Media & Publishing

The fine people at Blurb have offered free gorund shipping within the US for our book Good Ideas In 2009. All you have to do is add ‘freeshipping’ in to the promo-code box on the product page here before Dec 9 (and read the small print below*).

Want to know more about the book? Well, 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

* To qualify for free shipping (up to $10), you must enter the promotion code in the shopping cart at time of purchase and complete your purchase in USD. Offer is good for free shipping up to $10.00 in value. Offer expires 11:59 PM PST December 5, 2008. Limit one-time use per user and cannot be combined with other offers. Not valid towards purchase of gift cards.

The next two Good Ideas Salons to be held will be on the next two Tuesdays.

On Tuesday November 25th, Colin Nagy (PSFK / Attention) will lead a discussion on Good Ideas in Collaboration with Amit Gupta (Jelly / PhotoJojo), Andrew Hoppin (NASA), John Geraci (Outside In / DIY City) and Matt Stinchcomb (Etsy). The PSFK team will start the breakfast briefing with a thought starter from our new book entitled ‘Ask For Help’. Tickets are available here.

On Tuesday December 2nd, we will hold a discussion on Good Ideas in Digital with Chet Gulland (Anomaly, Johanna Beyenbach (Naked), Mike Arauz (Undercurrent), Noah Brier (Barbarian Group. The PSFK team will start the breakfast briefing with a thought starter from our new book entitled ‘Make Histories’. Tickets are available here.

Both events will be held at the Naked Communications offices on Greene Street in SoHo.

A while back, we wrote a short post about the Engaging Ideas Card Pack and mentioned, “We haven’t gotten our hands on the full set, but it looks like a neat package for a broad range of ideas.”  Well, now (thanks to Rob Fox) we’ve gotten our grubs on the entire pack and sifted through the stack of colorful cards.

The first impression is that they look like a deck of large novelty sized playing cards printed on thick stock cardboard.  The front side of each card is an image meant to invoke the message or activity presented on the back.  For the most part, the full card formatted images are stellar, ranging from iconic art and expressive photography down to some painfully low resolution and pixelated images.  However, given the goals of the cards to engage employees through practical exercises, this is a rather minor point.

The 52-card deck (not including two jokers) is meant to stimulate positive discussion through identification of business goals and ideals.  The cards are divided into three general categories: Discover, Design and Deliver.  In this hierarchy of inspiration the cards build on each other by slowly introducing more complex activities, interspersed with straightforward tips.

The themes that appeared the most were honing the effectiveness of leadership, identifying core values and honing the business environment to suit the challenges ahead.  Here are two sample cards that we think embody the entire project:

21.  Distributed Leadership

We tend to think that leadership is something that happens at the top.  True, but what is perhaps more true is that acts of leadership happen across and throughout business, day in, day out.  Identify these acts of leadership, encourage them and communicate them widely.  Doing so helps to demonstrate that all people can offer leadership and will also help acts of leadership to flourish.  This exercise also begs an answer to a fundamentally important question necessary to achieve higher levels of engagement: what does your business recognize as leadership?

48.  Heartstorming
A success factor for any engagement effort is to discover, design and deliver better ways to connect emotionally with people to inspire their commitment and action.  To help accomplish this make “heartstorming” rather than just brainstorming, a core aspect of your business’ problem solving and change practices.  Demonstrating difference, “heartstorming” will help to uncover and build stronger emotional connections by focusing groups on questions like:

• I love it when…
• I get a kick out of it when…
• My heart beats faster when…
• I’m energized when…
• It frustrates me when…
• I feel undermined when…
• I’m intimidated when…
• I feel powerless when…

The Engaging Ideas pack is clearly based on solid business research and extensive experience in the corporate environment.  Stagnation of ideas is the clear hurdle targeted by the collection and we applaud the stepping-stones proved for those slow to innovate.  Overall, the package is a collection of ideas that won’t be revolutionary to those knowledgeable, but gives a beautifully formatted package of ideas to those hoping to give the friendly push to coworkers or employees.  Engaging ideas is a careful and successful balance between professional business pursuits and playful corporate connections.

Thanks again to Rob for taking the time and money to ship a sample pack across the pond.

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. 

In 1966 the original Batman television series found so much success in the U.S. that it was eventually exported overseas.  When the show aired in Japan, the audience was so enamored by the Caped Crusader that the publisher of Shonen King, a popular boys’ magazine at the time, contacted DC Comics to license the rights to the Dynamic Duo.  They would go on to create their own original Batman stories interpreted through the lens of Manga.  Though the run was short-lived, lasting for only one year, the comics presented an interesting twist on the Batman paradigm, offering entertaining glimpses into the ways culture gets co-opted and consumed abroad.  Even with a larger-than-life icon, some nuances inevitably get lost in translation.

Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan, a new book by graphic designer Chip Kidd, fellow collector Saul Ferris and photographer Geoff Spear, collects these little read Batman adventures together for the first time, complete with English translations.  In addition, the volume contains an exclusive interview with Jiro Kuwata, the pioneering artist and author of the material.  Also worth noting is the fact that the hard and softcover editions have been published simultaneously.  This is an innovative approach that seeks to capture the widest customer base, while building in exclusivity for true fans by including additional content and other perks inside the hardcover version.  Needless to say, a beautiful designed product that adds another chapter to the continuously evolving fascination with the Batman.

Fuel-Design recently published a collection of classic British football programs, entitled “Match Day.”  The collection, compiled by Bob Stanley and Paul Kelly, includes more than 450 programs spanning the lifetime of the league from 1945 to the inception of the Premiership in 1992.  Though the comprehensive history and ability to relive the sport’s glory days may be the book’s main selling points, there is a wealth of design knowledge to be gained as well.  Particularly where the layouts are concerned.

People often complain that modern, glossy programs lack the spirit and culture shown in these original prints.  Citing the corporate atmosphere of today’s sports as the main culprit in devaluing the beauty and vigor on display in the games of yesteryear.  Not so in this book, where the most successful covers are simplistic, colorful and to the point.  In addition to the stunning visual record, ”Match Day” also includes an introductory essay by Brian Glanville and is now available in a “Pocket Edition” for £15.

[via Creative Review]

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]