The new look Creative Review (yoinked from CR's post - get their side of the story there...)
Last month, every designers favourite magazine and monthly news source, Creative Review celebrated its 30th year in print. To celebrate this milestone, the CR team decided to give the whole magazine a refresh. The new creative review is smaller in size, thicker in stock and for the first time in a long time, chock full of articles that aren’t just a summation of the past month’s blog posts. Read the full story
I should start by saying how proud we are at Manifest to be part of the team creating the first ever #LDNnudetech calendar. For those not in the know, it’s a nude calendar featuring some of London’s leading tech pioneers and (in)famous Twitter icons. Organised by Milo Yiannopoulos, sales of the calendar will raise money in support of Take Heart India: a tremendous charity providing and supporting practical, sustainable education projects to communities that need them in India. At Manifest, we’re doing what we do best to support the project – which means we are NOT taking our clothes off, but we are designing the calendar.
Once I heard about the project I immediately checked out Take Heart India and saw this video which inspired me to get Manifest involved. A quick email exchange with Milo later, and we were designing the calendar free of charge.
Martin Farrar-Smith is the designer in chief and although we can’t show you the calendar yet, the above image is a teaser of the design style we hope will do justice to the fantastic photography. Rumours of Martin walking around the studio in his birthday suit in order to ‘live the brief’ remain unfounded, but the design looks pretty good if we do say so ourselves. We’re making a few final ‘nips and tucks’ to the content and layout, but it should be ready in time for the calendar’s launch party on Monday November 16th. If you’d like to attend and see it for yourself then make sure you register via the #LDNnudetech network and Milo will keep you up-to-date.
Now, a nude calendar was always going to raise a few eyebrows I guess – but the controversy surrounding #LDNnudetech has come as a surprise to me. Maybe I’m being naive, but I thought a project designed to raise money for a worthwhile charity – whatever it may be – was something to support, not criticise. But apparently some people disagree. The controversy has only served to raise the profile of the project, however, and will no doubt contribute to its success. I’m not going to get involved in the debate here, but for any critics out there: it’s a nude calendar. Get over it.
It’s testament to the character of everyone involved (Milo, the guys at Huddle, Hermione Way, Mike Butcher, Lucian Tarnowski, Alicia Navarro, Sam Mathews, Poppy Dinsey the list goes on…) that the calendar will be produced in time for Christmas as planned – which was always an ambitious target for a project of this scale. Now all we need to do is sell them… so please do your bit and buy one
HARMAN technology is a client that often brings an interesting creative challenge – and this one was no different. Arising from a specific requirement for the unique Camera Imago 1:1 (not only the biggest existing camera in the world, but the biggest mobile ‘full-figure’ self-portrait camera), HARMAN asked Manifest to produce a brand and packaging for a new Black and White Photo-product called Direct Positive Paper.
Used in this ‘Walk in Camera’, Direct Positive Paper takes a direct positive image (equivalent to a slide film) of the person who is in the camera and creates images that have a real ethereal quality. The pictures really are stunning and it was essential we captured the same qualities in our concepts for the Direct Positive Paper.
The product is also to be sold to Pin Hole camera enthusiasts, as the process is extremely similar to the Walk In Camera, and with the same, beautiful results.
Above is the chosen mark for the brand – designed to represent the pin-hole and the ethereal nature of the shots it takes. We’re currently working on the boxes for these as well as a stand alone micro-site. All take a heavy influence from the works of Otl Aicher and Emil Ruder. We’ll keep the blog updated with further projects for this brand, as it’s definitely one of the more unique briefs the creative studio has had in a while.
This video is the fourth in a series of annual reports on media convergence. The statistics are great (although very USA-centric) and the message is clear – the social media revolution is no longer ‘the next big thing’, it is a phenomenon happening now.
The most interesting soundbite it pulls out suggests that what fits inside our pockets now will, in 25 years, fit inside a blood cell.
It’s been around for a while but Dipity 2.0 is like, well, like your life flashing before you. Aside from providing a wealth of benefits when mapping projects, the combination with Daylife provides an exceptional tool to review news content around a specific issue according to time and date.
The timeline is, for me, by far the most useful visualisation but the Google Maps mashup adds another dimension of insight.
Below (as an example) is my current timeline bringing feeds from both my professional and personal life – quite scary for me, quite dull for you. These can be embedded in any blog or website, but also within Netvibes or other AJAX dashboard.
Okay – update… since moving from Blogger to Wordpress I can’t embed the Dipity widget. Meh. But click here to see it in fullscreen glory. Here’s a quick screengrab to show you how it looks:
30th March 2010
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