Randle rambles

Lots and lots and lots of staples! Baptiste Debombourg has created these incredibly detailed artworks by using up to 35,000 staples. They are a series of two artworks entitled, ” Air Force One” and ” Air Force Two “.

Described on his site as “The protagonist Icarus, the Mannerism of the Renaissance and the symbol of sublime power Air Force One -the plane of the American President- are the main points in this work”. More really nice work on his site too.

If you are confused by social media or are the sort of person that likes to name drop brands with buzz words into meetings and conversations then this diagram is the one for you.

The Conversation Prism collates a colossal amount of technologies and companies into quite an easy to understand diagram. There are loads of brands I have never heard of before so it will be good to investigate and discover, you can never know everything!

That’s the beauty of this industry, always learning.

If you’re going to buy one book this week/month then Creative Mischief by Dave Trott is the one I would pick up. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It works for every creative discipline.

I won’t tell you why. You’ll understand once you’ve read it. Genius.

Dave Trott’s Blog

Super cool inflatable bag monsters by Joshua Allen Harris’ on the street of New York City.

The giant animals are taped to grates on the sidewalk and come to life when warm air is pushed up from the subway. The giraffe is cool and the one that looks like it could be the US equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster is excellent.

Another great find whilst doing client research is The Web Strategy blog by Jeremiah Owyang.

An incredible source of knowledge and insight into web strategies. Written by Jeremiah Owyang who was a Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, and is now Partner of Customer Strategy at Altimeter Group.

Good reading:
Companies Should Factor ‘Social Influence’ Into Total Customer Value
Four Social Media Trends for Business in 2010

I hope he won’t mind but I’ve pinched his “To Be Successful, Companies Should Focus On Four Key Trends in 2010″ to share with you.

Don’t fondle the hammer.
Understand customers, focus on objectives, not develop strategies based on ever-changing tools. Companies really need to understand their customers first, see our recorded webinar to learn more.

Live the 80% rule.
This is a movement: get your company ready. 80% of success is getting the right organizational model, roles, processes, stakeholders, and teams assembled –only 20% should be focused on technology.

Customers don’t care what department you’re in.
Customers just want their problem fixed, they don’t care what department you’re in. Yet, now, nearly every department can have a direct relationship with your customers using social tools. As a result, provide customers with a holistic experience Start to investigate how brand monitoring, community tools and CRM systems are merging.

Real time is *not* fast enough.
Companies cannot scale when it comes to social media, for most companies, you cannot hire enough people to monitor and respond to the conversation, As a result, lean on advocates, by building unpaid armies, and anticipate customer needs through advanced listening techniques.

The image above is from “The Future of the Social Web” Forrester Apr 2009.
The Five Eras of the Social Web.

Are we telling stories or are we just playing games?

So the biggest thing that I took away from Click London last year was how advertisers are having to address how they communicate to their consumers and the general public.

In the last decade the huge increase in popularity of the internet, smart phones, and gaming machines meaning there has been a complete revolution in how people communicate. In turn brands can no longer just shout messages at people they have to be much more engaging and reactive to audiences. In short brands have to be become useful to their consumers.

Lee Clow and Alex Bogusky (blog) discuss the merging worlds of gaming, computing, movies and social media and the way that advertising is being born again by becoming much more integrated and engaging.

Turning a ‘Monologue into a Dialogue’ – courtesy of Lee Clow.

Have just spent quite a lot of time looking at these amazing Icelandic landscape photographs by Rupert Nightingale. Found them via the creative review blog they are absolutely captivating. Almost abstract in feel and quite illustrative, a couple of large format prints would be lovely!

Great interview with Fred Deakin of Airside and Lemon Jelly fame on FormFiftyFive. Shot at his home in London showing his vast record collection!

A Q&A session which gives a good insight into the workings of Airside and his brutally honest view of his own low attention span on project work!

I came across this whilst having my lunch and surfing around the web going off on many tangents. I love the complete randomness of the flight patterns, such a hectic amount of energy in a very small area.

A collection of 156 photographs by film maker Charlie McCarthy, each image is a four second exposure. They have been animated and edited together to create this cool movie.

Depending who you speak to, which newspaper or media you choose to read either you get the feeling that the current recession is improving or beginning to bight a little harder. Some smaller agencies I know are inundated with work whilst some of the big ad agencies are letting people go. Confusing times!

Well if you’ve have been through rough times or forgot to check for typo’s before going to print or publish this could be the book for you.

Design Disasters: Great Designers, Fabulous Failure, and Lessons Learned is an engaging record of misfortune and misadventure.

If you want a daily fix of design disasters you need to take a look at failblog.org an amazing collection of design and general life failures. A daily source of amusement in the studio.