Funniest damn thing I’ve seen this year.

Happy Friday!

The original, untamed image dwells here.

Toby, an Amnesia Employee

Were trying to figure out how one of our workmates always seems to get injured when he is such a fit dude. Read the about section if you dont get it, stick up a comment if you have a theory!

http://whathappenedtotoby.wordpress.com/

HOPE ACT CHANGE

Nice idea taking tagged photos from flickr and using them to recreate a video that was made for Barrick Obama.

http://www.hopeactchange.com/

History of Evil

First saw this animation in the creator’s student grad exhibition at UTS here in Sydney this December.

It just popped up on Boing Boing. I’m glad to see it’s gotten so much viewage and comments. Whether or not you agree with the angle of the storytelling, the visual style is brilliant.

Scoop: Naked communications hire Tom Cruise

Not sure who created this, but it’s genius and a great hire for our friends at Naked.

Having trouble getting up in the morning?

Try one of these:

This alarm clocks purportedly blasts the chopper into the air whenever you’re supposed to awake, and unless you get up, catch the flying object, and place it back into the clock, that awful screeching nose simply will not cease.

Rather than letting you smash the snooze button, it forces you to answer math questions with varying levels of difficulty before quieting down. Evil? Sure. Effective? You betcha. Check out the video here.

To disable the alarm, you must reconnect the red, yellow, and blue cables in the correct order. Fail your mission and suffer the annoyance of a mocked audible explosion.

I am getting up now!

Green Energy is safe - or not?

Don’t get me wrong I am all for green energy, but I wouldn’t have liked to stand underneath that windmill.

2008 Digital Outlook Report

The much anticipated 2008 Digital outlook report was released yesterday. The report shows some great digital customer insights and how we are spending our precious clients media dollars across the web. In 2007 we spread clients media dollars over 1800 websites which is up from 863 the year before. The author Jeff Lanctot also has a blog www.jefflanctot.com . You can check out the report at http://www.avenuea-razorfish.com/reports/RegOutlook2008.html

It is a great read for any marketer in the digital space.

Vintage Advertising Posters

Searching for design inspiration for a personal project, I found myself looking at some great collections of vintage posters on Flickr. This collection of art deco and retro style (please correct me if I’m wrong… I’m a producer not a designer!) European advertising posters is especially nice.

If you have any other fun and interesting references of the same era or earlier, please share them with us!

Blog and stream live video direct from your mobile

www.qik.com

Ok this is cool. Especially if you have a phone with wifi built in (like the Nokia N95) so you don’t end up with a million dollar phone bill.

After you sign up Qik sends you a txt/sms with a link, you install an app and then you’re pretty much there. The app activates your built in cam (you can use the main camera or the one that you look into when on a video call. As soon as you click the ’stream’ button you’re up and running.

The site is producing a lot of ‘testing videos’ - clearly people trying Qik out on their phones (as did I) so I guess we’ll have to wait to see if this new method of publishing produces any decent content. At the moment it’s like watching a collection of pointless mobile webcams.

Note: Qik only supports Nokia phones (mainly E and N series). Qik is owned by Visivo Communications (http://www.visivocommunications.com/)

Tomorrow we will create a video using Qik and post it here

Feb/March 2008 Amnesia Internet Challenge

Fancy a little game?
So we know a few people that claim they can find ANYTHING on the Internet. Are you one of these people? Well here’s your chance to prove yourself… here’s the first of our monthly Amnesia Internet challenges (First posted 8.16pm GST+10 on Sat Feb 21 2008):

What is this and what’s going on in this photo??
Winner to post a valid url and adequate description in comments.
Pls - Tell us how long it took you to find it and how you got there!
Amusing guesses are of course welcome.

There’s no prize right now, just the honour
***[AFTER 12 DAYS WE HAVE A WINNER - LEIGH followed by EVAN. WELL DONE! ] ***

Digg this challenge if you liked it

SPOILERS BELOW:
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Got an idea for next months challenge? Send it to [ amnesiachallenge at live.com ] with a url and your details so we can credit you.

SuperHypeblog. Anything but a corporate blog.

Avenue A Razorfish has plenty of bloggers from Clark Kokich right the way through to the cleaners at Amnesia (well almost). It’s a great sign of a healthy internal culture - a big company that encourages staff to talk freely online. Ok so there’s the official AARF ‘WorkPlace Blog’ which is rather corporate (IMO), but look around and you’ll find some more stimulating blogs coming from within. To prove this I recommend looking at David Deal’s blog (Marketing Director for Avenue A Razorfish). A great read.

http://www.superhypeblog.com/

 
Reading David Deal’s blog might make you as happy as the man himself… and this is him on Monday Morning.

Amnesia wins AdNews Interactive Agency of the Year …for a second year running!

Last night we had some good news. We won AdNews Interactive Agency of the Year for the second year running. A big thank you to the hard working Amnesia team, our amazing clients and AdNews. Now … where’s the Beroccas? - AndyP

“By the way, how nice are the Sputnik Agency from Melbourne…? It’s obvious why they’ve had such a great year - quality from end to end and Nick Cummins even stopped by this post and left a message in the comments. Full respect Sputnik and good luck this year to you all. Along with our old friends Soap and The White Agency who are both ‘world class’ digital agencies producing amazing work year after year I would have hated being on the judging panel this year.”  - Iain

 

The problem with solutions

 

Apparently Picasso once said:

“Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.”

…which is a brilliant statement when you consider it in the context of digital design. The tendency of many visual designers is to rush into the execution of an idea before accurately assessing the original problem. Truly understanding the question is the best way to make sure you’re looking at the greatest number of possible answers.

Rushing to the most familiar answer (the kind that many designers find by slipping into their tried and tested design methods on the computer) means ignoring an infinite number of other more original possibilities.

This rant was inspired by a good book: How to Get Ideas, by Jack Foster. It’s a recommended read for designers trying to avoid the rut of doing everything same same.

Indiana Jones and the Blocks of LEGO

Many Amnesiacs are eagerly awaiting the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this year. We have seen the trailers, the site and all the extras. It looks like LEGO will be releasing some of their great building blocks to celebrate the release. LEGO have hit us with this great game, it has excellent atmosphere and sound - all the right elements for a true Indy game!

Have a go at it, and see if you can beat Tom’s 199 on level 1! (I could only get 183).

[EDIT: I just got 200 and all 3 secrets ... now it's time for some real work!]

P.S. Thanks to adverblog for enlightening me.

Computer Games creating New Art forms?

Watch the first of three videos below. It’s one of many similar examples that are spawning from EA’s recent game Crysis on the PC. Nerd stuff (physics, havok, quad core, SLI etc) aside what I think we’re seeing unfold are new art forms being created in new ways …by people that are unlikely be top of their art class. It’s very raw but highly visual and engaging.

It’s not exactly new. Games like trackmania spawned a lot of these type of clips where users discovered they could simultaneously replay 1000 games (here) at once …beautiful to watch. The original 2002 Halo ‘Warthog Jump’ gained major popularity at the time, this may take credit as being the ‘mother of user gen video game art’.

It’s an important part of marketing for gamers now. Companies like EA know that if they provide the right tools for gamers, they will create content. Quick maths on YouTube accounts for over 10 million views of user generated content from Crysis alone.

Say G’day to porky Pigcasso

Meet Smithfield, the artistic porker known as Pigcasso because of his abilities with a brush.

The Vietnamese pot-bellied pig was taught to paint by owner Fran Martin, 54, and he has now created more than a hundred pieces.

The ten-year-old has also become a celebrity in his hometown, Virginia, where his ‘abstract artwork’ is sold to raise money for charity.

Nike ACG

France AARF office Duke created this beautiful nav system with quality sports video content. Visually stunning, nice UX detail and overall brilliant execution. Great work, Duke.

www.nike.com/nikeacg

Test Your Senses - Viral Screamer

Classic from the Vault http://testyoursenses.archive.amnesia.com.au/ we’ve just put this site back up for a bit of fun. There are plenty of screamers around these days (eg: scary maze). But we were quite happy with the ridiculous premise of a full senses test, something different. Stupid - but many people still fell for it at the time

So turn up your volume, sit in a dark room and TEST YOUR SENSES!!!

If anyone (evil enough) wants to film their friend being sucked in - please post video links here. We would love to see them

$2 image stabiliser, lose the shake from your photos and video

‘Don’t be a slave to your tripod. Build this stabilizer and see how much better your photos and video can be.‘

Watch the video.

So simple it’s genius, looks like it would work a treat! I’m going to visit the hardware store this weekend and give it a go.