Building Projection

A worthwhile watch if you have the time. Wish things like this happened around here and not just in the UK. It’s very creative stuff.

ACU and the iPhone

TUAW, a blog that I read on a somewhat regular basis, posted an interesting article this week. They decided to cover the results of ACU’s recent plan of giving all incoming freshman the option of an iPhone/iPod Touch. It all began last year when the school gave out 900+ iPhones to incoming freshmen that wanted to opt into the program. The academic year then became an active experiment in which both faculty and students used their iPhones to research, share classroom curriculum, take attendance, and sign up for classes. Things went even so far as to include a name game for teachers in the attendance application.

At the end of the academic year, surveys were taken by all participants to determine the success of the first year. According to both students and faculty (as well as administration), the program was an overwhelming success. By choosing the iPhone, they were able to make custom applications very easily, it guaranteed that students would keep it with them at all times, and users would learn its operation on their own. Surprisingly, the faculty stated that having iPhones in classrooms was not distracting. It’s a very interesting article, in which ACU claims that the iPhone and similar devices are at the front of a new way to conduct education. If you care to read the article, click here.

Creative Advertising

If you’re given the task to market a new line of pillows and duvets, how would you do it? Would you show someone laying down in the clouds, or a giant pillow fight? Those have been done too many times, the hard part is taking a unique and creative approach.

This is a great spot. It kept my attention and caught me off-guard. Thanks to my friend over at the Monkey Bulb for his post on this ad as well. In his words, “Good job, Creatives.”

AIGA

The AIGA is the national organization for Graphic Artists (for those of you that don’t know), so you’d expect great design from them. The image above shows just how great that design is. A new blog I’m following, For Print Only, features nothing but well designed print pieces. The piece featured above is an invitation to a for members in Seattle. When built, it replicates the location of the party. If I got something like this in the mail, I’d be pumped about it. It would be built and sitting on my desk in a matter of minutes and I’d be sure to be at the party. To further my point, I got a sample book from a printing vendor full of samples. It had a die-cut boat that I put together and placed on my desk at Stone Ward. Maybe I can design something as cool as that.

If you’re interested in the full production of the invitation, check out the post here.

Beautiful

This is one of my favorite songs currently… actually it has been for a year or two now. Check out more of his music here.

Distraction

I continue to find that if I want to really focus on something I need to escape from my typical distractions. The frustrating part is that it’s getting harder and harder to motivate myself to do it. I managed to take the time to reflect atop Pinnacle yesterday morning and I read quite a bit at Starbucks tonight, but it’s easy to avoid those opportunities. Now that I’ve taken the plunge headfirst into really trying to understand social media, and become a part of it, I spend a lot of time updating and following. It’s been a fun experiment so far, but it’s more work than I thought. The technology may be free, but that doesn’t account for the amount of time it takes to maintain. There are so many things to distract these days. The convenience of wifi, streaming video, and games (all of which are on my iphone) makes it much harder to focus. All that to say, I feel pretty proud when I actually accomplish a lot of reading.

SWIM

Stone Ward Interactive Meetings. Starting a couple of weeks ago, two members from Stone Ward began an 8 week series of interactive/online discussions about social media and its role. I caught the first two (and mini episode) on the website, but I managed to make it out in person tonight. It’s very interesting and relevant stuff their covering. Last week they highlighted 5 campaigns that have been successful or unsuccessful in their use of social media. Two of the best so far are Toms Shoes and Obama’s presidential campaign. Today they discussed the role of blogs and the blogosphere (made up word?). I’m hoping to make it out to the rest of the sessions since they happen each Friday that I’ll be here in Little Rock.

Speaking of some good blogs, here’s a few links to their blogs, as well as some more at Stone Ward:

Blake Rutherford

Emily Reeves

Chris Kindrick

Check them out if you get the chance, especially if you find an interest in advertising.

Social Media

I’ve learned a lot this week about the growth and impact of social media. Put simply, that’s things like facebook, youtube, twitter, flickr, and myspace. Using those networks as tools to promote a brand/product is becoming very popular. You don’t have to use a banner ad to get people’s attentions. More and more companies are realizing the potential and success of youtube videos, like the one above, and twitter updates. The most successful campaign using social media right now is likely to be Toms Shoes, which was built entirely on social media. It’s really cool stuff, and it has me thinking I need to get back into twitter… I just need something worthwhile to twitter about (not what I had for breakfast/lunch/dinner, etc).

3D

Now that I’ve started my internship at Stone Ward for the next 6 weeks, I think I should follow suit with some of the other creatives and add some sweet videos to my blog. Some of them have said that an uninteresting blog, one with only news posts, isn’t worth having or reading… I’m going to try to change that and put some opinions on here. I thought this was a pretty sweet video. I love 3d art like this.

Fearless

This is the latest beaux entertainment video that we worked on for the Chi Omega Pi formal. It really doesn’t have anything to do with the theme for the function (lost in neverland), but it turned out pretty well. My roommate (Jared) and I spend a long time editing all the footage. Hope you enjoy our random humor and the 7 minute video.