Meme Huffer

Radiohead get it (again)

I've been meaning to post on the new Radiohead 'House of Cards' video for a while now (actually, there is a whole bunch of stuff that needs writing up, but work has been brutally busy lately. Sorry, loyal readers). It is rather special, both aesthetically and technically. No cameras were used in its creation. Rather, it is entirely created using data. Cool. (A few of us at work are geeking out on data visualisation right now.. but thats still kinda under wraps. Watch this space -if it comes off, you can rest assured that I'll post extensively on it).

Even more celeverly, Radiohead launched the whole shbang on Google, providing the backstory and a multitide of ways for folks to interact and fiddle about with it. Go and have a play -it's fun. And educational. And interesting.

Anyway, here's the video:

And here's the "making of":

All of which plays off this wonderful presentation from the ever-clever Iain Tait over at crackunit about how Radiohead seem to have such a brilliant understanding of the importance of context -and asking why so few marketing professionals do:

My Online Marketing Presentation About Radiohead from iaintait on Vimeo.

Who ate all the shadow pies?

Found at Photoshop Disasters

Turn on Jesus

spotted over on LOVEblog.

So very wrong.

Great Quotes for Planners #50 -Kerouac on interestingness

I'm in the middle of reading the 'original scroll' of Jack Kerouac's 'On The Road', and brilliant it is too, in it's raw, unedited glory. Fast, visceral, discursive and with a healthily ad hoc approach to punctuation.

The edition I'm reading also includes a few essays on the publication process which offer some great insight into Kerouac's approach and beliefs, and this quote leapt out as a great distillation of the need for all communications to be interesting, not just right, relevant or vetted-by-research:

"People aren't interested in facts but in ejaculations" (journal entry, December 1949)

I guess it's a precursor to Howard Gossage's line that the consumer only reads what interests them, but this quote really makes the concept pop (sorry).

Honest Design

I was just having my regular Friday flick thru ffffound when I came across this t-shirt:

But what really made the image-trawl worthwhile was when I found this (The Dieline blog via ffffound) a few pages later:

Nice.

Great Quotes for Planners #49 - be disorderly

"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." -A.A. Milne

While there is always a point at which we need to corral our thoughts into a simple, cogent argument, it is always useful to include some disorderly thought prior to that.

Great Quotes for Planners #48 - Shaw on writing a proposition

"My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity." -George Bernard Shaw

Friday ffffound

(Yes, Meme Huffer is back. Apologies for lack of action lately -a combination of holidays, business trips and workload had managed to derail my habit. But the blogging monkey is firmly ensconced on my back now, so normal service is resuming).

Great Quotes for Planners #47 - on consensus

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody" - Bill Cosby

Wise words from the man with the dodgy sweaters. Worth bearing in mind when trying to sell work in to committees.

The Simpsons + Star Wars = geek nirvana (Friday ffffound)

One for the crate-diggers

Meme Huffer loves Erykah Badu.

I'm with Shepard Fairey

Well, I would be if I could vote in the US.

image from Obey

Update: and I'm not alone

Chewie meets Marilyn (Friday fffound)

For Jonesy.

(found at ffffound)

Great Quotes for Planners #46 -on originality

"Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats." -Howard Aiken

Monday music

We're huge Nick Cave fans here at Meme Huffer, so are massively excited by the fact that there is a new album on the way. To add some biblical boogie to the start of your working week, here's the video for the title track "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!":

And you can view the seance-busting teaser films here, here, here, here and here

"I am your father" (Friday ffffound)

Dug up at the continuously wonderful ffffound.com

Great Quotes for Planners #45 -be a rebel

"When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion." -C.P. Snow

For "crimes", insert the word "advertising".

Don't follow the herd -just because every mobile phone brand uses alt-folk, doesn't mean you should.

BTW, there's a great piece in today's Campaign (sorry, it doesn't seem to be online yet) on the spate of pseudo Cogs & Balls spots... which is kinda like all those "alternative", "non-conformist" kids who all dress in exactly the same way (& working in Camden, I see them everyday).

Break category conventions -as BBH puts it, when the world zigs, zag.

Advertising from a bygone age

Ah, for the days when you could use domestic violence to sell grocery products!

Join the army, travel to exciting distant lands, meet exotic interesting people, and kill them.

A lovely bit of aikido-move billboard-jamming, found over at ffffound

Great Quotes for Planners #44 -feel the pain

"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking." -John Kenneth Galbraith

Planners need to cultivate a certain intellectual masochism, a desire to keep searching and to always question the obvious answer. If we let ourselves be wrapped up in the intellectual cotton-wool of tried and tested theories, status-quo reflecting research reports and so-called conventional wisdom, we'll end up pushing undifferentiated ideas and advertising which sticks neatly to the category cues. Yawn.

So suck it up.