The line

Have you ever questioned yourself about the line. The line that exists there in a parallel world, the line who look like zig when we zag a line so thin that sometimes can be proven so strong & some other times it can be proved so vulnarable a line.
I remember one of the first commercials i ever made was about circles..how important cyrcles are in our lives & how important is to close cyrcles... 4 years later. realized that a life full of cyrcles is a life boring. Life needs a line, life needs this line that will be there will start from one point & it will make so many turns, it will draw it will fill a blank page it will be a line that can make evec cyrcles it can be a line with an end, or even better t can be a life without one. A line that will search for the proper end, and when this line reaches this end then again.. the line is incomplete.Lately one of the things i do to get some inspiration is to listen to classic music & draw lines, draw totally random things which at some point might look beautiful or the might look like a doodle.. I know some of you still wonder why you spend time reading the above.. some others may like it.. but whatever you say i say that Adsurd is Back. :)

Hate Something Change Something

... I remember this great Advert for Honda saying Hate Something change something hate something change something make something better....
well it seems that Facbook's impact & success has created some enmities among the digital world...
Hatebook is the new Antisocial thing for those who hate this cruel world..
interesting thing that the Devil sends you a message once you enter.. Genious! KUDOS!

Magic.

So it's been a while since my last post; but things were frantic.. today though i couldn't resist on this amazing video.

Glassworks is a great production company with offices in Amsterdam & London & recently they completed post-production on a unique 3-minute sequence for Alexander McQueen's fashion show in Paris.

The end of the show featured a full-size virtual image of Kate Moss, floating in a three-meter high glass pyramid situated in the middle of the stage.

Shot on film and projected in HD, the illusion was achieved using an effect updated from the 1800's known as Peppers Ghost. In this case four hidden projection screens were arranged to reflect from the faces of the pyramid, creating an optical illusion of a holographic display.

Baillie Walsh directed the film of Kate Moss, shot in a studio in London, floating in mid-air, suspended from a wire rig. After colour corrections and transfer in TK, Glassworks removed the wires and did substantial cleaned up on the image. An abstract optical effect for the beginning of the sequence and glowing light effect for the ending were also created.

Glassworks also built a pre-visualisation of the show in 3D to verify the geometric calculations necessary for the illusion to work convincingly.

The show was a resounding success and the magical appearance of Kate Moss at the finale drew a spontaneous standing ovation from the audience.

Well what can i say.. maybe my favourite word

Magic..

Voila

The music is bad.. but it's a nice ad

Life imitates Art.

There is a big debate over the internet & adworld for the 3rd Bravia color like no other campaign. Some people digging their libraries blow the dust out of old video tapes and spend hours trying to prove to themselves how smart they are. So only few hours after the release of Sony Bravia Play-doh (which you can watch in the post below) some people come up with great discoveries like the ones below...




"Oh mmmyyy goood Juan Cabral did it again, he ripped off these art pieces.. and and look what i've found the music has been used before in an apple commercial.. OH my god throw rocks at Fallon"




& sometimes i just wonder, why people instead of trying to do great things they put all their power & effort to diminish other people who produce stellar work. What's wrong with the human kind.

The other issue i would love to point out & that's why i have as a title here; is what happens when life imitates Art. If Advertising is life then advertising can & should imitate Art.. if advertising is Art then life should imitate Advertising.
There is a golden rule in advertising that's called
BORROW:Don’t borrow from advertising, but from other disciplines. Often the best ideas come from cutting across disciplinary boundaries and looking into other fields. World war one military designers borrowed from the cubist art of Picasso to create more efficient camouflage patterns for tanks. What fields’ disciplines and fertile sources have you been ignoring?

So a small conclusion to that would be that even now; my favorite bravia Ad is the Balls & that shall remain. Bunnies is good not great but good. And seriously i don't care if the inspiration is some kind of art or the view from the window or even the sound i do when i pee.

In this life anything can be Art anything can be inspiration.
Anything is Anything;
That's life gentlemen.

Fresh from the oven...

the cool & mccann

Greek advertising agencies are not very famous i have to admit you see in Greece it is quite hard sometimes to focus since the sun is always there and the sea only minutes away from office. However Greek advertising is doing many steps ahead in the last couple of years the young talents that are entering the industry start to take over the old rusty minds and in a very discreet way Greek advertising agencies are starting to show their teeth. One of the best representatives in terms of Agencies is McCann Erickson Athens. During my Summer vacation in Greece i had the chance to visit McCann's in Athens and had a chat in their brand new offices reg. their business and other stuff as well. The people there were quite friendly with me since when i left McCann i had a bag full of goodies with me... from t-shirts to idea cookies... But that's not of course the reason i'm writing this post right now. The reason i'm writing this post is the fact that McCann Athens is celebrating 35 years in Greece and this anniversary in my opinion finds McCann quite good in terms of Creativity. They start to win awards and 2 years ago i think they've won an epica on their Durex client. But what is the most important in my opinion is the fact that they are developing a culture which is that basic asset for an ad agency to progress. So to make the long story short, McCann is on a 35COOL state and they've now created a really insightful website especially for those who are into the ad business but i think its time for me to stop writing & let the 35Cool do the job. Congrats & Kudos McCann Ath. 35cool.gr

Sound is...

The importance of music in advertising is beyond any question. The power that music or even better voice has on advertising is something that can make an advertising famous is something that can turn an Ad film into a discussion. I can recall many ads on the top of my head that became famous because of their music. However there are many cases were music was something that just came on the top of a big idea.
So at this point i think it would be quite good to distinguish the ads into categories.
The first category might include all those adverts that became famous because of their music and only that, in this case i think the brand might be in danger since people can recall the music but many times they miss the product. The second category will be the category in which we can find ad films that are based on a big idea and on top of that idea they have great sound (music & or Voice over) these ads tend o be the more successful ones, since they create quite a big buzz around the product. If you just visit youtube and search for an ad you will see many people leaving comments on the music and requesting to learn the music of a nice song.
So i think it is important for the creatives to keep developing ads in the basis of a big idea and don't rely on the sound of a very nice song which should only be an element which can shift the final outcome and eventually create a buzz in advertising. That's why in the future we might have Music Directors in Ad Agencies. I'm thinking of putting a list with some nice ad songs maybe the top 20 so if anyone has any ideas on that please comment.
Thanks

LOL or Not LOL

a nice ad from Fallon London. So simple so nice so funny. KUDOS!

Balls_Paint_Play-Doh

Sony bravia commercials are back to fancy locations. After the depressing & ugly Glaskow New York is the next city to host the color like no other sequel.
Fallon & Sony will launch the "Play-Doh" Commercial which sounds quite impressive. The recipe they used in order to create the wow effect for third time sounds once more expensive:

Play-Doh recipe.
2.5 tones of plasticine on set
40 animators
3 weeks
189 2 ft bunnies 2ft~0.60m
150 1 ft cubes 1ft~0.30m
10ft x20 ft purple wave 10ft x20ft ~ 3m x 6m
30ft giant rabbit. 30ft~ 9.2m
6 cameras.
40 animators working through 4 hours generated 4 seconds of footage.
40 animators working on the same scene had never been attempted before.
The 60 second spot will be constructed of approximately 100,000 stills.

Click here to find out more on Sony Bravia "Play-Doh"

I AM..

So i think i've just completed my first week here in Amsterdam and i think it was a successful week, especially if i put down my impressions so far i think that good things are about to come.
My work so far is Lovely and this ticks a big box in my expectations from this step i'm taking. The city on the other hand is amazing although i have to admit that i haven't seen it yet as i'm in the middle of constructing my way of living here but i think it's a city that is very close to New York in terms of diversity & buzz. It's far more beautiful than London and the fact that for the first time in my life i will live in a city with population of 800.000 aprox. is really interesting.
Advertising wise the city is a real hot spot as it has 3 global agencies [180 is the best :D ] and they all seem to add something in this city in terms of both culture & business. The weather is quite good so far, however i've been hearing a lot about how bad it can be, i love the fact that bicycle is the main vehicle people use to move around & i also love the fact that it seems that the worst thing that can happen to you is to have your bike stolen.
That's it for now, as i think it's time to get back to Adsurd reality and start writing interesting stuff about everything.

To the infinity & beyond

OLE OLE OLA

In few hours from now the eurobasket 2007 starts in Madrid. Greece is the defending champions of 2005 in both football & Soccer (2004). I'll use this post to wish to my national team the best of luck and to bring back the trophy in Athens.

Good Luck.
& just to freshen up the memory...

To the infinity and beyond...

Hello world again. This is a goodbye post. A big goodbye to London . Some of you who know me, already know that my new city will be Amsterdam. Those of you who don't know me; my new city is Amsterdam. London is a history and Amsterdam a mystery today is Athens so i need to enjoy my last week in Beautiful, but hurt, Greece. I would like to thank all those people i came in touch with in London all my new friends that are still there; i already miss them and look forward for the day I'll convince them to come and live in Greece :) i have to admit that i learned so many things in London that i feel richer, i lived so intense moments that i feel wiser and experience wise London for me was something that can be characterized as big life lesson. Right now i look forward for my new life in Amsterdam with all those life&job things I've learned in London. Adsurd will continue learning everything about something and something about everything.
A Big THANK YOU to all the people who helped me.

more forwards please

One of the most important things in life is the ability to move forwards. It is the ability to have always the power to stand up after a disaster after something bad that happened it is important to find inside your self all those small things that will bring the Sun back and will make you smile again. Adsurd is back again with enthusiasm and happiness for everyone. :D

that's today

what come tomorrow?

Help us

Things are really bad in my lovely country Greece. My Country is on Fire; over 120 fires are burning my country and the disaster equals to a disaster caused by a war. Really weird the fact that several fires started in the last 48 hours. We have 60 dead people and thousands sq.miles of burned forest. Some say Greece is under attack by it's bad neighboors who envy the great touristic year some say that the fires were caused by people who are trying to take advantage of the land and build houses. The bad thing is that the winds are really strong and this thing is making the Fire brigade work really hard. We have 60 dead people and a great climate disaster. My country is under the bigest disaster of its history it's really sad we need any kind of help, we need all of those people who love Greece to help us. We need to respond to this diasaster we need HELP.

Here is the true story

I'm....

Hello World. How are you, hope well.
I'm Still in Greece having great time the weather is awesome the sea beautiful and everything looks ideal. Some really big changes are happening in my life proving me that magic just happens. Stay tuned :D

Yassou.

So it's time to rest body & mind vacation's about to start; don't know for how long but i'll try to enjoy. Tomorrow i'm flying to Athens.... and from Monday onwards i will be in a place looking like this...



for those who envy this... take the first plane and welcome to Greece.

Yamas.

Rapid life.

It's really nice when things in life change so quickly. This morning after overcoming many obstacles i found my self in Amsterdam. It is my first time here and i'm really impressed by the city, the contrast of being in NY then in London and now in Amsterdam is really interesting. Amsterdam is a small walkable city full of energy. Every little corner of this city is hiding something interesting. One of the things i was really impressed with was the amount of tourists i could see walking on the streets. And not because i don't think Amsterdam is not a nice city for tourists, i just feel that it's not the right city to visit in August (yes august for me is Greece, Sun, Sea) although i was exhausted by the continuous traveling i had put my self into these last days i had the chance to walk a big part of the city, really impressed by the canals and the buildings facing them. Another thing that i really liked here is the people they seems more laid back than Londoners and don't think it's because of coffee shops, happy people are always welcome, anyway; I will probably visit some of the museums tomorrow and on Friday before i leave for my summer vacation:DDD (yes in Greece), i think my Nike Air 180 will have no sole remaining after this walking mania but it's ok everything happens for a reason. :D So i might post tomorrow more Amsterdam stuff.:D

the wow effect.

Soho,jfk,times square, cupcakes, hudson hotel, max's italian restaurant, cafe noir, t-shirt shops, million sneakers in any size, style, varick street, MoMA, the park, walking from 58th to ground zero, west village, hand squash, street basketball, the NBA store, the Olympic tower, 23rd west, pablo francisco in gotham comedy, simpsons the movie, people who smile, beautiful women, harry poter's book launch, cheap taxi's, manhattan steam explosion, endless police cars, lovely street art, nice small bars, art-tree house in east village, art installation in madison square park, heat, rain, nice weather, street performance in the port, brooklyn, nice small shops everywhere, the fact that always something good is happening, never ever sleeps... WOW that was some of new york i have in my mind.
Anyway i'm in the middle of chaos i need to do & organize many many things :D they are really exciting, hopefully some good will land in the next days :D
sory for the panic but i'm in panic & i like it.

Thanks.