Some words from Colin McKay on Government 2.0
3June 6, 2009 by Colin
Now you can judge for yourself – do I need to get a haircut, or just let it go more wild?
Janice Cunnigham and Asha Jhamandas came over to pre-record a short interview for “Lasso the power of wild wikis and bronco blogs” – a session they presented at the annual Editors’ Association of Canada conference held in Toronto last week.
For extra points, spot the Bob and Doug MacKenzie figurines.
Markets in Everything – TexMex Wine for the French edition
1June 6, 2009 by Colin
” … From the shelf, he pulled down a carafe of California Winery, a brand with a palm tree and a Mission bell tower on the label. (He sells a million bottles of it a year to Tex-Mex restaurants in France). …”
- just one revealing snippet from a profile of Fred Franzia, the Napa Valley winery owner responsible for Two-Buck Chuck and countless other niche wine brands.
Now THIS is how Swine Flu profits from Social Media
0June 5, 2009 by Colin
Baratunde Thurston explains how he used social media to spread the word and influence of the swine flu.
why not try Brand WE
0May 25, 2009 by Colin
Hey social media douche. Stop worrying about monetizing things and building brand awareness. Your life shouldn’t be measured by the comments you plant and your own mainstream media mentions. Give up on Brand Me and try a little Brand We.
“ … contestational designers challenge the way that design is positioned relative to the broader society in which it operates. Contestational designers are openly partisan practitioners who take sides in pressing issues of the day. They are neither objective designers nor hired guns — images that continue to dominate the technical development commmunity.
Contestational designers are autonomous agents, striving to unleash the full potential of their powers to advance agendas to which they are personally committed. Their collaborators are neither clients nor consumers, but full partners committed to ongoing struggles for human rights and social justice. The work may be unpaid, but it is deeply rewarding. As such, it should be an inspiration to designers everywhere.”
- Tad Hirsch, Learning from Activists: Lessons for Designers, Interactions magazine
He jumped WHAT how?
0May 24, 2009 by Colin
I’m working on something really good.
But until THAT’s finished – here’s Travis Pastrana doing a tricycle backflip.
There was a period in my youth when a tricycle backflip would have been THE defining moment of my life.
What about Hart to Hart
0May 12, 2009 by Colin
This is an easy way to characterize my teenage years, as viewed through the 8pm television slot from 1978 to 1986:
Sixeyes blog: Miami Vice or Starsky and Hutch?
The National’s Matt Berninger: Simon and Simon.
a cheeseburger of shame
0May 12, 2009 by Colin
” … A fast-food cheeseburger is like a drunken assignation with a stranger met at a wedding reception: momentarily delectable but often leading to shame, nausea, and possibly even health issues …”
- The Boston Phoenix discusses a flat patty available at a mini-mall food court near Harvard Square.
So over lasers and Olympic torches
0May 11, 2009 by Colin
“The first time the lighting of the Olympic torch used advanced technology was during the 1976 Olympics. From Athens, the flame’s energy was transformed into an electric signal and then transmitted to Ottawa by satellite. It was then restored using a laser ray. And it only took a second!” – plaque in the lobby of Montreal’s Olympic Stadium.
This was all much more impressive before the internets.
THIS is what television was made for
1May 10, 2009 by Colin
Korla Pandit, that is. An accomplished organ player who assumed a mystic identity and mesmerized thousands while rounding out the broadcast schedule of fledgling television station KTLA in Los Angeles.
He just sat there, staring and playing smooth licks on his Hammond organ.
You can find a fairly impartial account of his career at the Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco. Or his site.
Or you could just check Korla Pandit’s MySpace.
You had me at meat
0May 7, 2009 by Colin
I’ve got five national grocery chains – with massive square footage – within a two kilometre radius in my suburban neighbourhood. And I have some overwhelming and unexplained fascination with store planograms, integrated marketing campaigns and promotional programs.
We must be coming on BBQ season, because the meat promos are being served up across all the media channels. Last week, it was a feature on the new budget cuts of beef from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
” … Tom Mylan, a butcher who breaks down whole carcasses at Marlow & Daughters in Brooklyn, says the cattlemen are not inventing anything.
“The old Italians and French butchers have been doing this forever,” he said. The surprise, he said, is that it took the big producers this long to figure out how to process and market off-cuts.
“The difference in a good name is worth $3 or $4 a pound,” he said …”
And there’s the rub.* There’s big money to be made in meat, especially if you differentiate according to quality, cuts, point of origin and whether they’re “raised right.”
I can’t believe, though, how sweetly the campaign for the President’s Choice meat program is written. “Restaurant quality at an affordable price,” it seems. These over-the-top but still mouth-watering quotes are from the news release:
- “… in-store fresh meat program with a meaty makeover …”
- ” … we’ve taken the meat shopping experience to the next level …”
- “…The solution: President’s Choice Tender and Tasty beef …”
- “…Take a steak-ation … with PC Certified Angus Beef”
This is classic marketing hyerbole, mixed with a taste of menu grammar magic. (See this Slate article on the language of menus).
And look at Galen! Just the right balance of meat and vegetables!
* see what I did there? Pun, baby!
Two Tone design you can wear
0May 2, 2009 by Colin
Twenty-six years ago, there were some fairly clear-cut fashion choices to be made by the average high school student. Preppie, rocker, punk, townie, slob, nerd, idiosyncratic yet creative soul, mod, skinhead, loner, doper, music obsessive, new romantic, dealer, kid from the backwoods of Northern Ontario, artist and normal tormented teenager. You could find some Euro douches. There were even a few vegans, but our classmates tended to suspect they were actually witches.
In many ways, we were actually living Pretty in Pink – the Molly Ringwald/Jon Cryer Fred Perry paean to awkward relationships and extreme economic differences. Among the mods, we went to tremendous lengths to dress like our fathers did – in 1968. Among our cultural touchstones were a number of English brand names including Fred Perry, the venerable English tennis supplier, sportswear manufacturer Lonsdale, and several smaller designers.
This from mod/ska stalwarts the Specials’ own anniversary site:
” …First, they looked fucking great. If you weren’t there, Britain was transformed into a mail order version of The Wailin Wailers album cover almost overnight, though it probably didn’t know it at the time. Before the birth of the woeful sports casual, the working class dressed up for the weekend and the easily attainable and striking evocation of mid 60′s Jamaica was too irresistible for those who found punk’s sartorial alienation just that bit too alienating ..”
How did a bunch of teenagers from Ottawa pick up on the music varieties, cultural signals and fashion markers that helped to define the second wave of mod? Bootlegged concert tapes (still have some in my basement), copies of British magazines like The Face, gigs by local mod, ska, Northern Soul and 60s R&B bands, the rare video of old Ready, Steady, Go! or Top of the Pops appearances, and an s*load of British and Canadian ‘zines.
In June, Fred Perry will be releasing three new styles in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the arrival of two tone band The Specials (if you’re under the age of 30, you probably know them from their collaboration with Lilly Allen). That’s the bespoke logo over there – the longstanding crown of laurel leaves, but rendered in both white and black, as well as a underlying two tone patter.
Fred Perry has set up a site to take advance orders for the shirts – and its design mimics the clear sans serif text, open layout and tonal clarity of late 70s and early 80s two tone records. It even looks like it was ripped from a zine!
(Don’t tell anyone, but the same design firm that drew up the Fred Perry ecommerce site designed this and The Specials’ anniversary site. The Specials even have a blog!)
For more on the two tone design that characterized releases from the Specials and the Beat, Marco on the Bass has tracked down some interviews with two who brought together the look: Jerry Dammers and David Storey.
Without advertising the world would shine
0April 30, 2009 by Colin
- Tori Spelling would live in Encino
- Detroit would have been forced to evolve or die
- scumbag mortgage agents couldn’t have sold ARMs to old ladies and the unemployed
- Jerry Seinfeld’s shelves would have been full of Cream of Wheat
- the Pope would be the most important man in the world
- famine relief would be much, much more difficult
original pointer from Dino’s tumblr.
Mickey Rouke really is on an upswing
0April 25, 2009 by Colin
Wow. It may be the shot selection from the French television crew, but it sure looks like Mickey Rourke thinks he might just go ahead and hit on Lily Allen.
