When I discovered Site Inspire I immediately saved it with every bookmark method I knew. If you too are obsessed with this blog, you may find a surprise today! We are in fact featured on the latest showcase. Have a look at it here.

Earlier this week some of the 160over90 crew set out for a visit to Boston’s Back Bay. Amid a hotel full of bankers in three-pieces suits and a number of interestingly dressed hair designers we attended the American Marketing Association Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education. 160over90, accompanied by Sharon Higgins from Loyola University Maryland, led a session titled Brand Aid: Getting Your Institution To Think Like The Consumer Brand That It Is. We also hosted a Cocktails & Ping Pong happy hour (check back for more on this) and exhibited our work in AMA’s central meeting hall. We put together this stop-motion video to give attendees an idea of our work and a peek into our agency culture. It’s comprised of over 6,500 images and was shot in just one take. Pretty groovy – kudos to our top-notch production team.

The AMA Symposium brought together higher education marketers from all over the world to discuss cutting edge approaches, new tools and technologies, and the current trends in higher ed marketing. It was the first time we’ve attended anything like this event and it was a great experience. We got to hang with people from all over the map: from Miami University of Ohio and University of Arizona, to the University of South Australia and the Ramius Corporation in Ontario. Thanks to everyone who attended our session and event or stopped by to say hello. We had a great time and look forward to participating in next year’s symposium – hopefully it’s held somewhere warm and sunny.

There has been much written about the Jazz pioneer, bandleader, mystic, philosopher, and consummate Afro-Futurist known as Sun Ra. Instead of reiterating what has already been written and citing bigillion different sources in order to ensure proper ELA standards, I thought I would tell you about a retrospective happening at the ICA, called: Pathways to Unknown Worlds: Sun Ra, El Saturn & Chicago’s Afro-Futurist Underground 1954-1968. The opening is taking place this evening from 6-8pm. It should be a good time. Also, in conjunction with the exhibit there will be some really amazing things happening in July revolving around the Sun Ra.

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Performance: The Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen
Whenever Wednesday, July 1, 7PM

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Lecture: John Szwed
Whenever Wednesday, July 8, 7PM

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Event: Philadelphia Record Fair 2009
Saturday, July 11, $10 from 9-11am, free from 11am- 5pm

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Double feature:
Sun Ra: Brother from Another Planet (Dir. Don Letts , Uk , 2005, video, 59 min.)
and A Joyful Noise (Dir. Robert Mugge, USA, 1980, video, 61 min.)
curated by Jesse Pires
Whenever Wednesday, July 15, 7pm at International House ( 3701 Chestnut Street )

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Performance: King Britt and RUCYL present Saturn Never Sleeps
Whenever Wednesday, July 22, 7PM

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Performance: presented by Ars Nova Workshop
Whenever Wednesday, July 29, 7PM

I’m just getting back from London and being in the advertising biz, I couldn’t help but notice how advertising driven the city of London is. It was pretty amazing to see and I thought I’d share my observations.

Having lived in Philadelphia for 12 years, growing up outside of NYC, and working in the ad industry for almost 9 years now, I’m no stranger to the levels at which advertisers will go to get their point across to consumers. Being in London for the past 5 days I was blown away at the amount of advertising there was in the city and the types that I saw. The funny thing is, it didn’t seem overdone. Maybe its just being in the biz that makes me ok with it, but having been in LA, San Fran, NYC, and Chicago in the last year, I was blown away with London’s take on getting consumers attention.

While New York is also a mecca for interesting advertising, London was the first European city I visited, so for those who are very familiar with the types of advertising that go on oversees, forgive me. As an American oversees for the first time, I found it all very interesting and I think we need to step it up here in Philly. I would have to imagine that anyone who has been to other oversees cities, especially in Japan and China, probably have a lot more to say about the types of advertising they’ve got going on over there, but I see those countries as a whole other animal that deserves its own blog post.

Since the subway system, and public transportation in general, in London is ridiculously convenient and used by almost everyone who lives there, much like NYC, a lot of the advertising happens there. From the minute you step into the subway entrance of the London Underground, through the turn-styles and onto the platform, advertising is everywhere. The straight up print advertising seems to be dwindling (yikes for me). While there is still a significant amount of print advertising, you can tell they are slowly phasing out the idea of only having one advertiser monopolizing one space for a certain period of time. Standing kiosks or wall posters are being phased into scrolling backlit signs. 12 x 18 posters that line the escalators are being phased into LCD screens which change ads every 10 seconds, or so. And static platform ads are being replaced with projection screens and LCD screens that show videos and commercials, rather than flat ads. The fact that the advertising was everywhere I turned I couldn’t help but remember the brands. It was pretty amazing that I found myself singing “Last Night a DJ Saved my Life” every time I entered or left a subway stop because there was an ad for volunteer police around every corner that had that saying as its tag line . I even remembered the ads for the new Pet Shop Boys album “Yes”. (Yes, the Pet Shop Boys have a new album out, it was released today). I can’t remember the last time I remembered an ad from Septa’s platforms or hallways. I can’t even remember the last time I remembered an ad I saw in New York. Maybe I am just not as observant in the US because I’m used to the methods here. Whatever the case, I remembered the ads from the London Underground like I never have anywhere before.

I know none of these methods are ass that revolutionary or life changing, but it makes me wonder, how much money could Philadelphia or Septa be making right now if they would just get with the times. As much as I love Philadelphia, we have some serious work to do. Our ad space is sad and pathetic compared to other cities and so is our public transportation. If the city and Septa open their minds a bit more, they could actually create a better public transportation system by using advertising to help generate revenue. Then maybe we wouldn’t have one of the most expensive public transportation systems in the U.S. of A. Here is one of the only 2 videos you’ll find if you google video search Septa advertising. I don’t mean to turn this into an article about Septa, but its hard not to compare when you see the possibilities of what could be.

On another advertising note, the cabs in London were also another vehicle for advertising. (Forgive the pun.) Here, we pretty much just use the tops or sides of cabs to advertise. In London, they use the whole cab

Another really cool cab advertisement I saw was a lenticular ad of a biker . I only saw one so I don’t remember who the advertiser was, but it was really cool. Here is a link to an article about it.

GE lenticular article

Lenticular application

Some more links related to the topic from other cities:

NYC-

Wired article

Scion Interactive Window Campaign

Korea:

Rolling Lightbox

I could go on for days, but you get the point. WAKE UP PHILLY, START ADVERTISING MORE.

About a month ago Adam Garcia turned me on to the book Antique Packaging. I picked up a copy at The Strand, and it’s been getting me all excited for summer to get here so I can begin hording other people’s graphic junk from flea markets. In anticipation of the warm weather (who knew it would be snowing today) I took a trip up to Lancaster to explore some of the Pennsylvania Dutch country and their antique shops. I saw a lot of great stuff, and just thought I’d share some of my iPhone photos of the antique packaging I admired on this short trip. See it after the jump.

The first place I stopped was Dutch Haven, so I could enjoy some of their famous Shoofly Pie. In the back of Dutch Haven is Jakey’s Amish Barbeque, outside they were playing Men At Work’s “The Land Down Under.”

Here’s some of the packaging I found:

There was a wooden box for holding neckties with some awesome metal type on the lid.

Behind the necktie box was an old Singer sewing machine with some great illustration covering the entire machine.

This is a photo album.

An old check from Coca-Cola. I really like the die-cut/punched type. It reminds me a lot of this font Stag that I’ve been using.

PA Dutch country has some towns with very unique names, such as Intercourse, PA, this bag was for the bank of Paradise, PA.

Lots of great color illustration on packaging and books. My favorite by far was Oh-Kay Candy.

Step 1 : Getting Set Up

Newfangled Web Factory is a web development company that works with Advertising Agencies to handle the heavy lifting in bringing campaigns to the web. They have been at it for over ten years, and have a ton of good articles on their blog that provide information on what they have learned. I have highlighted a few stand-outs below.

What’s So Great About Photoshop?

-Good article on the difference in using Photoshop vs Illustrator (and what to expect as far as shortcomings)

Organizing Photoshop Files for Web Programming

-How to organize Photoshop files for web design.

Preparing Photoshop Files for Web Programming

-How to set up Photoshop files for web design.  Includes tips on working in pixels, screen sizes, etc. This one also includes some good links to examples of design and theory as well.

Preparing Photoshop Files for Web Production

-Tips on getting the file ready once the design is done.

Web Design Tips for the Print Designer : Part 1 | Part 2