What Amerigo discovered

As everyone knows, the man who discovered America was poorly rewarded for his efforts. 

Chistopher Columbus made the mistake of looking for gold and keeping his mouth shut.

Amerigo Vespucci didnt. He was 5 years behind Christopher. But he did 2 things right.

First, he positioned the New World as a separate continent, totally distinct from Asia. This caused a revolution in the geography of his day.

Second he wrote extensively of his discoveries and theories. Especially significant are the five letters of his third voyage. One (Mundus Novus) was translated into 40 different languages over a 25-year period.

Before he died, Spain granted him Castilian citizenship and gave him a major state post.

As a result, the Europeans credited Amerigo Vespucci with the discovery of America and named the place after him.

Christopher Columbus died in jail.

Share you're ideas and the rewards will be bigger.

Taken from a book called 'Positioning' by Jack Trout & Al Ries

TED of the week (2)

Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson

Car or train insurance?

It struck me recently how bizarre this photograph is. 

One of hundreds of Swift-cover car insurance posters that are displayed at Metro station platforms, a system where thousands of people travel to work by train.

 I'm fully aware a lot of these people may own a car and simply travel by the Metro system for convenience, but surely this is the wrong medium to be advertising in.

 If it was a one off poster then fair enough, but almost every Metro station seems to have multiple posters like this. 

The same day i saw the same poster as a bus back, the ideal medium for it. 

For insurance that claims it saves you money, they don't half waste a lot of it.

TED of the week (1)

New feature on the Biscuit Barrel.

TED Lecture of the week (1)

Tidying up art

Available everyweek, a Biscuit Barrel approaved TED Lecture

Hesse & Hombre

Here's a new blog for all 4 of you to look at!

http://hesseandhombre.blogspot.com/

Look like paper

Got sick of the old blog layout and since i'm not good with HTML it'll now look like old paper for the time being.

Exciting developing updates are just around the corner

and heres a picture of a roof top to celebrate this momentous occasion!

Marmart

Cool little app to mess around on.

http://awards.digivault.co.uk/marmite/marmart/marmart_ad.html

Here's one i did earlier - 

T E D

TED.com is a website full of video lectures of people talking about everything. Theories on the price of happiness, ideas on sync, the importance of playing, why school doesn't work, creativity and play, future city scapes, toys from the future. 

Like absolutely anything is on there, all really interesting and gets you thinking. Each one is about 15-20mins long. Seriously recommend you go have a look! Everyone can find something they're interested in.

www.ted.com

The Cat & Toast

You drop toast and it always lands butter side down on the floor. Now it's said that cats always land on their feet. So if i were to strap a slice of toast butter side up on the cats back and threw it off a roof, what would happen? Would it hover?

See example (below) for reference.

Answers on the back of a 12 year old Whitby fish quay postcard please.

Pecha Kutcha

Go to;

Itunes - Itunes store - Search - D&AD Presidents Lectures

Great podcasts of the President Lectures. You can watch them on itunes player or download them to your ipod.

Tony Davidson (W+K) and the Pecha Kutcha video's are particularly good. 

I love the show and tell format. Interesting and inspiring, really recommend you go and watch a few. 

Been reading 'It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be.' again. Totally re-energizes you to do something fresh.

Evil vs No Evil

I remember seeing these ages ago but forgot how great they are! 

Simple and engaging. Advertising at it's best!

Watch this

Best film i've seen in months, go and see it if you get the chance.

Club Class Bullshit

What is the secret ingredient for a mediocre bank advert?

A man in a hat? A nice shiny credit card?

No, nothing is more comforting in times of financial trouble than.. a cake and an airbed.

A lovely homemade cupcake (because you can't afford food anymore so you'll have to use the contents of the cupboard to supplement it) A water air bed (reminding you you'll never be going on holiday again, ever) a steering wheel from a car (that looks like a toy, since you had to sell your real car) and a lovely HSBC credit card that made all this misery possible.

I've lost count of the amount of times i've seen Cupcakes on bank adverts. Surely this doesn't sell bank cards, and if it does it shouldn't!

What do YOU think?

After reading mountains of comments over the last few days, i want to get people who read this blog to tell me what they think of this ad. From reading comments you get alot of varying opinions and from that you get alot of insights that you wouldn't usually come across.

This ad was just chosen at random, but if you read this, leave a comment on what you think about the ad.

Feeling Lucky

Last night i played a gig to over 2,000 people. Supporting the Subways in Newcastle. I'm not a big Subways fan but you can't buy those sort of experiances. 

Working on loads of stuff at the moment. Lots of turmoil and lots of plans.

Hopefully if i work hard they will work out for the best.