for not blogging consistently along with a suitable rebuttal to each:

Lame Excuse #10: "I don't have the time."

Yes I know we're all busy, but this is an empty excuse. There are myriad ways to save time, such as assigning blog posts company wide or working with a freelancer or agency. One special tip is to have an agency conduct blog interviews with experts at your company and then write up blog posts using that content and paying special attention to the expert's voice.

Lame Excuse #9: "I can't think of anything to write about."

Take your top keywords and phrases and set up RSS feeds, bookmarks on sites like Delicious.com and trigger Google alerts around those words. This will generate a constant stream of new ideas, blog posts and articles to write about. Google blog search and Twitter Search are two more useful tools to find out what people are talking about in your industry and blog about those topics.

Lame Excuse #8: "Nobody cares what I have to say."

Actually, Google cares what you have to say. Google treats every blog post like a new page on your website. Every post you write can be SEO optimized for keywords and links. The more you blog, the more content Google indexes and the better your search traffic and page rankings become. Also, the more you blog around targeted keywords, the more likely it is for qualified leads to find your site.

Lame Excuse #7: "I am not the right person at the company to be blogging."

If you are not the best voice or personality to be blogging, then go after the right people. Look in every department or silo, for those extroverts and social media savants who have a lot to say about the industry or their role at the company. Incentivize these people to blog with contests for whoever gets the most traffic or comments.

Lame Excuse #6: "I've never been a great writer."

Blogging is conversational. The best bloggers write in their own voice. Pick a topic and pretend you are writing an email to a client about a new development in your industry. This will help you find the perfect business casual voice.

Lame Excuse #5: "I don't want to invite negative comments."

Usually the negative blog comments, where a reader respectfully disagrees with your post, are the ones that spark the interesting and productive conversations. A debate happening in your blog comments will gain you new followers and traffic. A negative comment is simply another opportunity to position yourself and reinforce your brand values. Use some comment judo and turn a negative into a public positive.

Lame Excuse #4: "I work in a highly regulated industry."

That's no excuse. Get on the phone to your legal contacts and find out if there are any parameters for blogging. See if legal will vet new blog posts before they go live. Finally, develop a boiler plate disclaimer to tack on the end of each post to cover any liability concerns.

Lame Excuse #3: "My customers don't read blogs."

I'd venture to guess your target audience DOES read blogs. If they are online, they are likely consuming content--often in the form of a blog. Blogs are no longer for tech geeks. They are now a widely read and trusted source for news and opinions.

Lame Excuse #2: "I don't know how to get started."

There are so many tips and how-to's out there for starting a blog. Many blog solutions have free or low cost versions and user-friendly set ups. If you want to blog but don't know how to get started, broach the subject with your whoever hosts your company website. This way you can integrate the blog into your existing website to better capitalize on blogging's SEO benefits.

The #1 Lamest Excuse: "What's a blog?"

When I hear this question, I am tempted to welcome the person to the year 2001, but sarcasm really doesn't get you anywhere. So here's a straight answer:

The word blog comes from "web log" and is a more organic part of a website where users can update content daily with posts and let readers comment, share and interact with the material. Blogs are a great venue to incorporate video, photos, polls, sharing and other Web 2.0 features. For many companies, blogging is a secret weapon, used to increase traffic to the company's website, improve visibility in search rankings and convert visitors into leads.

Social Media Abides

Well our old pal myspace seems to be finally accepting the dominance of facebook and has introduced Facebook Connect across the site. The service is called 'Mashup with facebook' (ironic as myspace is a bit of a mashup these days).

Not only can you now use myspace to publish updates to twitter and facebook (in a kind of teetdeck fashion) you can also opt to share information between the two services to allow myspace to create a customised page with your favourite music, TV shows, movies, celebrities etc, and also suggests related content you might like. You can expect to see that wee 'like' button spreading like a rash over myspace any minute now. This fits in with the new direction that myspace have taken, moving the emphasis from the 'friends' aspect it pioneered to a "social entertainment destination" sharing videos, music and games. To be fair the only people i know who still use it are people in bands and the more hardcore of music fans.

Whether this is going to lure users back to the ghost town of social networking past is doubtful. Some have speculated that the owners (News Corp) are getting ready to sell off the service. Would facebook be prepared to move in and buy the carcass? It would certainly create quite a monopoly in the social networking world.

Speaking of monopoly... (ahem, sorry)

In other news, I had always suspected that the 'Big Lebowski' holds the answers to all of life's problems and it's starting to ring true. Here's some advice from the flowtown.com blog on how to handle your social media, taking insights from the DUDE:

Social Media Insights from the Big Lebowski

Without a hostage there is no ransom.

Wizard Smoke

This is a short skate video from SALAZAR in Vancouver. Having been around for a while i'm really suprised no one has turned this into an ad yet. If you get bored by the skateboard stunts then skip to around 5.40 for the water jumps. Great simple idea and really well executed.

Featuring: Bradley Sheppard, Alien, Nate Lacoste, Chris Connolly, Nate Roline, Stacy Gabriel, Mike Klinkhamer, and Rob Rickaby

Directed By Liam Mitchell
Shot By Nathan Drillot and Liam Mitchell

10x10

Okay, so in the past i have been guilty of not paying quite enough attention to the news. Time to remedy that, homepage set to bbc news and let's keep an eye on this

'Ten by ten' is described as an 'interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time'.

How it works: "Every hour, 10x10 scans the RSS feeds of several leading international news sources, and performs an elaborate process of weighted linguistic analysis on the text contained in their top news stories. After this process, conclusions are automatically drawn about the hour's most important words. The top 100 words are chosen, along with 100 corresponding images, culled from the source news stories. At the end of each day, month, and year, 10x10 looks back through its archives to conclude the top 100 words for the given time period. In this way, a constantly evolving record of our world is formed, based on prominent world events, without any human input."

The system gives you a snapshot of what is going on in the world and can be viewed by the hour, day, month or year.

Posterise

Over the time of my masters course (which i've just completed thank you very much) i've managed to hobble together a few posters using my limited knowledge of the old photoshop. So here they are.

Moving clockwise:

The first poster was for a piece of coursework where we had to pick an organisation to perform a design audit on. I chose the much loved (and hated) Glasgow Subway. Although it often seems to be in the dark ages it was interesting to see the effort that had gone into re-branding and pushing the service forward on a limited budget. As part of my recommendations I had chosen to push the work they had already done with the 'S' subway logo and orange colouring. I made a series of posters and an animation (if i work out how to upload an animated powerpoint i'll put it up here) centred around using that logo in the core messages. Unfortunately the move was perhaps so obvious that SPT produced a pamphlet using pretty much exactly the design below before i handed it in... still think mine looks better... humph.

The second poster was for the Caledonian Creates exhibition put on at our University. We were given an open brief and i wanted to portray the most important elements that I felt I had gained from the Masters programme and what i felt was the essence of the course, the coming together of strategy and creativity.

Poster number three was not uni related but a request from a flatmate who was producing a play for an independent theatre company named 'Flatrate'. The show was a success which i put entirely down to the poster and not its raunchy content. Unfortunately i was not present when these 'explicit polaroids' were being taken in my house. Damn.

The final poster was part of a project myself and a classmate did in conjunction with the university and Springburn Academy. Essentially it was an after school crafts project for first years where the pupils made these paper mache masks (we started off with a theme but the kids had other ideas). We produced a series of posters featuring each of the pupil's masks with a hijacked version of our Caledonian creates logo. We wanted to encourage the pupils by demonstrating that their efforts could contribute to a creative project and that art and design was a career path they should consider if they enjoy it.

What the f**k is my social media strategy?

Save your self some time and effort with this website that will generate social media strategies and jargon at the click of your mouse.




Blatantly ripped off from the people who do the fucking excellent whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com



Indecision is a thing of the past. Who says swearing isn't big or clever?

Thinkin oot his box

Here's an interesting video brought to you from the Creators Project about a German inventor/artist by the name of Julius Von Bismark. In addition to having a truly excellent beard / hair cut combo he's coming out with some really original ideas like his out of body experience camera and his much sought after 'Image Fulgurator', seen below.





And sorry agencies but it appears he's not up for selling you his ideas. How selfish. Check out the video underneath. You can turn on the subtitles in the 'CC' box in the player if they aren't showing up... or go and learn how to speak German.

When good bananas go bad

I've always liked that Chiquita logo, as with my beloved Tunnocks packaging i would have said don't ever mess with it. But i must admit this campaign is pretty good. They're taking the most recognisable element of the brand and putting a clever twist on it that is definetely going to grab peoples attention when they're at el supermercado. And as a skateboarder you don't have to convince me about the joys of sticker collecting. Everybody loves a good sticker.

And of course the campaign doesn't stop with the stickers. For all your digital banana related needs you can pop over to eatachiquita.com and go bananas with games, viral videos, animations and even make your own sticker (which you can buy on a t shirt).

They've also jumped on the skateboard bandwagon. (oh no they di-uhnt) So i'll wrestle with my 'only buying from skater run companies' conscience for a while to see if this guy will be going up on the kitchen wall... it would work well with the hideous yellow paint job i've inherited.

You can read a full interview with the designer over at design:related for his insights into this particular brand development.

One more thing before you go tho... It's all well and good coming up with this sort of stuff to make a brand a bit more exciting BUT when you have problems with your company image with regard to ethics and human rights violations you might want to sort that out first otherwise there is always going to be people telling you where to stick your bananas.

Here's the Banana Sessions to play out this post. A jolly good wee band fae the Burry Toon.

Sleep tight

I love a good pun i do. Shame about the spelling mistake but we'll let it go, maybe they were rushed by the approaching junkie wanting his bed back. Perhaps it's a social commentary on Madonna's career? Oh, you don't remember that song? Not surprised...

Olly Moss

Here's some graphic work that caught my eye this morn from Olly Moss. The first four images are from his 'make something cool everyday' project.




The following are commercial work with his custom shooting targets, a poster for the 'a life well wasted' podcast, poster for the Black Keys and an image representing the internet police for a Financial Times article on internet censorship in china.

Haters

The Melbourne Advertising and Design Club (MADC) have chosen something a bit different for their promotion of this years awards ceremony.

The campaign has real comments taken from the Campaign Brief Blog, all contributed under the guise of 'Anonymous'.

"Accordingly, the MADC would like to thank 6:09, 8:23, 11:17 and all the other brave contributors for providing the content for this campaign".

Silence Anonymous and keep brushing off those haters...

Boring

Okay, so Apple are the cool, good guys and Microsoft are boring and evil... right? Perhaps. The debate shall no doubt rage forever amongst the techies and the mono-button, fancy pants.

Below is an ad for Office 2010. Excited already aren't you? It's a bit cheesy but it's a step in the right direction. When so many people hate you it can't hurt to take the piss out yourself from time to time.

poor wee Clippy... he just wanted to help you write a letter.

Crafty

Woops, the blog kind of died for a wee bit there. Had to actually do some of that work stuff... Any way, a few more bits and bobs you might find interesting coming up.

Because i am nothing if not bang up to date, cutting edge and down with the youth here's a year old flyer design from those renegade party chaps now collectively known as 'Numbers'. If you like getting sweaty and dancing about to grimey beats whilst rocking the patented 'stabby gun fingers' moves then check them out.

What better way to get people to pay attention to your flyer than getting them to pick it up and play with it..

Crafty indeed.

Harvest by Haroshi: SKATE AND DESTROY

Now this is impressive. 'Harvest by Haroshii: Skate and Destroy' is an Exhibition recently shown a plsmis gallery in Tokyo. All of the images you see below are made from old skate decks. Most skaters will end up with piles of old delaminated and snapped boards kicking around the house if they are not left to die at the skate spot. They are either in that pile, given to kids or burned in the bonfire by your Dad. This guy had a different idea...

"I decided to make some accessories with the old decks and this was the birth of Harvest. The works of Harvest are through the perspectives of a skater and as an artist. As a skater, I want to take responsibility of reusing skateboards when they were no longer useable. Also, as an artist I want to explore the possibilities of what can be done with skateboards.

We see the care and effort that a skater can have for his/her deck and we also acknowledge the origins of a skateboard. We believe that if the small things we do can connect to sustainability then we’re doing something right. We’d be satisfied in our effort when people look at products and start thinking of ways to recycle.”

Stolen from HUH.MAGAZINE