The Weakest Leg

Brand Momentum

2012-01-06T10:04:00.004Z

Just before Christmas I finished a teaser for a research piece conducted by Conran Design Group. Thousands of consumers were quizzed about their interactions with and perceptions of 100 of popular brands. The study was focused on the value of 'brand momentum', looking at public opinion and what keeps sales ticking.

Each of the infographics in the video is a real result from the research, can you guess which brands they are? Probably not, as there were some unexpected results, but you can find out by emailing lucy.roberts@conrandesigngroup.com.

We were lucky enough to get a Japanese artist called Cubesato to work on the sound design, as his glitchy, organic style was perfectly suited to the geometric style of visuals. There is a group on Vimeo full of animations complimented with his handiwork, well worth checking out.

I am still working on the follow-up to the project, which involves an interactive presentation showcasing both the results and the way we can put them to good use at Conran Design Group. Stay tuned...

Agency Xmas Cards

2011-12-24T15:44:00.006Z

This week I finished a Christmas video that I created for Conran Design Group. I built and animated a zoetrope using footage from the company showreel. Check it out...

Normal e-cards really frustrate me and with Flash tending to be the tool of choice they are often very souless. I was keen to get the 'human' element in the video from offset, so I was looking film something rather than just animate. Ben Terrett has started a hashtag on Twitter this year, #ecardnameandshame for anyone who send him a shit e-card. Here's his favourite:

I found it interesting when working on ideas for BT's e-cards this year, they are all made by large design agencies offering creative concepts for free, yet the most popular by far is one of a puppy playing piano. Ultimately their best Christmas-themed design is the idents by WeAre17, something they actually paid for.

It's always a difficult balance with agency Christmas cards, as you don't want to come across like you're not busy, but at the same time noone wants to look like a Scrooge.

I saw this video by Landor and I really liked the idea of making a video about a creative project rather than just making a thing. It's a good habit to get into generally, as my maths teacher used to say "show your workings". Dentsu London are always brilliant at documenting their work and adding a extra layer of technical difficulty or innovative craft showcases competence and hands-on ability.

Here they put together a video about creating Christmas cards with LEDs and a conductive pen. I particularly like how they took the finished cards out onto the street to film the public's reactions. I intended to film the office reaction for the CDG zoetrope but as always it's difficult to gather everyone.

One of my favourite online Christmas cards I found this year is Snowify by Mullen, using the Google Maps api to create a system that allows you to overlay illustrations on street view, along with interactive snow! I found an interesting blog by Edward Boches that explains how the e-card only came about through collaboration between developers and designers.

"Because this developer sits in the middle of the creative department, the CCO walked by, noticed the snow, and suggested, “that’s cool; we should use it for something.”"

It's a nice back story that tells you about the company, but two final things that make a Christmas project great are a sense of humour and a topical reference (so we know what year it is!). This final example from Armoury has both, with this video inspired by the London riots...

Use Your Weapon

2011-11-21T17:41:00.001Z

Here is an advert made by US-based creative studio Imaginary Forces. The sequence is entirely made in CG apart from the liquid and the final shot. Brilliant texturing and lighting and a great concept, but if I say much more I'll be giving it away... just watch it.

Emotional Stock Market

2011-11-20T17:39:00.000Z

I've been keeping my eye out for interesting uses of Twitter since I worked on the Twitterwall project at University and this one by Max Dovey really made me laugh.

With three computers connected up to search for happiness, sadness and love, tweets were collated and printed out on streams of ticker tape. The tweets were bought, sold, printed and recorded over one week at Wimbledon College of Art Degree Show. In seven days, they ended up printing over four miles of 'global feeling'. This chart cracks me up too...

FA Cup Tilt-shift

2011-11-19T20:40:00.000Z

Check out this really nice footage from last year's FA Cup final between Man City and Stoke. Not sure how it advertises ESPN exactly but it's mesmerising to watch.

Catvertising

2011-11-18T14:05:00.001Z

"To stay on top of the ever-changing advertising landscape, john st. has opened the world's first cat video division. With production, filming and seeding all in-house. Ask yourself, what can cat videos do for your business?"

Linda Dong

2011-11-17T13:06:00.000Z

I introduce to you, Linda Dong and her very nice website. I just stumbled across this the other day and I really like the site. It reminds me of Jon Gold's website in that it has the same colour palette and is quite typographic.

What I really love though, is this alarm clock...

Made from two simple wooden blocks the alarm clock has five varying volumes and an off setting, depending on which way up the red cube is placed. It is such a beautifully simple idea but I'm sure it would work so much better than a normal alarm clock. Although finding on blank side of a cube is barely a challenge for a toddler, I can imagine myself struggling with this low level logic in the early hours of the morning. Just a moments problem solving would force me to open my eyes and engage with the day.

If you're reading this Linda, I want one of these alarm clocks!

Copa America Graphics

2011-11-16T15:07:00.000Z

OK, today's post is a proper geek-out on my part, combining two of my obsessions: football and motion graphics... I've just been admiring the graphics made by Superlativ for this year's South American national football competition, Copa America.

Everything about it I think is really well thought-through and it's refreshing to see a different take to the repetitive styles of Sky, BBC, ITV, ESPN we get in the UK. The strong diagonal layouts work well and the movement on all the graphics is really smooth, particularly on the team line-ups I think.

The cloth, which is always difficult to animate, was made in Maya and then it was all composited in After Effects, as you can see in the render tests uploaded to their Vimeo.

I think the above video really shows the value of editing a project into a promo to some good music. Punchy and energetic, with some great sound design on top.

With Luis Suarez winning with Uruguay as well as bagging player of the tournament thanks to 4 goals and a golden boot, I don't think it could have been a much better from my perspective!

Channel 4 At Promax UK 2011

2011-11-15T11:25:00.000Z

As the Promax UK awards have just been announced for 2011, I thought I'd do another post as I did last year, picking my favourite TV promos from the last 12 months. I haven't picked gold-awarded promos only, I've simply gone for the ones that caught my attention personally. Obviously that means it's a bit biased and I'm only selecting ads in which I am probably the target audience of the content.

And urmmm... Looking at what I've pulled together, there's a lot of Channel 4... well it's all Channel 4. What can I say?... Well in my opinion it should be 'Channel of the Year' almost every year! Actually that award went to the Discovery channel, which I don't even have... another reason why I'm not an official judge. Ok, we've established this blog post is unfair, now just watch the promos...

Best Ident or Branding Device (Gold)

Best Channel Branding Package (Bronze)

Best Graphic Design or Animation Promo (Gold)

Best Use Of Humour (Bronze)

Best Entertainment Promo (Silver) &
Best Use Of Direction (Silver)

Best Entertainment Promo (Bronze)

I was going to post a couple that weren't Channel 4 but they weren't embeddable. There was the BBC promo by RKCR/Y&R that edited all the big shows into a song, and also Film1OnAir's latest clip-based promo. This Dutch film channel was behind the excellent 'March' edit last year, and this year's cut won both 'Best Film Promo' and 'Best Editing', to a Missy Elliott mash-up. You can view them on the Promax site here.

Volkswagen: The Dark Side

2011-11-14T10:08:00.001Z

Volkswagen recently advertised themselves as an eco-friendly corporation, with playful and illustrative style in their TV spot here...

But Greenpeace pounced on them.

Something should have twigged your mind in that first sentence to be honest. Hold on! A car company claiming they are doing good for the planet?! I don't think so.

Greenpeace launched a campaign called 'The Dark Side', using Star Wars as a theme to start a rebellion.

The simple matter is that Volkswagen are saying they want to be the greenest car manufacturer in the world but they're not backing up their actions. What they are doing is funding lobby groups who are trying to stop Europe passing key environmental laws and targets. Greenpeace argue that as Volkswagen are the biggest car company in Europe, they have the biggest responsibility. Fair point.

But the campaign itself I find a little weak personally. After the initial controversy when Lucasfilm™ removed their spoof from YouTube under copyright laws and were lambasted as 'hating the environment' (i.e. it was a talking point), the whole theme actually becomes a bit weak.

The website shows a counter displaying the 'number of Jedis™ that have joined the rebellion' and they've put the VW logo on the Death Star™. They even had Storm Troopers™ handing out leaflets in Shoreditch. All very creative but I still don't think it communicates the aims, it ends up connecting a much-loved film series with Volkswagen, which is exactly what they had paid for in one of their recent TV ads.

Greenpeace won't name the creative team or agency behind the campaign as it said it would "distract from the message", possibly because they've been paid a hell of a lot of money, taking charge of a marketing budget that launched in fourteen countries around the world. Call me cynical but how much does it cost the planet to make hundreds of Storm Trooper™ outfits? And Lightsabers™?! That's serious CGI!!

However I did notice that this agency with the big budget was also switched on, knew their buzzwords and noticed an opportunity for 'user-generated content' in some form. I noticed this film competition Greenpeace were also running on the website. It allowed users to upload their subversions to the website, encouraging the production of 100s of virals. You can vote online now and I've just picked one that undermines the original advert in one slick move. It gets the message across and I would even say it's pulled off the aesthetic better than the original. I give you "Think Blue. Comedy"...

Phoneshop Credits

2011-11-13T02:30:00.000Z

Just watched the first episode of the new series of Phoneshop, a comedy show on Channel 4. Not the greatest start to the new series in my opinion, but the credit sequence took me by surprise! Similar to the Enter The Void title sequence, the credits were blasted out in a series of flashing illegible layouts. They prioritised style and energy over information and name-dropping: it's such a deliberate throw-away, so it's almost ironic that I've decided to focus on it and post a blog about it. Really you need to watch it with the music and editing too, so click here to watch the show.

Lytro

2011-11-12T17:38:00.000Z

Is this camera going to revolutionise the way we take and view photos?

I've just found this really unique camera called a Lytro. Rather than capturing photographs in a traditional sense, the Lytro captures 'light fields'. Now I put 'light fields' in inverted commas because, to be frank, I don't understand what they are! But what it allows you to do, is refocus your photos beyond the moment. Check out these shots below, you can click on different areas of the shots and choose a focal point.

This allows for a more interactive and playful experience when viewing photos digitally and via the Lytro website it's easy to embed them or post them on Facebook.

The camera itself has an extremely sleek and simple design and is very user friendly, with a small touchscreen on the end of the cuboid that allows you to edit the exposure. The only catch at the moment is the price, starting at $399. On their (very well designed) website it says that the photos are HD-quality, but at no point does it mention the actual resolution, which is unusual for a camera. Rather than so-and-so megapixels, it's 11 'megarays'. This camera doesn't just plug into your iPhoto library either, it produces .lfp files for you to upload to the Lytro website, so you can view the interactive versions wherever you are.

It's unusual and still quite niche, but I see it as a starting point. How long until we can film HD video with the ability to refocus in post production? This could be one step towards virtual reality, giving interactive experiences a 3D dimension without having to wear glasses and get headaches. In a world surrounded by iPads, this is a great way of viewing photographs, but there is also scope for this technique to be used within advertising and storytelling with the user literally able to focus on the subject of their choice.

I may not have fully grasped the science behind the Lytro but there is more detail available on their website here.

Film Challenge

2011-11-11T11:11:00.000Z

I only recently stumbled across this excellent animation for The Guardian's film season. It was a competition devised by ad agency Wieden + Kennedy in which you have to name all the films referenced. Before you get excited this was for 2010 and the prize of winning all the featured films on DVD has long since scarpered. But I still think it's a brilliant piece of iconographic motion design worth sharing. Some of the references are quite subtle but see how many you can get, I managed 21 out of 26. If you want the answers, click here.

I Love Houmous Like A Hawk

2011-10-31T21:32:00.000Z

I do actually love houmous, preferably spelt houmous and not hummus. Just chick peas in general are genius. Houmous and pitta for lunch is criminally underrated. I don't like houmous quite as much as these chaps but I do like the idea of a 'Houmous Gentlemen's Club'.

This music video was made by German company Harde Baas Paard for Crookers. 'Hummus' is a track on their latest album 'Dr Gonzo' that was released last week. You can buy it here.

The Spirit Of Apollo

2011-10-30T00:46:00.002+01:00

The above is a trailer for a 60 minute documentary about the groundbreaking collaborative album by N.A.S.A. recorded in 2008/09. The line-up of artists on this record is jaw-dropping: from Kanye West to KRS-One, from Santigold to Chali 2na, with DJ AM and DJ Z-Trip making it a real A-to-Z of incredible musical talents. The album is primarily a hip-hop album but appearances from the likes of Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Tom Waits and Lykke Li turn it into a brave experiment boiled up into a genius concoction.

As well as recording behind the scenes on this amazing project Sam Spiegel and Ze Gonzales also contacted some of the most sought-after street artists to produce animated music videos. The documentary previewed in New York in the last two weeks and comes over to the UK in the next month showing at the BFI as part of the Onedotzero_adventures in motion festival. Book tickets here. Click on the album artwork below to check out the awesome track listing and buy the record.

Dodocase

2011-10-22T15:31:00.000+01:00

Handmade iPad covers that look like sketchbooks.

Now available for Kindle too...

Dodocase.com

Alphasphere

2011-10-20T12:09:00.000+01:00

Check out this promo for an innovative new instrument. It reminds me of the Tenori-On, another pretty cool piece of kit, but the ability to produce and program bespoke sounds into the system enables even more possibilities. I can't imagine it being used to produce music on a studio level but I can see Bjork using it in a live show!

The Mill Touch

2011-10-14T10:52:00.001+01:00

No introduction needed to be honest. I've posted a fair amount of great work by The Mill on this blog over the years, embedded videos on blogspot, what could be a better way of viewing their beautiful work? Ahem...

Wakyak Architectural Visualisation

2011-10-13T10:57:00.001+01:00

Right, now I've posted enough catch-up posts, time to get in to the pure digital awesomeness I have been gathering over the last few months. Watch this video to the end. At first you might question it's intrigue, but the reason you should stay tuned, is because literally everything you are looking at in this room is created via some fancy 3D software called Blender. Don't believe me? Keep watching, it will prove it in a moment...

Dotmogo

2011-10-12T15:37:00.005+01:00

I'd like to introduce readers of The Weakest Leg to another blog I have been writing for these past few months... Dotmogo. It is a collaborative effort alongside the creator and writer of the VFX blog Uncle Shriek's World Of Idents, an expanded remit to include more of an overview of UK motion graphics. As well as the usual write-ups and latest videos, there is a job board and a growing directory of companies and freelancers.

Here are links to my first seven posts for Dotmogo. You can also follow us on Twitter @dotmogo. There's lots more good stuff coming up, trust me.

Only The Brave Foundation

Blac Ionica

Ron Arad's Curtain Call

Abbie Stephens

Making Future Magic

Joan Masoliver

The Wombats - Techno Fan

New Blood

2011-10-11T10:35:00.001+01:00

Yeah, so it was a little while ago now, but I thought I'd write up my feelings on D&AD New Blood. Beforehand it had been banded about that the theme this year would be digital and that extra emphasis would be given to work with new technology. When it came to it though, I couldn't see any difference from the year before in terms of the work on show. A lot of digital agencies were invited to the private viewing, but it seemed many were walking round frustrated.

For this very reason, any ideas mocked up on an iPad or displayed on a laptop were given a bonus 5-10 seconds to be stared at, but that wasn't enough. Set in a whitewashed warehouse as usual, the show immediately felt akin to an art gallery with a 'hands-off' vibe that noone had aimed for. This works well for showing illustrations and posters, but it always takes a little bit of time, nudging and smiling to get people to pick up anything hand-crafted, let alone interactive!

At this point it's probably best I address the bias in my writing - I was displaying my work on the Twitterwall hashtag aggregation project. Having a digital project at New Blood was actually great and I got to meet a lot of nice people through it. Sadly it went unnoticed in the judging. Meanwhile, three doors down a student from University of Huddersfield won a Best New Blood award for his Twitter project aggregating tweets with the hashtags #love and #hate. Gutted, but in all seriousness, congratulations. Still waiting for that email if you want to collaborate mate.

Our Ravensbourne stand still attracted a fair bit of interest, thanks mainly to the big yellow arrow won by Mike Scott for his portfolio of work. I particularly liked his stamps depicting Olympic world records — as clinical as Usain Bolt on a race track.

Bournemouth University won best stand with an impressive collection of work, elegantly displayed. This Talk To Frank poster caught my eyes in several ways.

The stand of Loughborough University caught my attention too, with their milk float branding designed by Ben Marsh. Having had a good look at his site he's got a lot of neat projects: from animated titles for Tron, to condoms packaged like Gameboy games and even a sharp, spikey Scouse font, like. I also really admire his sketchbooks which are just as interesting to look at as the final outcomes.

There is also a write-up on Creative Review about New Blood 2011 that is worth a flick-through. Although this poster below summises my general feelings on the show.

Twitterwall

2011-10-10T15:03:00.001+01:00

For the Ravensbourne2011 Degree Show I joined the installation team hoping to create something I could hand in as my final typography project at University.

We were tasked with filling the college with interesting installations using digital media. The theme was vague - simply 'concrete canvas'. Alongside two fellow Ravensbourne students Dan Palmer (coder) and Rupert De Paula (producer), we came up with this concept to project what was happening on Twitter during the show live onto the wall.

Working as the designer on the project, I concentrated on the user experience and the visual design of the Twitterwall. Here is my project report for the entire project:

The project went live on the day of the show, 28th June and was also selected to go to D&AD New Blood, the creative festival on Brick Lane. We re-coloured the project and made it follow #newblood and other D&AD-related hashtags, rather than #ravensbourne. We received a lot of positive feedback from both shows and it was a great way for us to keep up with what people were talking about at the events. We were also nominated in the Ravensbourne2011 Awards for 'Innovation in Digital Technology'.

You can view the D&AD Twitterwall live now at this link. It is best viewed in Chrome on a Macbook or Macbook Pro, or even on an iPad 2, as you can tilt the screen and control the gravity affecting the balls.

Finally, here is a short 'making of' we made for the project:

Motion Graphics Degree Show

2011-10-09T15:00:00.001+01:00

Check out the showreel for the 'Class of 2011', the first year of graduates from the Motion Graphics course at Ravensbourne.

I was charged with the role of degree show rep for my class and ended up with the responsibility of organising our exhibition at the degree show. Somehow, it all came together!

We built two giant cubic structures to display our work, all MDF, white paint and sweat, with a little help from Jade's dad.

It was great to see everyone's work populated the displays, each with a unique style/brand/personality.

Juliana and Ron helped put together the pixelated, hexagonal-grid branding which we used for giant signage and to top and tail the showreel.

On the big screen we had everyone's showreels playing along with some animated caricutures from Fariq and this hilarious spoof title sequence from Adam.

As well as editing the class showreel, I edited reels for Juliana and Jade. Everyone in the class's websites are available to view on the Vimeo page.

Ravensbourne2011

2011-10-08T14:58:00.000+01:00

So, first this summer, there was my degree show. Taking place in the brand new building next to the O2, the whole college somehow managed to pull together to have a 2-day show that involved nearly all the BA courses. It was mad-cap, there was a lot of 'design-by-committee' in the build-up, and a never-ending stream of buzzwords, mostly hypenated.

Naturally, the branding of the show was a much discussed issue, with it's garish colour scheme and awkward degree show logo referencing the initially controversial university logo by Johnson Banks. But I think it came together well and there was some nice brand extensions around the building.

I snapped a few shots during the fashion show, with a catwalk that thrusted out onto the 4th floor atrium. It was also filmed in 3D and broadcast in the '3D Experience' on the second day.

It was a busy couple of days for me, as I ran round with my time split between two installations: the Twitterwall and the YrWall, as well as the Motion Graphics exhibition. I will post individually about each of these in the coming days.

The degree show ended in the perfect way for me, as I was lucky enough to be awarded the 'Most Accomplished Creative' in a fiercely-competed category across all courses in the college! It already seems a long time ago, I will certainly continue to miss and reminisce about my time at Ravensbourne, I learnt a lot and I'm proud to have studied there.

Longing For Blogging

2011-09-16T10:43:00.004+01:00

This morning I felt a strong urge to get this blog back up and running. It's been a mad couple of months: I graduated, got a job, took some holiday, a lot has happened, I've been busy as hell. I will post about what I've been up to in the last few weeks on here when I can. I have some drafts but it's been so long now I want to do them justice with proper posts. I'm also writing for a blog called Dotmogo, looking at UK-based motion graphics, VFX and animation. Check it out here for now, but I'll introduce it properly soon.

For this morning, I will simply post a video that inspired me to blog this morning. It is so beautifully constructed it is hard to describe. Just watch.

Mnemosyne

2011-07-03T12:32:00.001+01:00

Check out the second half of this trailer for the latest from choreographer David Dawson.

I stumbled across this amazing set design for a ballet in The Netherlands on the VVVV website. VVVV is a 'multipurpose toolkit' that allows designers to work with coding in really open and innovative ways. It has a huge number of possible inputs, from live audio waveforms to RFID. Some of the work being done via VVVV is truly stunning and this set design is just one example. It is also used by creative companies such as AntiVJ and Lumacoustics as the software of choice for live or interactive motion graphics.

Baker Tweet

2011-07-02T16:38:00.000+01:00

I just love this idea by Poke. The excellently named Baker Tweet can be fixed to the wall of a bakery so that hungry customers can get an immediate update when the toasty warm croissants come out the oven. Ooooh lovely.

The Ability To Rewind Fashion

2011-07-01T20:02:00.000+01:00

Here are two similar examples of how digital technology and some clever motion design can be used to enhance a customer's experience online and offline shop windows. They are both 'I wish I thought of that' ideas.

Sozi

2011-06-30T13:40:00.000+01:00

I came across these lovely illustrations recently by Rilla Alexander. This year she launched an illustrated children's book called Her Idea. It's not just a beautifully drawn children's book, the story seems to be inspired by more mature experiences such as procrastination and struggling to finish things you start, with the main character Sozi perhaps representing the author and her journey to getting the book published.

The book has pretty much been developed into a full brand, with toys, screenprints and figurines to accompany the book. I really like the simplicity of the character designs and use of colour. Check out this video made to showcase the launch:

Hoxton Monster Supplies

2011-06-29T20:30:00.001+01:00

This is a really brilliant idea, beautifully presented.

The shop is actually a front for a charity that runs writing workshops for children in the local area.

"The shelves hide a secret — a disguised entrance that opens onto the Ministry of Stories."

More information at www.ministryofstories.org

Troika

2011-06-28T20:29:00.004+01:00

Troika, a small digital design company in London, have done some fantastic work over the last few years. I got their book Digital By Design for Christmas this year and it really is stunning. So many great ideas, each presented with such class and finesse.

They came to my college and presented their work a couple of years back. I ended up in the lecture by complete luck and looking back I think it was a real defining moment in my studies for me. The work that really stuck in my mind was their digital zoetrope branding for Onedotzero, their 'Cloud' installation for Heathrow Terminal 5 and 'The Newton Virus'.

Spoof Advertising Campaigns

2011-06-27T17:57:00.001+01:00

All genuine products, just with ridiculous names.

Diamond Shreddies:

The left handed whopper:

Smart Water:

When Stars Collide

2011-06-26T15:19:00.001+01:00

All from awesomepeoplehangingouttogether.tumblr.com

Shoes Made of Train Seats

2011-06-25T11:17:00.001+01:00

Check out these awesome shoes made out of old train seats!

The crazy patterns are really quite unique to trains and I think they're quite iconic. See if you can guess which shoe is which London underground line!

Last year TFL ran a cool set of posters in the style of the fabric patterns. It was called Tube or False, you can still have a go now here.

David On Demand

2011-06-24T16:40:00.001+01:00

I heard about this guy last year who, when tasked with advertising the Cannes Advertising Festival, thought I'll turn myself into a living breathing advert!

"Real-time marketing is gaining momentum every day. More than ever before, consumers demand immediate and interactive relationships with the brands that impact their lives."

Equipped with a pair of glasses with a built-in webcam, David Perez became David On Demand. In short, you could control a beardy dude through Twitter. Awesome.

So that was last year, what's going on at the Cannes Advertising Festival this year? Well firstly, it's not called that anymore, it's ditched the word 'advertising' and is now calling itself Cannes Lions: Festival of Creativity, which frankly sounds like an arts and crafts session in a zoo! Fact is, I only just realised the festival was on and it ends tomorrow!

I haven't heard about any campaign this year. Too bad Cannes Lions... maybe you should have 'advertised' yourself a little? Or maybe they just got cocky having received a record-breaking 28,000 entries!

decided that rather than come up with some fancy advertising campaign he would turn himself into an advert!

Vintage Social Networking Posters

2011-06-23T01:47:00.002+01:00

I've seen a lot of designers making retro movie posters recently, it's almost become a bit of a cliché. I don't want to post those as they seem too easy. You just grab a grungy texture, a faded colour palette, choose a piece of iconography from a film and lay it out like a Saul Bass title card.

Instead, I want to post this campaign designed by Brazilian agency Moma Propaganda. For the Clio Awards in New York, Moma took the social networking sites we use today and reimagined a 1950's advertising campaign. It could be argued that these are equally clichéd, but they caught my eye and I think they're really well executed.

Hawaii Chair

2011-06-22T20:48:00.001+01:00

The Wilderness Downtown

2011-06-21T12:58:00.000+01:00

Have a look at this award-winning, interactive music video for Arcade Fire's song 'We Used To Wait'. Built using HTML Canvas, browser windows load and play clips to the music. You can put in your address before you start and it will integrate images from Google maps into the video, giving each viewer a unique experience.

Last week this project won a well-deserved D&AD black pencil for digital design. Click the image above to judge for yourself.

Busy Busy Busy

2011-06-20T15:11:00.006+01:00

Wow, it's been hard to find time to keep this blog going this year. Fair enough, it was my final year. But the good news is... now I've handed in all my work and the degree show is approaching I can get this going again!

Regular followers and readers and readers may notice The Weakest Leg has a new colour scheme. It was struggling for legibility on the purple background before, so hopefully this lime green should brighten everything up!

So, what have I been up to?

Well, I've built myself a website and put all my work up on there, so head over and check it out. It's got most of my work from my three years studying Motion Graphics at Ravensbourne and soon it'll have a showreel slap bang on the front page. It's built using StaceyApp as a CMS, then I taught myself CSS/HTML and added a little bit of Javascript (from here) for the collapsible accordion menu.

Everything's linked up now, with the 'latest blog post' feature on the website pulling the titles from this blog and an automatic tweet sent out each time I post a new blog. So if you follow me on Twitter you can stay up to date with my blog.

Dog Boarding

2011-04-08T15:37:00.001+01:00

Google Hahaha

2011-03-19T22:37:00.000Z

Back To The Future

2011-03-13T13:45:00.000Z

I love this photographic project by Irina Werning - revisiting and replicating old photographs years on.

Business Can Be Fun

2011-03-12T16:28:00.000Z

A nice little idea here for business cards - print them on playing cards!

Doing Something

2011-03-11T23:39:00.000Z

In terms of dating websites, surely this has got to be a game-changer. Look at it! It's awesome! I'm not even single and I think it's awesome!

With lovely illustrations from Johnny Lighthands, this website has some great little interactive functions such as a the 'Wheel of Date' for indecisive couples and, my favourite, the 'workify' button for when the boss is looking over your shoulder!

Go have a click around...

Chromeo Drive Time

2011-03-10T23:34:00.004Z

Just a little documentary about Chromeo's latest album... sponsored by Nokia...

Silly Season

2011-02-18T22:35:00.004Z

Check out this slick Swedish football board game designed by Between! Click on the board for a high res peek.

30 Day Projects

2011-02-17T01:14:00.002Z

I am starting to realise that the deadline is king when attempting to run self-initiated projects. With the internet providing such an incredible format for self-promotion, I've noticed many designers setting themselves small scale projects and broadcasting them online.

Here Steffen Knoesgaard created 30 idents over a period of 30 days challenging himself to create 1 second of animation every day.

And here I've found a graphic artist creating an illustration every day to practice sketching on a tablet...

Practice makes perfect and it's nice to see other online work that gives an insight that goes further than the standard showreel and portfolio website.

'Make something cool everyday' is a sort of cult idea that is really catching on. Check out some of the cool stuff people submitted as part of the 2009 gallery.

Joy Of Cycling

2011-02-16T01:44:00.000Z

TFL were too cowardly to launch this awesome poster campaign.

But you can still buy it as a poster (occasionally) on the Airside online shop. If you don't immediately get it, it's based on an old book called the Joy of Sex. Illustrator Jamie Wieck talks about it a little here.

FlipFlopFlyin'

2011-02-15T12:25:00.000Z

I love FlipFlopFlyin'. I'm sure it's been running for almost a decade now! They now have an iPhone app for their minipops, it's great fun trying to guess who is who!

Absolute pixel perfection.

VIVA Germany Rebrand

2011-02-10T16:40:00.001Z

I love the rebrand for VIVA in Germany. But that narrator is a bit lame. It's better in German.

It must be cool, because it reminds me of some of the coolest hipster friends I know. It's justtttt like their club night branding - Girls Club.

Make Your Own Duck Sauce

2011-02-09T06:43:00.000Z

70,000 Facebook likes and growing.

Top 3 Super Bowl XLV Adverts

2011-02-07T15:50:00.004Z

In my opinion, this year's collection of ads were much weaker than last year. I don't really like any of the ones Creative Review picked out, too many over-the-top, not funny, car adverts. But here's my top three...

Virgin's Media

2011-02-04T23:27:00.003Z

This is what I call a well spent marketing budget.

A James Bond style TV commercial...

A laser exhibition by UVA...

Talking billboards...

And even now a billboard made of cheese!

Take An Ish

2011-02-03T17:58:00.000Z

Don't click if you're easily offended, but this spoof cover of a trashy magazine just cracks me up.

Hyper Island

2011-02-02T20:33:00.001Z

With the UK student fees going up and up, I really question if courses will be worth the money. At Ravensbourne, for your money you get: lessons aligned to industry standard briefs, the opportunity to get your hands on some great equipment and all the contacts that the tutor's have. For £3K a year for 3 years, plus living costs, I think it's value for money.

But I still feel I learnt more doing a summer of internships than any lesson or lecture to be honest. It made me wonder if I could have just done 3 years of interning around a range of companies and scrap the tuiton fees. Maybe I would have learnt faster. I'd definitely consider it if I was 17 now, looking at racking up a possible £30+K for a BA course.

Recently I found this education centre in Sweden called Hyper Island. It seems to encorporate all the best bits about Ravensbourne and package them up tightly in a 40 week course. It's expensive at €12,900 for the Motion Graphics course but that's soon going to be cheaper than the equivalent BA. If you do the maths, a one year condensed course is going to save you overall.

The ethos and branding of Hyper Island has totally sold me. The branding is clinical, minimalist and trendy - such confidence makes me believe the hype (excuse the pun). The image above is the front page of their catalogue, which just looks like a cover of Vice magazine to me! Check out this video some students made about the ethos, it really is a bit of a cult.

Their ever-expanding network of designers is impressive and I've spotted a few really nice showreels. Really oustanding work that you expect to be produced by someone at the top of their game, but then the end card says 'available for internships'. And I'm like "this shit just got real".

Here's a couple of Hyper Islanders I stumbled upon —
Steffen Knoesgaard and current student Olaf Storm.
Beautiful reels.

Let The Children Techno

2011-02-01T23:45:00.001Z

1. MR OIZO 'Let The Children Techno'
2. BUSY P 'Procrastinator'
3. DUKE DUMONT 'Hipgnosis'
4. SIRIUSMO 'Idiot'
5. PARA ONE&TACTEEL 'Infinity Riser'
6. BREAKBOT 'Shades Of Black'
7. SEBASTIAN 'Enio'
8. MATTIE SAFFER 'Is That Your Girl?'
9. GESAFFELSTEIN 'The Voice'
10. CASSIUS 'Shark Simple' L-VIS 1990 Remix
11. DJEDJOTRONIC 'The Invisible Landscape'
12. DISCODEINE 'Grace'
13. FEADZ 'Far From Home'
14. BRODINSKI & TONY SENGHORE 'Anagogue'
15. BOBMO 'Control'
16. ZOMBIE NATION 'Relax'
17. RITON 'One Night Stand'
18. SKREAM 'Boat Party'
19. DJ MEHDI 'TragicoMehdi'
20. FLYING LOTUS 'Caravan Of Delight'

Mixtape out 21st February. Mehdi & Busy play London this Saturday!

Scoopertino

2011-01-31T15:41:00.001Z

Noma Bar

2011-01-30T16:09:00.001Z

Israeli artist Noma Bar's illustration style works particularly well with moustaches.

Metronomy Are Back(wards)

2011-01-29T22:11:00.000Z

Molecular Gastronomy

2011-01-27T09:18:00.001Z

I don't know why but this really makes me laugh!

Such incredibly pretentious dishes with such comedy music!

Why I Hate Skins

2011-01-24T19:25:00.003Z

Let's see how much trouble my opinion creates...

David Pleat

2011-01-20T17:24:00.001Z

Worst Commentator ever?

Here's a few great quotes from the enigma himself. One day I will turn these into typographical posters, it just has to be done...

"This is a real cat and carrot situation."

"There's Thierry Henry, exploding like the French train that he is."

"And the steam has gone completely out of the Spanish sails..."

"They're not quite clicking at the moment... I think their play is a little too milky..."

"Giggs is enjoying himself in the centre of the threesome."

"Carrick has all the ingredients for his recipe. He really knows how to change the temperature of the game."

"You can almost smell the fatigue."

"It's plain to see that Rafa Benitez likes a big one up there."

TippExperience

2011-01-19T16:38:00.000Z

You may have seen this great viral advert for Tippex. At the end of the embedded video you have to choose whether the hunter should shoot the bear and your click takes you to a special YouTube page. If you have asked the hunter to shoot the bear, in the following video he refuses to, grabs the Tippex and erases the word 'shoots'. You can now type anything into the box! Great fun!

Here's a few things I made the hunter and bear do:

Rio 2016 Logo

2011-01-18T02:32:00.002Z

Haha they are REALLY not messing around with the Rio 2016 Olympic logo! After the media shitstorm that surrounded the London 2012 logo they've opted to make a whole 5 minute documentary to show their workings and support their decisions! You have to say it's worth it though...

Djay on iPad

2011-01-17T20:31:00.001Z

Algoriddim have done it again.

MySpace Rebrand

2011-01-16T14:14:00.000Z

Too little too late?

Lego Paedo

2011-01-15T22:21:00.000Z

You've got to love this angry comment on YouTube:

"The old guy was not even real.
At the end you can clearly see the child with the little lego version of the "old creepy guy" and a wall of bricks that appear to be the doors behind him.
This whole video was supposed to be showing what was going on in the childs imagination so stop with the creepy old pedo BS- There was no old creepy guy stealing lego pieces from kids- it was just the kid imagining everything and having fun.
You people are sick pups. Get a life."

Catch-up Time

2011-01-14T02:44:00.004Z

New Year's Resolution? Get the blog going again.
So here it finally is - Post #300!

It's a shame I lost this for the last month or so, as it happens I've got a bit of backlog of juicy bloggables now, so it shouldn't be too hard to get this on the road again. I was rather busy in December: selling muffins, writing my dissertation and designing an ident Sky Arts! Check it out...

Muffin?
Due to the current economic climate, a new module within my Motion Graphics degree has emerged and it goes by the name of... Enterprise & Entrepeneurship. Snazzy eh? To cut to the chase: we had a market on 15th December and had to make money (by any legal means possible). We ended up selling muffins, as you do! It was very successful, we got a few people wanting to buy our t-shirts and even one request to cater at a birthday party! Check out my project blog here: http://eande-reuben-ravensbourne.blogspot.com/

Dissertation
So glad it's over and done with! I wrote on the subject of logos, questioning do we really need them? It's very long by I'm sure the odd sentence was interesting.

Sky Arts
Finally I entered Sky's competition to design an ident for one of their channels. I took the brief a little further and designed a system for curating and displaying content as idents. Not sure it's the kind of thing that will win overall, but I had to tune it suit my University module too. To be honest I think the peeling grid effect I created has the potential to be a full channel branding.

Words

2010-11-30T16:21:00.000Z

Wow, this just blew my mind.

Newspaper Club

2010-11-25T16:06:00.002Z

I came across this brilliant idea from Really Interesting Group the other day. It's a online service, that will allow you to design your own newspaper and order as many copies as you'd like!

It all started when they first published a one-off newspaper called 'Things Our Friends Have Written On The Internet 2008'.

I recently went to a talk from Ben Terrett, one of the designers and founders of Newspaper Club, who fascinated me talking about the project. The systems are in place to print newspapers, we have warehouses dedicated to them. But falling sales amongst broadsheets and tabloids doesn't mean that people don't care for the format anymore, we just need to look for ways to use the technology in more relevant and user-defined ways.

Here you can see some of the treats that have created through this service, which now supplies artists with portfolios, schools with newsletters, and weddings with photo albums.

Newspaper Club are currently working on applying the idea to Facebook and Twitter. DDB Paris recently ran with a similar idea as an advertising campaign for Bouygues Télécom, turning your Facebook account into a book. Within an hour, all 1,000 copies of the limited edition opportunity were sold. It will surely be a matter of time until this application is available on a mass-market scale.

Promax UK 2010

2010-11-19T13:21:00.002Z

Here's my personal favourites from the Promax UK 2010 Awards.

Creative Nuts - 'Sex And The City'
Best Design (Gold)

Red Bee Media - 'Top Gear BBC2'
Best Use Of Humour (Gold)

Discovery - 'Bear Grylls'
Best Factual / News and Current Affairs Promo - Clip-Based (Gold)

Film1 On Air - 'March With Us'
Best Editor sponsored by Quantel (Gold)

Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R - 'Riot'
Best Factual / News and Current Affairs Promo - Originated (Bronze)

Special mention to the titles, designed by Phil Feeney, spoofing many of the TV channels' own identities:

Hand-knit iPhone

2010-11-18T14:48:00.000Z

Check out this amazing knitted sock for your phone! Even if you can't afford an iPhone, now you can make your own knitted case!

This site has step-by-step instructions to make your own, complete with all your favourite apps.

IKEA Cats

2010-11-17T16:39:00.000Z

Coke Vending Machine

2010-11-16T16:39:00.000Z

Nuit Blanche

2010-11-15T16:40:00.000Z

Whopper Freakout

2010-11-14T16:36:00.003Z

Movember

2010-11-01T13:14:00.008Z

Each November, since 2003, men have been growing moustaches to support and raise money for prostate cancer charities around the world.

"n 2009, global participation of Mo Bros and Mo Sistas climbed to 255,755, with over one million donors raising £26 Million (GBP equivalent) for Movember’s global beneficiary partners.

The money raised as a result of Movember is channelled by our men’s health partner into a number of world class and innovative education, support, research and awareness initiatives."

This is the reason you may have seen the Australian Rugby Union team all sporting furry lips in November last year.

It's a great idea and the whole campaign has really vintage, slick look. Check out the website.

Skoda: Nice Or Naughty

2010-10-31T18:35:00.000Z

Vintage Type Archive

2010-10-29T13:35:00.000+01:00

I found this great site called typarchive.com collecting photographs of hand-painted signage and and classic typography.

Le Tampon, Reunion

2010-10-28T23:08:00.001+01:00

Interesting... I just got a hit from a small French island in the Indian Ocean. The island of Reunion, in it's 'Le Tampon' provence. Apparently it has 71,000 citizens.

I find it amazing that people read this blog all over the world. Please feel free to comment if you do!

Greyscale Gorilla's Five Second Projects

2010-10-27T17:18:00.000+01:00

If you're into motion graphic design, you may have seen this site GreyscaleGorilla.com run by Nick Campbell aka 'The Gorilla'.

As well as running tutorials, releasing iPhone apps and selling plug-ins, The Gorilla runs a competition called Five Second Projects. It's a great idea: given a theme, motion designers create short animations that can both boost their showreel and practice software skills. After such themes as: 'retro', 'countdown', 'CMYK', 'fast food', 'self-portrait' etc, The Gorilla launched today a theme of 'nightmare', well timed for Halloween.

There's a great community vibe to the comments over on the site, and I've seen a lot of useful feedback given, as well as a good way to find top-notch upcoming motionographers.

Here's a few of my favourite entries from previous competitions.

Julian Perry

2010-10-26T14:55:00.000+01:00

Julian Perry's An Extraordinary Prospect exhibition of coastal erosion paintings; on display at the Austin Desmond art gallery until November 13th.

Things Organised Neatly

2010-10-24T13:00:00.000+01:00

I've recently been enjoying this beautiful image blog, Things Organised Neatly.

Fluid Sculpture

2010-10-22T14:21:00.003+01:00

Wow. This incredible sculpture is an on-going production over at the website casualprofanity.com. It was at one point an experimental skirt for a fashion show. But this video, which has just won a 2010 Vimeo Festival +Award in the 'captured' category, shows it's beauty as an organic looking and precisely tangled sculpture. Truly mesmerising.

IRC Dance Movement

2010-10-01T10:41:00.002+01:00

Polished Off

2010-09-30T10:21:00.003+01:00

Check out this brilliant short animation from some of this year's Ravensbourne graduates.

PhoneShop

2010-09-29T10:46:00.001+01:00

Never have I awaited a series with such anticipation...

Last November, Channel 4 aired a pilot as part of their Comedy Showcase called PhoneShop and now finally, the series launches on October 7th.

Ricky Gervais has joined the team as script editor, not that it needs him, after the pilot served up lines such as:

"Too many man are chasing them Zara level chicks. Its crowded up there. Swear down u gotta get academy on that shit. Smart guys like me are scouting those lower league girls who are just about to step up to Zara level. Lower leagues is where its at trust me. I'm talking about Claire's Accessories, New Look, Barratts."

I'm not the only one who'll be tuning in to E4 at 10pm on Thursday, there's already long-running unofficial blogs and a Facebook group!

Mark Ronson Advert

2010-09-28T10:11:00.003+01:00

Making Future Magic

2010-09-27T12:54:00.001+01:00

This is so good I want to cry.

DOT

2010-09-23T10:15:00.001+01:00

Worst Audition Tape Ever?

2010-09-15T17:12:00.001+01:00

Phonovideo

2010-09-14T14:56:00.000+01:00

Everything about this is genius.

It's a live performance by Clemens Kogler, using 2 turntables, a video mixer and a camera. Check out this interview with the guy on Motionographer.

Markets Of Britain

2010-09-13T00:08:00.000+01:00

Eran Hilleli

2010-09-12T14:55:00.001+01:00

Here's another brilliant motion designer inspiring me right now, this time from Tel-Aviv. Eran Hilleli.

It reminds me of Bunny Suicides by Andy Riley...

On a similar tangent, Yum Yum have created this cute short animation...

Rémi Cabarrou

2010-09-11T17:22:00.001+01:00

This guy is 20 years old and has been working with After Effects for just 2 years. Brilliant style, I have lot of admiration for this guy.

Great website too!

Twixtor

2010-09-10T15:32:00.001+01:00

Check out this cleverly made music video...

It's actually all one shot, no tricks. Proved in the making of video here.

It's made using a program called Twixtor, that creates frames in video that don't exist... Meaning you can slow footage down to incredible superslow-motion.

The below video was filmed at 50 frames per second, but using Twixtor it can be slowed to 1000 frames per second.

Incredible.

Ivory Tower

2010-08-14T21:06:00.000+01:00

My favourite 'new' artist of 2010: Chilly Gonzales. I place 'new' in inverted commas because he's actually been releasing music for 15 years. He recently admitted he loves playing the role of the washed up retired entertainer, but since his 'Pianist Envy' mixtape was dropped on blogs such as Busy P's, his notoriety has shot up.

I saw Chilly play in Victoria Park at the one day festival Field Day and it was the highlight of a very good line-up. He rapped, he played piano with his feet, he pulled a groupie up on stage, he covered Daft Punk, Boys Noize and Erol Alkan acoustically, and he smashed a white guitar after ranting about respect for instruments! All in his dressing gown! That is what I call entertainment.

Images courtesy of fantomi.blogspot.com

On September 14th he will release an album named Ivory Tower, packed full of "dark, gritty cabaret". A feature film will accompany the record also by the same title. A single called 'I Am Europe' has already been released, with a video showing clips from his film, in which he plays a pair of competitive chess playing brothers alongside Tiga.

Case Study 006: Pervasive Media Studio Showreel

2010-08-13T12:08:00.002+01:00

Who was it for?

Pervasive Media Studio was set up in February 2008 in Bristol as a hub of innovation and collaboration. After doing a work placement at the studio I was commissioned to design the studio a showreel.

What was the brief?

After two and a half successful years, the studio were still having to take ten minutes out of every workshop and meeting to explain to people what the studio actually was and what they do. What they wanted was a fast-cut, energetic film to showcase the projects the PMstudio had worked on and supported. They had case studies of individual projects, but needed to be able to show the breadth and range of the studio's capabilities.

What did I do?

I designed a graphic script to give the showreel a clear branding and narrative; writing and rewriting the copy to define the true ethos of the studio. One of the issues I had realised was that much of the pervasive media was either on small mobile devices or as layered audio - they had a lot of footage was just people walking around looking at mobiles or listening to headphones. I needed to make the pervasive media visible so I used the graphics I had designed to represent it, motion-tracking it some of the shots. I also used the graphics to tackle the problem that some of their projects had been filmed at 4:3 rather than widescreen.

As the studio is made up of lots of small start-ups and artists, the project work was scattered everywhere. I noted the range of projects and collated the footage over several weeks before editing with the final graphics.

Check out the final cut here:

So what happened in the end?

The showreel was launched in the Watershed cinema in Bristol and now Pervasive Media Studio have the video up on the homepage of their website and use it frequently along with the artwork as promotional material.

Hotels in Shoreditch

2010-07-31T17:16:00.000+01:00

Having been looking for a flat in the East End over the last few months, I've found myself getting distracted by all the beautiful hotels. If only I could just win the lottery and live a life bouncing from hotel to hotel.

This collection of photos are from four different hotels in the East End: Shoreditch House, Town Hall in Bethnal Green, The Boundary and Hoxton Hotel.

I can't be bothered to review them properly because: 1, I would be reviewing them by just looking at their website, and 2 they look nice when you bang them all next to each other. If I'm going to dream about living in a hotel, I might as well imagine one massive amazing one. It's a half awake dream, one of those ones where you can sort of control it... Or to put it in Inception terms, I'm the architect.

So have a little gaze at some interior design, swimming pools and pretentious food platters. If you believe there is such a thing as 'luxury-budget' and actually want to blow some money eating escargot and muffins then WeHeart.co.uk has a bit more info.

Coalition Of The Willing

2010-07-30T17:21:00.000+01:00

This has been posted on nearly every blog on the web now. I wasn't sure if I should post it, but if I didn't that wouldn't really be the spirit would it now...

I seem to have had a mini crisis in my own head, much like the one portrayed. Stuck between communicating a political, ethical and environmental message, and just trying to look cool. Should I post it? Is it a 'seen' thing to be posting? Will this video make a difference? Or is it just a load of animators having fun but feeling righteous?

It is a really nice piece. But does feel rather worthy. I wonder what the carbon footprint of the video is... Looks like quite a lot of rendering on some high power computers to me...

Gosh I am a cynical bastard. Here's the video...