A Super Bowl

Whilst working on promoting the Super Bowl (I do design work for PinnacleSports.com), I started looking at the logos used since it's creation.

When seeing all the logos together (there has been one every season since 1968), I felt you really got a sense of design style and typography through the decades. You can see the trends of popular fonts and colour schemes from each particular era. Also certain early logo styles are very much back on trend thus illustrating the cycle of 'fashionable' design.

Much like fashion in fact, design tends to follow underlining trends in the industry, and I thought it was really interesting to see how the logo has been adapted and altered throughout the years. The designs often reflect the location of each Super Bowl and the roman numerals often dominate the design, but you definitely get a sense of when the logo was produced.

Below I have picked out a few designs that I feel convey the era strongly and that I particularly like.

1969



1975



1985



1999



2007



To view all the logos in their entirety click here.

Sky(walkers)

For their Spring/Summer collection, Adidas has teamed up with Star Wars to create a pretty cool collection of footwear and apparel. Now I am a Star Wars geek, so am somewhat biased, but I think some of these trainers are awesome!

http://ricesociety.wordpress.com/2009/12/22/adidas-x-star-wars/

From a design point of view I think it's really interesting how a set of colours and elements on a shoe can immediately have connotations of a character out of a film.

Alright so this is no ordinary film, it's a cult classic with an army of fans. You would expect that people interested in the film would immediately make such connections. Still though I think it's an interesting concept. I love the idea of taking one creative area (in this case film) and transferring elements and emotions to other platforms (in this case footwear). Adidas have done a great job of subtly extracting character traits, imagery, and colour schemes, then applying these to stylish and fashionable sneakers.

Round of applause for Adidas.

Featured here are some of my favourites. Adidas X-Wing, Skywalker, Stormtrooper and Princess Leia.









I think I might just get myself a pair of Stormtroopers.

Geek and proud.

Oh and may the force be with you... and your footwear...

On the toilet

Well following on from my previous post, I did indeed get a Hu2 sticker for my toilet for Christmas! Thus I thought I would share with you my now new and improved toilet. I must admit I never expected to be blogging about my bathroom throne.



I'm very pleased with the overall effect and it was pretty simple to do. It did cause me some concern as it's a one time deal, you mess up the sticker and that would be that. When I finally got it all to stick on the vinyl (this took a bit more time than they suggested) I then had the tricky process of positioning it just right on the toilet itself. I did encounter a few air bubbles but once those were spread to the edges it made no difference to the sticker left on the surface. The end result is a very neat and interesting image which makes for a very original bathroom.

After seeing a sticker in action I am definitely interested in ordering some of their wall stickers and I suggest you do too. www.hu2.com

All I want for Christmas

A couple of nice little sites for some quirky Christmas present ideas for those who like something a little different. I love finding original and cool items that nobody else I know will have or even seen before. Below are a couple of sites I have come across recently:

www.meninos.us

This site has a load of design and Apple related stuff. I really like the Designer set of coasters, the fridge magnets and doormats. All very cool, especially for someone that is involved in the creative industry.

www.hu2.com

Some fantastic wall stickers here, I think I want them all! I particularly like the ones that go on the toilet and the skyline stickers would look great in my room.

With all things like this the hardest thing for me is to control my spending. It's very easy to get carried away. May have to limit myself to one or two things but hopefully (as I have been a good boy this year) Santa will help me out with some more...

Football's a Beach (ball)

So one of the most bizarre goals in history was scored at the Stadium of Light on Saturday 17th October in the Premier League match between Sunderland and Liverpool.

A red Liverpool inflatable beach ball found it's way into the Liverpool goalmouth at the start of the match. Liverpool's goalkeeper Pepe Reina soon spotted it and safely placed it in the back of the net. Or so he thought!

As Sunderland attacked Liverpool's goal in the 5th minute, a gust of wind moved the beach ball out from the goal and into the field of play. Darren Bent made his way inside the area and a freak twist of fate sent his shot into the path of the ball, changing the direction of his shot and wrong footing the keeper to put Sunderland in the lead. It was an amazing series of events and of course hit the headlines as Sunderland held on for a 1-0 victory and debate raged whether the goal should have stood or not.

What impressed me however was that on Monday 19th October, at an English League One game between Leeds and Norwich, quick thinking sponsors NetFlights.com had some large inflatable beach balls of their own made up. They placed them in the goalmouths before the game to advertise their website.

Seeing as they are a flight company they may have had these balls made up for other various promotions but if they didn't then that is some pretty impressive quick-thinking marketing! Well done them. I'm sure that will help 'inflate' (sorry) the number of people visiting their website...

Curb your advertising

Whilst brainstorming possible advertising and promotional concepts for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, I came across this London based media company, Curb.

www.mindthecurb.com

Curb promote themselves as the world's first natural media company. They offer a range of highly effective media solutions solely using natural earth elements. They now have a portfolio of unique eco-advertising services and team of creative experts, to provide clients with outstanding natural marketing which impacts on their target consumer without impacting on the environment.

I was initially interested in their 'snow tagging' which of course had possibilities for the Winter Olympics. They basically create a stencil/stamp, say of a company logo, and literally 'tag' the snow. A really simple but very effective idea that can target a range of unused advertising spaces that are eye catching and unusual. Of course once the snow melts, the 'tag' disappears and no cleaning up or removal is required.

They have a great range of solutions including 'clean advertising' where pavements are cleaned with a high pressure washer. A stencil is created so only certain areas are cleaned thus leaving a message etc marked on the pavement. It's a green version of graffiti. Again within time it wears away and nothing has been permanently marked or damaged.

Other solutions available are moss art, sand sculpture, beach tagging, information waterfalls, crop and mow ads all of which create unique, interesting and of course environmentally friendly advertising. And in a world where 'green issues' and the environment are getting increasingly more publicity and importance, Curb really have founded concepts for the next generation of branding and advertising.

Panor-campic

Following on from previous posts, about my first camping experience at Glastonbury and my proposed camping trip to the Monaco Grand Prix, I recently enjoyed a fantastic weekend camping trip to the Lake District.

I work next to Punk Publishing who produce books including the 'Cool Camping' series. So, not to spurn this opportunity for campsite research, I set about looking for prospective locations for a weekend away that me and a friend had planned. We eventually decided on Turner Hall Farm in Southwaite. It was an inspired choice as the surrounding area was stunning. Completely off the radar and totally uncommercialised it was a brilliant little site. The facilities were basic but totally adequate and the pitches (although not specific, you could pitch anywhere you liked) were awesome. Using three fields within the farm, the craggy landscape provided plenty of sheltered and interesting places to pitch.

With several Lakes a nice driving distance away and the area around the campsite amazingly beautiful, it really was a great place to visit. The walks were fantastic and the local pubs friendly and inviting. Managed to get some great photos, which leads me on to something I discovered in Photoshop...

Now I sort of knew that Photoshop was capable of some sort of 'photo-stitching' for panoramic style images but had never used it before. I took a series of about 6 pictures of the landscape around our campsite and wanted to 'stitch' them all together to make one long image. To my delight Photoshop has an excellent couple of tools for this. First roughly position the images on separate layers so they are in the right order and place. Then go to 'edit>auto-align layers'. This curves the images so that all the elements of the image line up. It's truly fantastic. But that's not it. Then go to 'edit>auto-blend layers' and it matches all the colours and hue's etc. You then have a seamless panoramic photograph which you only need crop to complete the process. It's genius and one tool I will be using a lot more in the future.