Dead Men Cooking – A Cookbook Hopefully Never be Served

A creative solution for death penalty advocacy brief. Raise my hat to Jung von Matt which really deserves the five years-in-a-row being agency of the year for the consistency on their juicy ideas.

Alive, a German organisation advocating for worldwide abolition of capital punishment, worked with Rocket & Wink and Jung von Matt to publish “Dead Men Walking”, a cookbook with dishes that will hopefully never be served. Inmates on death row in the United States were asked what they would want to eat on their last day. Forty of the recipes were then collected in one volume, which was sent to key decision-makers worldwide. The cover material is made from American prison clothes, closed by the kind of belt used on the electric chair.

Credits
The Dead Men Cooking project was developed at Jung von Matt, Hamburg (text and client service) and Rocket & Wink, Hamburg (design and illustration) by creative directors Doerte Spengler-Ahrens, Jan Rexhausen, Felix Fenz, copywriters Marc Freitag, David Wegener, Vicky Jacob-Ebbinghaus, Stefan Golde and Estelle Raschka, art director Alexander Norvilas, illustrators Alexander Rötterink, Reginald Wagner, Julika Dittmers, Adam Bunte, typographer Jule Dittmers.

Source : The Inspiration Room

How Famous Brands Got Their Names?

You hear about famous brands, such as Coca-Cola, Amazon, LEGO, Nike and Adobe, all the time.

These brands are world-famous and some of the most advertised; and their logos, instantly recognizable—but what’s in a name; as Shakespeare once uttered, do you know how their names came about and what they actually mean?

Based on the Wikipedia list, online magazine Bored Panda has made a visual list of famous company name etymologies.

How many of these ‘fun facts’ did you already know?

via Designtaxi.com, Bored Panda

The Creative Pursuit of Laziness

It’s seems like a common understanding that companies have valuable assets if they have people who’s hard-working and staying late at the office.
However, the article and the infographic below suggest the opposite. Specially for you whose core work is to maintain fresh creativity, it’s time to be a bit creatively lazy (read: go home faster); and take a break from working too much in front of the computer/internet! Here’s why;

The Creative Pursuit Of Laziness
BY Jeffrey Paul Baumgartner

You start a new job with a new company. There are two employees in similar positions. They have both been with the company for several years. One is clearly hard working. She is constantly busy, juggles numerous tasks successfully and often stays late to get work done. The other seems much more relaxed. Indeed, she is often sharing jokes with her colleagues! She does not appear to work very hard, finishes tasks seemingly too quickly and is usually one of the first to leave the office at the end of the day. Which one should you emulate if you wish to do well in the company?

The seemingly lazy one, of course. Both have been with the company for some years, so you can assume that both are doing their job well. More importantly, you can assume that the apparently lazy one has worked out how to do her job efficiently, allowing her to work in a more relaxed way and go home at a reasonable hour daily.

CREATIVELY SEEKING THE EASY WAY

In my experience, this is something creative people are very good at, particularly if they work in organizations which do give them new creative challenges on a regular basis. They use their creative skills to find short cuts in performing regular tasks and improving the efficiency of their area of operations.

In truth, it is not just creative people who are lazy. Humans are programed to be lazy and this is a good thing. When our prehistoric ancestors were hunting and gathering, the less work expended to kill and skin a mammoth or to collect fruit, the better. Even today, it is sensible to ask why you should spend four hours performing a task that you can complete sufficiently well in an hour.

FOLLOWERS OR THINKERS

At work, when a new employee is shown how to perform a task, she will normally continue to do it in the way she was taught. This is not surprising. Most of us are taught to follow instructions, especially when a superior at work or school demonstrates tells us to do so.

But the creative individual is always questioning things and considering alternatives. She cannot help it. That’s how the creative mind is wired. She will try performing the task in different ways. Of course there are risks involved. An alternative approach to performing a four-hour task could prove more complicated than expected—and eat up eight hours of her time. She may be reprimanded by her superior for not doing the task in the prescribed manner. Worse, her method might not work at all, forcing her to start all over again.

However, this is normal for the creative person. Her curiosity and desire to explore alternatives is stronger than her sense of following instructions. Over time, she will try out various ways of performing tasks and will soon find the most efficient methods.

LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

As I wrote initially, if you are new to a company, do not look to the workaholics for advice on how to do your job well. Look to the laziest people. They will almost surely be able to show you the most efficient way to do your work well.

If you are an employer, on the other hand, those apparently lazy people are probably your most creative thinkers. When you need people with ideas for improving products, services and processes, be sure to include them in the teams responsible for developing these ideas. Moreover, be sure also to allow them to perform on these teams as they do on their tasks: let them try out ideas, see how they work, dispose of failed ideas and try out new ideas. This is how the creative process works.

The Internet Is Ruining Your Brain [INFOGRAPHIC]
by Stephanie Buck

Turns out, multi-tasking online doesn’t positively exercise our brains or mental state. Heavy Internet users are 2.5 times more likely to be depressed. And web addiction reduces the white matter in our brains, basically the transmitters responsible for our memory and sensory abilities.

Source : DesignTAXI, mashable.com

Do People Still Fall For Banner Ads?

“Banner ads first appeared on the web in 1994 and since then they have been used extensively over the Internet. They are made to be eye catching and impressive so that they create an urge in the visitors to click into their business. But, their mass production and misuse has caused viewers to be skeptical and unresponsive to them. After 8 years, do people still fall for this attractive ad?”

Killer Infographics have produced an infographic for Prestige Marketing, looking at who’s clicking, why they click or don’t click, and the top three ways they are used. Check this out below, and scroll to the bottom for an example of one cool implementation of a banner ad:

So.. someone would most likely to survive a plane crash rather than click a banner ads.
But here’s one cool example of a creative banner ads. Do you think you’ll fall for this ad?

source : digitalbuzz, inspiration room

TwitPoker: Bet Your Followers

There is just about a “Twit-anything” these days, so why not add something like TwitPoker?! Well, it’s actually a pretty interesting concept, a campaign designed to let you bet your twitter followers in a game of poker. The winner? 180,000 new followers! Created by Y&R Colombia for a travel agency client Viajes Galeon.

Source : digital buzz

Car Company Awards The Worst Driver In Paris

In Paris, finding a parking space is difficult. When the people do find one, they’ll do whatever it takes to fit into the parking space.

To promote Ford’s Active Park Assist technology, ad agency Ogilvy & Mather Paris (that also created the Tic Tac flash mob) set out to find the worst driver to help him/her park his/her car effortlessly.

The agency installed a giant pinball over a free parking space, and programed the bumpers of the front and rear cars to react as pinball bumpers.

The more the drivers hit the bumper, the higher the score—the worse drivers they are.

Watch the video below to find out who ‘The Worst Driver’ was (was it a man or a woman?), and what he/she won:

source : designtaxi.com

Ikea is Making TV and Building Houses

IKEA – the Swedish furniture brand is not easily satisfied by their market share, in fact just recently they launched a furniture-TV, advertised to be wireless and integrated. Not only that, they are also touting for their own ergonomic compounds in East London. More details here :

IKEA Launches Its Own Clutter-Free, Smart TV

IKEA has launched a new range called UPPLEVA that integrates smart TV and sound system with furniture that rids the problem of cable clutter. Built in co-operation with China’s TCL Multimedia, the unit houses an HDTV, Blu-ray/DVD player, 2.1 surround sound, wireless speakers and WiFi connectivity.
The furniture is designed to banish cable clutter by having ample storage space.The sleek unit retails for around US$950 and comes with a 5-year guarantee.Come June, it will be available in Stockholm, Milan, Paris, Gdansk and Berlin. From autumn 2012 onwards, it will be stocked in all stores in Sweden, Italy, France, Poland, Denmark, Spain, Norway and Portugal, before making its way to more countries next year.

Welcome to Ikea-land: Furniture giant begins urban planning project

Not content with its current market share among college students and new homeowners, Ikea is building its own little ergonomic Spahn Ranch compound outside London. The company bought 27 acres of land where—presumably with many giant Allen wrenches—it will build townhouses, apartments and offices to rent out. It will also be putting up a hotel because it’ll probably need the conference room somewhere down the line. A Globe and Mail report about the project (which isn’t an April Fools’ joke, even though the story was published April 1) paints Ikea’s role here as a landlord-slash-local government, perpetually leaning over the community’s shoulder, which is more than a little unnerving. Maybe you don’t think so, but I’m only 30 minutes away from Columbia, Md., a town known for a) being an extensively planned suburban community, and b) insane homeowners associations that make it impossible to live there. Don’t say you weren’t warned, Londoners.

Source : Adweek, designtaxi, the globe and the mail

Push Button To Add Drama

Came across this crazy activation for TNT Belgium in Youtube. Thought you might like it, specially if you need more drama in life!

source : Youtube

What Sexes Want According To Social Media

Social media monitoring company NetBase analyzed a year’s worth of online conversations — 27 billion, to be exact. Using natural language processing, they parsed English grammar and gender voice in search of phrases like “I want X.” The data was then analyzed for sentiment, and condensed into a top 10 list for each sex. The fascinating results have been compiled in the punchy infographic below.

You’ll have to scroll down to see the winners. But it’s worth noting that food absolutely dominates social media conversation among both genders.

source : Mashable

The Evolution of Books : Edible and Smokable

These books aren’t just regular books, they have literally transformed human’s everyday reading experience. An edible cook book and a smoke-able lyrics book? Yes, this is the era where you can pretty much consume EVERYthing.

Edible Cookbook That You Can Read, Cook And Serve . German design agency Korefe has created the first and only cookbook that you can read, cook and eat. This fun and innovative product has pages made from fresh pasta, which guide you through making a classic lasagne and prompt you to use the sheets as one of the ingredients.
Snoop Dogg’s Smokable Songbook is a promotional item for his Kingsize Slim Rolling Papers created by San Francisco agency Pereira & O’Dell. Each perforated page of the book is a rolling paper with the rappers song lyrics written on them in non-toxic ink. The songbook is made out of hemp and the spine can be used to strike a match.

Source : PSFK, vimeo