Non-trad ad for The Yoga Center.

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In Non-traditional Advertising, ads are strategically positioned in the most unexpected places e.g. the sidewalk, a manhole cover, and as in the brilliant¹ example above, a straw. The trick is in fusing your big idea with the 3D properties of the medium without making the proposition seem contrived². On that note, I stumbled upon this really cool collection of Creative Ads Around The World I thought you might enjoy!

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UPDATE: Mr. Katana of Hemmy.net is the real creator of the Creative Ads list, and not the webmaster of Eglobe1 like I originally linked to. Apparently Onion82 of Eglobe stole Mr. Katana’s entry and is passing it off as his³. Read more about it here.

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Heyheyhey, why don’t you deck out your windows with these dooper-cute Halloweenie windsocks our good friends Nina and Carlo designed⁴ :

They’re available in Maxitoylab Alabang Town Center and Maxiworks Powerplant Mall in Rockwell. They’re made of nylon, are 2.5 feet in length and 18 inches in diameter, and cost P150 each. Grab one now, yes?
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It’s been said time and again that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Last July, our 2-year old magazine Wedding Essentials came out with a Special Issue called WE Beautiful Weddings featuring 25 real wedding stories and photos submitted and written by actual brides. We even included a “supplier box” listing down all the vendors each couple worked with.

Remember?

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Fast forward to this month: look what our more-than-5-year-old rival mag did. For their, um, version, they also asked brides to write the stories themselves — something WE has been doing since the very first issue. At least the art direction is different but the overall concept and format was copied right down to the supplier box.⁵) Well, well, well, how utterly flattering! 😉
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So if you love WE, pretty please wait for our next issue and do feel free to take a peek at the behind-the-scenes action via my phlog.

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Arn and I will be away from home⁶ for a couple of weeks but I’ll see if I can post from where we’ll be. Seeya. 🙂

1. It’s so simple, it makes you go “why didn’t I think of that?”[ back]
2. I’ve actually seen it employed locally, some better executed than others though, but it’s good to know that the brand people are becoming more open to the non-conventional approach.[ back]
3. Sigh, aren’t we all victims of intellectual property thievery lately.[ back]
4. They’re sooo cute! I’m guessing that sock #s 1, 3, 4, and 5 are by Nina and #s 2 and 6 are by Carlo, correct?[ back]
5. The only difference is that ours was a true labor of love and not something borne out of marketing warfare. ;[ back]
6. …and our dear little Abbas 🙁[ back]

As promised, here’s part two of my Design Heroes entry.
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Stefan Sagmeister. He’s worked on album packaging and posters for music industry giants The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, Talking Heads, Pink Floyd, etc. and is best known for his trademark hand-made typography. With an emphasis on concept over style, everything he churns out has an exciting, “made you look, huh?” quality. His mantra? Work slower, do less work, do it better.¹

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Paula Scher. I love designers who play with type and Ms. Scher is certainly one of them. She designed the uber-cool “Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk” posters² as well as the simply clever “Citi” logo of Citibank and the globally-recognized elegant branding for Tiffany&Co. How’s that for style diversity? Incidentally, she’s one of the partners at legendary design studio Pentagram.

Next time, I’ll tell you all about my web design heroes.
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By the way, Graphika Manila — the first ever design conference in Manila — is happening on December 2 at the Mall of Asia. It’s gonna be a huge event guys, design biggies of the new skool, Joshua Davis and MK12, are flying over to speak alongside local talents Team Manila, Blackflood and our good pals Rex + Jois of Inksurge (yay!). Count on us to be there for support 😀
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We have back-to-back shoots this week so do check out the phlog from time to time for updates.

1. I’d love to apply this work ethic but sadly, in the third world we’re often driven by extremely tight deadlines, not to mention the need to make ends meet as soon as we can. 🙁 [ back]
2. I actually watched the show on Broadway (’98) just because the posters grabbed my attention. [ back]