 Your new post is loading...
Your new post is loading...
Bringing ideas to life in an organization can be a bumpy ride. We’re all familiar with the myth of Isaac Newton sitting under the apple tree, waiting for inspiration to fall on his head. Newton’s apple is one of the more common symbols of innovation, right up there with Archimedes shouting Eureka from his bathtub. Metaphorically, that’s what we do when go to a brainstorming meeting to come up with new ideas. If the conditions are right, and the coffee strong enough, the next great idea just might fall on our heads. What is often overlooked is what happens next, after the apple falls, when we have to actually bring that idea to life. If we’re not careful, Newton’s apple can turn into Newton’s applesauce, a watered down imitation of the idea. One of my first cartoons (back in 2002) was about this phenomenon.j...
From time to time, even web designers need a good joke to keep the humdrum away. We’re sure that you’ve seen some or all of these jokes already. What we did is compile what we think are the best and funniest jokes from around the Web and put them here in one place.
There are both many privileges and many challenges that go hand-in-hand with living the life of a designer. From dealing with difficult clients to figuring out how to manage your time, the designer life has a slew of common problems -- many of which are illustrated in the hilarious cartoons below.
Read on to learn more (and laugh!) about some familiar designer problems that you most likely share with creative types across the world....
This month, Netflix made all 236 episodes of Friends—the sitcom that launched thousands if not millions of Rachel hairdos—available for streaming online, right in time for the show's 20th anniversary.
As a tribute to the beloved show, which ran weekly from 1994 to 2004, Eurydyka Kata and Rafał Szczawiński of Re:Design created a poster illustrating the highlight moments of each episode as circular pictograms. It's not a replacement for binging on all 10 seasons on Netflix, but it's a quicker way to relive your time with Monica, Chandler, Rachel, Joey, Ross, and Phoebe....
Ever feel like real-time marketing is all about being first, and not about being good?
You're not alone.
John St., the Toronto agency that regularly produces scathing parody videos about the ad business, just released the hilarious video below about the breakneck pace of marketing today—and how every brand feels the need to react to real-time events within minutes.
As it did with Catvertising™, John St. is now pretending to be running a whole new dedicated unit called Reactvertising™, where it goes to absurd lengths to make sure its clients are clued into current events 24/7 and can react within seconds—indeed, knee-jerk-like—to breaking news....
I guess I’m in a metaphysical mood today. Thinking about writing for the internet, how it’s different, and finding your own style.
So, let’s set the scene…
Seth Godin, Lao-Tzu and I walk into Hemingway’s Bar & Grill. Godin says, “I’ll have a Purple Cow.” I say, in my best Homer Simpson salutation, “Beer me.” Lao-Tzu says, “Ommmmm.”
Drinks with Seth Godin
That’s me channeling Seth Godin, echoing Lao-Tzu.
Except I’m not a bald guy and I don’t wear saffron like either of these wise men....
The Cambridge classicist Mary Beard weighs in on the ancient art of joking....
Dear Laughter Lovers, Have you ever wondered why I always start my newsletter with that salutation? Well, wonder no more. It’s because “laughter lover” is the English translation of philogelos, the Greek word that serves as the title of the world’s oldest joke book.
In last week’s magazine, there was a fascinating Profile by Rebecca Mead of the noted Cambridge classicist Mary Beard. What especially interested me was the mention of Beard’s most recent book, “Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up,” which is published by University of California Press. (She is incredibly prolific, so by the time you read this she may have an even more recent book.)
Coincidentally, I had just finished reading this title, which I found to be as enjoyable as it was erudite. It includes a chapter on the Philogelos. I contacted Professor Beard to see whether she would write a bit about it. Being the agreeable sort that she is, she said yes. Take it away, Mary.
A few years ago, the English standup comic Jim Bowen presented a show with jokes that were based entirely on the one surviving ancient joke book, the Philogelos. It’s a collection of some two hundred and sixty short gags, written in Greek; it probably dates, in the form we have it, to the fifth century A.D., but some of the jokes go back centuries earlier.
I particularly like the one about the thuggish, philistine Roman who destroyed Corinth in 146 B.C. When he was overseeing the transport of the precious antiques that he had looted from the city, he said to the ships’ captains: “Don’t break anything, or you’ll have to replace it.”
Bowen’s show was apparently successful, or, at least, it was widely reported as such in the U.K. press, which at first sight was a bit worrying for those of us who think of laughter as much more a cultural than a natural human response. By and large, the rules of laughter (at what, when, when not, et cetera) are something we learn—we’re not born with them. So how come people still laugh at the jokes in the Philogelos almost two thousand years later, in a completely different culture, one whose rules of laughter we ought not necessarily to intuit? I have various explanations for that, none of which involve abandoning my basic position on the cultural aspect of laughter and joking....
Remember 26 Faces in Everyday Objects we posted some time ago ? There is now a Twitter account called @FacesPics dedicated to just that – pictures of random stuff that looks like it has a face.
Seeing faces in random objects is called pareidolia, a term for giving random or unrelated stimuli (mostly vision or sound) meaning. Many theorize that pareidolia is a hard-wired mental feature that has helped us quickly recognize and identify human faces and make sense of the world around us....
When a veteran stand-up comic is also funny on Twitter, it doesn’t exactly come as a shock. When an unknown phenom makes you physically choke on guffaws, though, it’s a revelation and also something of an extended audition. ...After catching the attention of the comedy cognoscenti in 2010, the then recent Harvard graduate soon got jobs writing on the Oscars and Disney’sA.N.T. Farm., before moving to a staff writer position at NBC’s ensemble sitcom Parks and Recreation. (The show was just renewed for a sixth season.) The in-demand writer is also an accomplished poet who’s writing asatirical guide to science for ladies. Megan Amram’s frothy blend of dark humor and smart, surreal silliness has found more than 356,000 followers on Twitter so far. Although not everybody trying to generate laughs online is doing so for the same reasons, or with the same twisted flair, Amram’s consistent comedic quality is enviable for anyone trying to make their mark with brief bursts of humor. The multidiscipline writer recently spoke with Co.Create about puns, poetry, and how to be funny on Twitter altogether....
|
Nothing says "family" like pretending to love the terrible gifts your relatives have gotten you for the holidays.
That, at least, is the basic premise of a new 30-second Christmas ad from Heineken starring Benicio del Toro, and emphasizing that Heineken is, technically speaking, a family-owned business.
Part of Publicis Worldwide's new "There's more behind the star" campaign, it's the latest in a series of spots, launched earlier this year, featuring the A-list actor as a spokesman for the brewer, whose logo is, like him, a star....
It has the world's largest print run: a staggering 220 million copies. And yet no literary critics have deemed it worthy of their commentary.
Until now.
German literary critic Hellmuth Karasek lowers himself to reading an Ikea catalog in a clip hosted by the mega-retailer's Swiss channel on YouTube.
Admittedly, it's a bit of a slog getting through the first three minutes, but once you settle into the right headspace, there's actually quite a bit to enjoy here. He references Freud and Goethe, and if he's being ironic, he's playing it so subtly you might be forgiven for taking it as an earnest review.
In honor of the Food Issue, this week we're highlighting fabulous kitchen gadgets, including a selfie toaster, a DIY cheese kit, and a cutting board for the obsessive chef.
Move over, Jesus: With the Selfie Toaster from Burnt Impressions, anyone's face can be emblazoned on a slice of toast. After uploading your chosen selfie on the Vermont-based toaster company's website, you'll receive a toaster with a custom insert featuring an image of your glorious visage (or even that of your favorite celebrity—Kanye toast, anyone?). It's the perfect gift for "the person who has everything," or just a total narcissist....
Writer and illustrator Austin Light recently shared a funny series of sketches from his notebook that reimagines movie titles with one letter removed. The idea started on reddit where users were asked to, “Pick a movie, remove one letter, give a brief description“.
As a daily art project, Light took the concept one step further, drawing a scene from the imaginary film. He also penned a brief synopsis for each. You can see the entire album on Imgur. For more from Austin, check him out at the links below....
How quickly we forget what an art school nerd Matt Groening is. Every so often, producers of The Simpsons get one of their stranger pals to offer a unique spin on the characters to open an episode, and invariably, those ideas are as good as or better than the episode itself.
Groening's high-art bonafides are real—he and illustrator Gary Panter used to "split burgers and scheme about how to invade pop culture." So it would follow that the list of collaborators on Simpsons couch gags is heavy on high-art cartoonists, animators and, uh, whatever you want to call Banksy.
Mind you, Groening's guest directors come in all cultural shapes and sizes—there's a great Robot Chicken opening from last May, and Guillermo Del Toro, of course, showed up to do this beautiful/terrifying sequence for last year's Treehouse of Horror episode—but we're chiefly concerned with the gallery-haunting oddballs and geniuses whose work doesn't look like anything you'd ever see on TV. And here they are now!...
It’s well known that cartoonists have very fertile imaginations. Case in point: this cartoon by Joe Dator, which appears in the current issue.
Yet, as it turns out, the surreal scenario envisioned by Joe owes less to his imagination than you might think. I’ll let Joe tell you about it. Take it away, Joe.
“The gondola is based on one I saw at a stoop sale in Queens. They had some nice sweaters, too.”...
What's even cooler about gapingvoid is its stance on marketing. According to its website, gapingvoid believes that "Traditional advertising doesn’t work very well. Sure, it tries, and tries hard, but most of the time, it fails." Our thoughts exactly! Now that we're all caught up, let's take a look at gapingvoid's take on inbound marketing via the following 6 social objects....
When writing my new book, What’s the Future of Business, Changing the way businesses create experiences, I felt that text wasn’t enough. So, I sought the wit and creativity of my good friend from the ole Web 2.0 days Hugh MacLeod aka @gapingvoid to help summarize each chapter in the form of a toon. Then we got to talking, why limit the cartoons to just the book?
Hugh MacLeod is not only a dear friend but also one of my biggest inspirations. His artwork is a magnificent harmony of emotion, wit, logic and satire. When I thought about the future of business, I pictured it beyond words on a page, I hoped to bring together art with the art of storytelling. I couldn’t think of anyone other than Hugh to visualize what the future (WTF) is and should be.As such, we decided to free them from the confines of bindery and instead stitch them together in this free Slideshare. We’ll be releasing each of the individual graphics and the story behind them over the next few weeks. I hope you are inspired by his work the same way I am...
The Onion points out how awesome sponsored content is and how there is still an need for print in the digital age. The ad industry tends to talk in ways that baffle civilians. Sometimes it pays to have reminders of that. Thanks to The Onion, we do. The Onion does a great job of spoofing these digital media news stories, and points out what should be pretty obvious. For example, how ridiculous and obnoxious sponsored content can be. See the five great digital media industry spoof articles and click through to The Onion for the full stories....
|
![How to Make Marketing That People Love [Gapingvoid Cartoons] | Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight | Scoop.it](https://img.scoop.it/JjkwG6ojGO_0LsBt_m6G2jl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)
Tom Fishburne shares a brilliant post about design innovation. Recommended reading! 10/10