Alice in wonderland

Maybe because of my name or the fact that when I was little my mum used to always read me alice in wonderland and I went though a period of watching it at least once a day for about a month, or the fact that I was in a ballet production of it, I am really excited about the new alice in wonderland film coming out next year. 

Its a Tim Burton production which just at that you know its going to be amazing, but he has teamed up with Johnny Depp for the seventh time. Johnny Depp will be playing the mad hatter, the role was apparently part tailor made for him, and with his past performances in charlie and the chocolate factory and pirates of the Caribbean you know he will play the mad hatter like no one else would be able to. Other famous names in this film are Stephen Fry who is playing the voice of the cheshire cat, Matt Lucus who is playing both tweeledee and tweeldedum and Alan Rickman who is playing the caterpillar. Watching the trailer it looks part cartoon, part CGI and part realistic. I may go and watch 'Nightmare at Christmas'  to get myself ready for the Tim Burton alice in wonderland experience. 

Kenco coffee advert

I saw this advert a few weeks ago and it made me laugh and it still does now, but know I also think its a very interesting advert and a brilliant way for the company to put there sustainability objectives across to the public. I personally love nescafe and have alway drunk it and thought that kenco was horrible but recently I have been buying kenco basically because of this advert as it informed me of there sustainability objectives and the care they take in all they do. Nescafe's recent advert is just a bit pointless, compared to Kenco's,  catching the light of coffee in each jar, its not telling me about anything other than the fact they take from the environment to give us, and they dont seem to put back.

Kencos advert is informative while comical, however its say that it has 97% less packaging which I kind of didn't believe, how can that actually be possible it is still packaged, reading articles online about this new campaign I found out that it is actually 97%  less packaging weight, its very cleaver that they have missed out this one word. Even though I feel like I have been kind of lied to because of them missing out this one word, I am still now in full support of kenco and shall forever be drinking it because of there commitment to source there coffee from an entire range of rainforest certified farms by 2010. 

This advert is one in many in there above-the-line advertising campaign to promote its sustainably pledge, as well as the ad they are doing in-store, outdoor and digital promotions as well as competitions to win eco friendly holidays. This is one company after my own heart.

Everland Hotel

I have been trying to find some sort of architecture all summer which inspires and intrigues me, and I feel I have finally found it. While watching 'Design for life' I saw that they visited the Everland Hotel, I was intrigued by this and wanted to learn more, so I visited its website. As soon as I went on the site I saw that this hotel moves around the world into different amazing locations giving the hotel user an incredible view out of the many windows. The hotel was made by the artist Gianni Jetzer for the exhibition concept 'everland' at the swiss national exhibition in the year 2002. The hotel was then taken on tour around the world, the room could be booked for one night only, the mini-bar was fully stocked and included in the price, breakfast was delivered to the door and a record collection stands at one's disposal. The hotel in all locations was open for public viewing in the day and then at night booked for the over night use. I think this is a original and amazing idea having this very modern looking building placed in very different stetting and areas of design to it, ie on the roof of the old Palais de tokyo in paris.

TED.COM

Just found this website really interesting, it has lots of filmed lectures on it, which are really interesting to listen and watch, it has a whole section for design lectures, check it out, its interesting and you learn a lot. However all I have watched so far are of american lecturers, so not a globe section of lectures

Typography - The london design festival

Some interesting typography I found from the London design festival, I do personally prefer the more simple, posters ie the last one, its simple but shows the point of london with an iconic image of the london buses within the typography.

Che - iconic photograph

Ever since I went to Cuba this summer holiday I have been interested in Che, I am half way though reading a book about his life, I have watched one of the Che films, which was really good but hard to watch as I usually avoid sub-tiled films, I am just waiting for a good time to sit down and concentrate on watching the next one. So when I saw an article in the creative review about him, and the iconic photo of him I just had to read it. 

Its all about how the photographer Alberto 'korda' diaz Gutierrez who was part of Che's revolution party as there photographer  as Che realized how important it was to have photos in the public domain to strengthen there revolution. Its sad to realize through reading this article how Korda received none of the huge amounts of money this picture has created. As when he took it he said it was ' just another shot' and he didnt realize how important it could be, he did however crop the photo very well to make it in to the portrait photo it is today as it was actually taken at a memorial service for the victims of the La Coubre explosions in havana in 1960, and so had another person in the original photo as well as a tree.  Because of the no copyright laws of the time, anyone could use this photo and did so, for capitalists reason. So people where getting rich of someone else's work and using the iconic photo to sell alcohol and cigarettes, which is sad and not the revolutionary goals of Che, and just seems wrong, however in 1990 Korda did finally manage to gain copy right of the one image and know his daughter controls his estate as he died in 2001.  I do feel that it was wrong for the original photographer not to get created for the image straight away but resently the korda estate has denied the Guevara families request for the image to be nationalized and used as a free image representing Cuba, I feel this was wrong of the korda's estate, as the image is of  Che and his family should have some kind of decision making over it too, and I am sure Che him self would have been proud for his image to be used as an image to represent cuba. Even though it is not an officially image of cuba, whenever someone sees the image they think of cuba and whenever someone thinks of cuba they see the image, its too strong of an image not to. The article also talks about a new documentary out in London's ICA called 'Chavolution' which is about the photograph and how it has been used as well as about ches life in cuba, I wish I was in london to go see it, but I am hoping I will be able to find it on the internet soon. 

Social Workers ad

This is a youtube video which helped me understand the advert and realize that it was a good one, - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLSWWxY9Cdg&feature=related

When I first saw these adverts I was like what is going on, it was the one that it shown on tv, of about 5 so called celebrities talking individually about different thing, (another thing which I dont think works is the fact that they are not really house hold now celebrities) but the shots are cut together so fast you dont really have time to realize that its not there voice which is coming out of there mouths. However after watching the individual celebrity adverts on youtube, each about 3 mins long of just the one celebrity and the issue they are talking about, it makes lots more sense that its not there voice coming from there mouths but someone else's, making the tag line of the whole campaign, 'help give them a voice' more meaning full. Its a good and effective campaign if watched as individual tv ads, not all cut together too fast. I think that the organization should reconsider the way they have put the ad on tv, and show the individual ads, as you can see on youtube on the tv to give the proper, desired and deserved effect.