Entertainment

On last night’s episode of The Simpsons, Springfield was graced with the appearance of a fake Apple store, known as Mapple.  The iconic cube store appeared in cartoon form complete with MyPods, MyPhones, MyCubes and an appearance by Steve Mobs reminiscent of the 1984 commercial.  Should Apple take offense or is satire is the sincerest form of flattery?

[via Laughing Squid]

Team PSFK are pleased to announce our second book! At this time of year we’re supposed to produce a trends report for 2009. When we all sat down and chatted about it, we thought such a report would be so gloomy and rather depressing. We didn’t want to write about things like ‘trading down’ or ‘discreet consumption’! We wanted to talk about all the inspirational ideas we read and write about every day, we wanted to spread the positivity, we wanted to encourage you to re-ignite the world. Honestly.

So we created Good Ideas In 2009. The 80 page click-to-print book features nine Good Ideas and manifestations of them. We write about design, mobile, collaboration, digital, social media, the long term and much more. Click through to the Blurb site and you can get a sneak peek.

The books are $50 for the softback and $60 for the beautiful hardback. If you’re considering buying reports for your company or just books for your coffee table, we ask you to consider Good Ideas In 2009. We’re rather proud of it. We hope it inspires you yo make things better.

Good Ideas In 2009

This is the latest work by Robert Burden, an artist most known for his beautiful (and huge) paintings of toys. Previous themes include Mattel’s BattleCat and a Foot Soldier from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This particular work is called “Defensor Mundi” (Defender of the Earth in Latin) and depicts a triumphant Voltron, standing 11 by 7 feet tall. Burden spent a year working on it and we’re truly impressive to see an artist that can pursue a vision with such dedication. The entire process of this oil-on-canvas piece was captured with this time lapse video:

[via Make]

Dido is back with her latest album, and this time she’s decided to make it, resounding with the title of the album (’Safe Trip Home’), a true journey for her fans. Over the last month, Londoners might have noticed a number of cryptic posters around tube stations. The posters end by asking the viewer to google terms like ‘Lady Landfill’ or ‘Mother lay-by’ - essentially a range of words linked to the songs on ‘Safe Trip Home’, the album. Visiting the website for the album takes you to a number of videos based on cities around the world - Rio, Mumbai, and London for starters. The videos are short films, each set to a different song from the album, made by film directors that Dido contacted. When you view a film and share your thoughts on it, it creates a mood palette that will influence the mood pools around each film on the globe at the center of the site’s menu. There is also a Facebook group for the album. 

It is interesting to see how more musicians, like brands, are embracing social media to market their work. Careful and innovative execution is key, and this one certainly has been executed in keeping with those guidelines. 

Nothing ruins an outdoor concert or film screening quite like sitting on the grass for hours, hunched over like a barely opened mollusk shell.  But with the GreenSeat, sore backs are now a thing of the past.  Made from corrugated cardboard, the chair is a cheap, recyclable way to alleviate long episodes of sitting.  At this point, it’s been pitched primarily to eco-friendly audiences, but considering that the chair’s construction offers great potential for advertising placement, we can only hope it will be popping up in venues worldwide.  The simple all-in-one design incorporates a seat cover and handle and when not in use, lies completely flat.  It’s one of those ideas that are so innovative it begs the question, why didn’t we think of that?

[via TrendOriginal]

Coming off of our post about the most creative business cards, we now present a collection of the most eye catching movie posters of all time.  Smashing Magazine provides us with their selection of 50 Beautiful Movie Posters.  The list includes some obviously iconic posters like Star Wars or Forrest Gump, but it also recognizes modern classics like The Dark Knight and Grindhouse.  Many recent movies pay homage to the classic simplistic styles, but it is clear that artistic form can mark distinction in a sometimes overcrowded and forgettable market. It’s nice to know that innovative graphic designers will always have a place in the movie industry.

[via ISO50]

As technology like TiVo or internet streaming enables individuals to avoid advertising, the industry has sought ways to sneak into the shows themselves.  The moral dilemma of corporate control was often dodged during the age of record viewers, but as television budgets tighten and viewers seek alternatives to the tube, network execs push product integration into the plots themselves.  While this long hated practice is often fought by the writers and actors, it is arguably an inevitable development in our favorite characters’ lives.  Tina Fey mocked product placement on 30 Rock, but it was in response to actually needing the advertising money for production.  NY Magazine writes about the complexity of the issue and the surprising twists behind the scenes to successfully integrate products into plots:

It is indeed possible to create subversive comedy that also sells Yarises. On most TV series, brands are woven indiscernibly into each plot twist—while on others they are referenced openly, with tremendous finesse, because there’s no longer any distinction between what’s funny and what moves the needle. Characters are designed as shills or consumers from day one. Shows themselves are brands, actors are brands, and so are songs and sodas, and these entities link and detach with the elegance of acrobats. No one will see a distinction between a scriptwriter and a copywriter—least of all an audience member—because that frog has boiled beyond recognition.

[via New York Magazine]

Earlier this week, we introduced Philip James of Snooth.com, a forward-thinking entrepreneur bringing location based services and personalized recommendations to the wine industry. For our second installment in our NYC innovator series, we sat down with Michael Sharon of Socialight, the urban navigation service for mobile phones and the web. Sharon shared a bit about his startup and how it’s helping users explore the world around them. In this video, Michael discusses the opportunities the iPhone presents for application developers and mobile advertisers as well as how Socialight is helping align brands with secret parties, art gallery openings and other local events.

Socialight

In another instance of intriguing brand partnerships, following on from HP’s collaboration with fashion designer Vivienne Tam that we mentioned yesterday, the same brand is now joining forces with MTV and their university channel MTVu to produce the TV and online series ‘The Engine Room’, which will feature 16 young creative types divided into four teams as they compete to produce digital art using HP laptops and other Hewlett-Packard products. The contestants will be tracked as they sit in a loft in Brooklyn, New York. Nearly 2,000 contestants from 122 countries submitted 20,000 pieces of artwork to be considered for the series. ‘The Engine Room’ is an example of the growing trend of brands latching on to online programs in a bid to reach out to young people who mostly access the brand online or through their mobile (a growing segment of the target market). It isn’t the first time HP has entered into such a partnership though - their relationship with online video seems to be tried and tested through another previous program called ‘Meet or Delete’ they presented with MTV and ‘Dorm Storm’ with Broadband Enterprises. 

From the New York Times:

“We don’t want it to be advertising; we want it to be real,” said David Roman, vice president for worldwide marketing communications at the personal systems group of H.P. in Cupertino, Calif.

“We’re learning as we go not to do so much talking about what we do but rather let people do things with the product,” Mr. Roman said. “That’s where the ‘wow factor’ comes from.”

[via New York Times, image by T.Lawrence Wheatman/MTV via New York Times]