Google Lab's new Books Ngram Viewer is a brilliant tool to help put stats against broad cultural influences.
It graphs how frequently certain words or phrases have occurred in a multitude of books published between 1500 and 2008 in English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Russian.
A few I prepared earlier:
The Good Gym encourages those already going for a run, to simultaneously run errands for those isolated and immobile in their neighbourhood. Whether it be for groceries, goods and/or just a pause for a friendly chat, it both motivates the runner and offers a helping hand for those who need it. Just brilliant.
via PSFK
... although arguably changing somewhat with the iPhone/androids and all those lovely photography apps. See... not just tragic hipster inventions.
via This is Indexed
Would love to see the brief or the path the agency took to get to this idea. You can imagine how an 'insight' like "one single moment/every second of the game can decide the future" could have been easily dismissed as glaringly obvious and generic. Proof that an insight need not be shiny and new nor necessarily profound to be powerful.
I won't go on about how brilliant it is.
But Gareth Kay has some interesting points about the campaign that aren't being talked about.
Wayne Rooney - What could happen after one wrong pass
I love this.
Play or listen to someone play one of 30 pianos (complete with a location-inspired songbook) scattered around various cities (NYC, London, Sydney...) as part of a traveling art tour. Luke Jerram, the artist behind the project, has designed it as a catalyst for strangers who regularly occupy the same space, to talk and connect with one another.
Lovely photography from New York based Italian photographers Matilde Montanari and Andrea Morini. It's funny the elaborate stories you instantly imagine of the people who own these shoes and just what they've been up to...
GREAT idea. I love that Tom and Tom have made this into a game - not just another photo dumping site:
Noticings is a game about learning to look at the world around you.
Cities are wonderful places, and everybody finds different things in them. Some of us like to take pictures of interesting, unusual, or beautiful things we see, but many of use are moving so fast through the urban landscape we don't take in the things around us.
Noticings is a game you play by going a bit slower, and having a look around you. It doesn't require you change your behaviour significantly, or interrupt your routine: you just take photographs of things that you think are interesting, or things you see. You'll get points for just noticing things, and you might get bonuses for interesting coincidences.
For example:
My internal monologue will definitely appreciate this.
Thanks Russell
Great article on what makes lucky people lucky, by Richard Wiseman.
An excerpt:
Always wondered what weird and wonderful processes particularly creative people go through... this blog explains the daily routines of various artists, filmmakers, musicians etc.
Since I'm a long-time LOVER of Haruki Murakami here is an excerpt from the site:
"When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long — six months to a year — requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity."
The Paris Review, Summer 2004
Thank you Ben!
As part of a documentary about hunger, Mark Menjivar is in the midst of photographing the contents of people's fridges.
Love just how revealing they can be...
via Good
A little late on this one. Nice thought from Clemm's BBDO, Sydney - 'Condemned 2' is a video game so evil and violent that once you play it, you'll need to find ways to offset the evil.
So, the longer you stay on this site in the forest of fairy flowers etc., the longer you can play the game.
thanks Gareth Kay
Gareth Kay came across a new campaign to curb binge drinking by the UK Department of Health that shifts the focus from the risk of disease to calories and weight control.
He rightly points out that it may just work as "it makes the issue part of an everyday conversation rather than something people feel simply doesn't apply to them" - combating our all too common feeling of invincibility and the exit clause (I know when to stop / I'm not like that).
It will be interesting to see the reaction given that this has been a popular tactic of girls/women's magazines for as long as I can remember.
And from that experience (being an unashamed avid magazine reader that is) it does work to an extent - but for those in their twenty's (I'm not sure who their intended audience is) tends just to shift the focus to what you're drinking, rather than preventing you from drinking at all (e.g. from a wine to a vodka soda). That's a shame given the assumption that calories aren't actually related to alcohol content.
Nevertheless, think it's a totally valid strategy that will work for many perhaps less intent on getting hammered as a rite of passage (i.e. those with calorie-burning youth on their side). Looking fwd to see the creative off this...
Photo courtesy of catgirl
"You don't see it, you feel it"
A simple way to help women understand the importance of a self-examination - by McCann Erickson, Portugal.
via weloveviral
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