I saw this Redvines commercial on VH1 and it really stood out to me. It takes the Redvine licorice and uses it in an interesting organic style animation where it climbs a wall and a couple picks it off of it’s red vine and they eat it. Kinda reminds me of the Skittles “Taste the Rainbow” campaign where the candy fell from a rainbow colored sky like rain, and people caught it in their hands and ate it. I wonder if this style only works for food, or candy in particular? I can’t see something recognizably man made like a lawnmower working in the same way. People walk along a forests edge and out comes a lawnmower and you instantly start mowing with it. We associate food, and I guess candy with coming from nature in some way, and the ads push this thought, even though skittles and Redvines aren’t exactly grown on trees. (beakers maybe) An interesting commercial using the product in a way that wouldn’t normally be thought of, and maybe that’s why it stuck with me.

If you’re going to go, by God do it in style. And if your style involves good and cheap beer, and your idea is a coffin that looks like your favorite beer, a Pabst Coffin makes sense, almost too much so. Bill Bramanti from Chicago loves his idea. He had this coffin specially made to be buried in because it’s his favorite beer of course. He doesn’t plan on using it anytime soon, so right now it’s doubling as a cooler for, you guessed it. I’m seriously surprised this guy isn’t from Milwaukee, but I guess some of us are too busy here drinking or brewing it to think of being buried in it.

Kudos for Bill coming up with this idea because it’s probably the one market Beer companies haven’t “tapped” yet for their brands. (Though I think a St. Pauli Girl can coffin would be cooler, but that’s obviously for different reasons.) Sadly though this new idea might spark an epidemic among brands. You know some guy is going to see this and make his coffin look like a Nascar racer or worse. I’m thinking football logos, baseball, basically anything to to with sports, beer, who knows — my only question to Bill on his Pabst coffin would be, does he plan on being buried in a full or empty can?

I love muppets.

Do you ever find you take your work home with you? Or better yet you live what you do? Take a look at the life of someone who lives with this very affliction and try to stop laughing. It’s GRRRRRRREAT!

Someone somewhere needed to fill a void in their lives, and they needed that void to be filled with poorly animated cats singing “Joy Joy Joy.” Is it funny that we like to see animals take on human qualities? Is it funny that we dress up our pets like people and our kids like animals? Apparently it is. Try not to at least smile when you watch this.

Here is another Death Cab for Cutie video made at the same time they did the hilarious MTV promos. (If you missed the promos pan down a few posts.) Death Cab for Cutie’s “No Sunlight” off of the Album “Narrow Stairs” showcases the band in all of their whirly ball action. Trying to beat kids at a game that is part track-ball and part go-kart, and losing in the process miserably. The ending even feels a little “Officey” to me. Clever, retro, modern and fun.

If you are in a creative industry, you know how hard it is to get something good through. By “good” I mean, not completely diluted from your original idea, not forced, and not tampered with. (If you shutter at the phrase, “make the logo bigger” than this is especially for you.) Death Cab for Cutie for the last album “Plans” opened it up to directors and artists. They would put out a DVD of every song off the album accompanied by an original video created not by them, but of Directors and Artists that wanted to work with them. The makers of the video could do anything they wanted within reason, and the band members were not to appear in it. So Directions was released and was a very progressive experiment. Rob Schrab was chosen to do the song “Crooked Teeth” and I think it is one of the best video’s period. It’s sad that the label didn’t release it as the bands “official” video when the song became a single because it is that good. I also included a mini-making of to see how it was done. Schrab’s work is original and expressive and kitschy at the same time. it of the Directors/Artists design with no tampering. Kudos to the band who can create great music, but fall short in my eyes when it comes to videos. It’s not their fault most likely as there are too many cooks in the kitchen when it comes to band promotion at big labels. The key? Let directors, artists and creatives do what they do, and you can get original results.Check out more of Rob Schrab’s work www.robschrab.com

Radiohead is a very cerebral band, and they just do things differently. Their fans do things differently too. Case in point, the first video is Radiohead performing their song “Nude” from their album “In Rainbows.” The second clip is from a guy who recreated their song “Nude” by using old and outdated machines and then filmed it. Cerebral. You can hear it developing loosely at first but it really tightens up after a minute or so. It’s pretty elaborate, and obviously took some time to set up. So where does someone get an idea like this, and then muddle around until they solve it? Sometimes it seems I have trouble squeezing in things I need to be doing like dishes and mowing the lawn… “Oh honey after dinner I was going to recreate my favorite bands song using things we were going to donate to goodwill okay? And then I’m going to record it. And then I’m going to film it. And post it.” I don’t know how he did it, but it’s pretty fantastic.

A good message we all have to hear once in awhile. It’s inspiring and shows you what it takes to succeed. Perseverance.

Okay, I know this has been around awhile, but I told my friend Courtney about it and thought I should put it up here. This video demonstrates a great way at attacking a larger subject, in this case how the majority of food in america is processed. It follows two cartoon characters Leo and Moophius patterend after the popular movie the Matrix. But our characters are entering “The Meatrix.” You can follow the cartoon characters and take the “Red” pill and open your eyes to what is happening to the food you are eating. You can also ignore this by taking the blue pill while wondering why every couple months we have some sort of outbreak in our produce supply – Lettuce, sprouts or tomatoes. If you would like to know more visit the Meatrix.com to really sink your teeth into this subject. (oh that’s terrible.)