PostPanic and director Mischa Rozema never fail to impress us. Take this beaut of a TV commercial for the Finnish soft drink Jaffa – commissioned by Finnish agency Sek - using a blend of 2D and 3D animated graphics, vintage stock footage, and a live action shoot at the studio of the 85-year old graphic designer Erik Bruun – an institution in Finland. Bruun has been responsible for Jaffa’s iconic logos and posters since the 50s – the brand was founded in 1949. Jaffa – nowadays owned by Heineken – is still in the top 3 of most popular soft drinks in Finland. Rozema about the project: “The story needed to be told using the actual posters of Erik Bruun. This meant we had to create an imaginary landscape to allow us to move from one poster to another. I was particularly inspired by the simplicity and retro feeling of Bruun’s designs, which actually reminded me of Saul Bass’ work. Bruun’s work has that same contemporary feeling and use of textures that makes it stand out and feel very tactile.”
Just announced; hybrid production agency Post Panic is organising the next long-awaited, 5th edition of Panic Room on the 7th of June. Panic Room is an evening during which Post Panic invites international names to come and share their current inspirations with a relatively small creative crowd, primarily made up from Amsterdam’s agencies. Past speakers have included Shynola, Si Scott, Dvein, Pleix, Lucy McRae and Niels Shoe Meulman. The next edition is featuring Belgian photographer and film maker Vincent Fournier, Eindhoven design duo HeyHeyHey (it wouldn’t surprise us if Mini Melvin makes an appearance) and LA-based director Andrew Huang, who has been causing a sensation with his short film Solipsist. Unfortunately the Panic Room is invite only, but we’ve managed to get our hands on 5 tickets to give away. We thought it might be nice to give them to some younger creatives who haven never been to a Panic Room – it’s usually the senior creatives ending up on the guest list. If you fancy going then please send us an email with your age and reason why you deserve a ticket. We hope to see you at the whiskey bar on the night.
Dutch directing duo HeyHeyHey (aka Elske van der Putten and Erik Sjouerman), who recently joined the directors roster of PostPanic, created the world’s smallest ever Rube Goldberg machine, dubbed Melvin the Mini Machine. We find it extremely cute. The idea of the stamp at the end is that the installation is designed to travel the world; each time a ‘run’ is completed a postcard is stamped, ready to send. The two suitcases are at the moment exhibited at the prestigious Salone Internazionale del Mobile. HeyHeyHey also created a much bigger Rube Goldberg machine last year for the Dutch Design Week. That one impressed us a little less, since we couldn’t stop comparing it to the amazing video clip ‘This Too Shall Pass’ by OK Go from 2010. In any case, it’s always good to see ‘agencies’ creating their own work – not being bothered by clients who want the logo bigger.
If you haven’t heard about Jarno Smeets, the protagonist of one of the biggest hoaxes ever created since Dutch TV channel BNN aired the donor show (in which three people needing a kidney transplant were battling over a kidney), you might have been living under a stone. In a nutshell the recording above (directed by Floris Kaayk) of Jarno Smeets as the first man to fly like a bird with artificial wings traveled the world like a true viral – 6.2 million YouTube hits within a week. Though the handheld recording looks at least doubtful, the entire story around the project was built up so genuinely that we can easily imagine that it was picked up by such a great amount of media channels – both traditional (among which CNN, CBS, and BBC) as well as tech savvy (among which Wired, Techcrunch, Gizmodo). It was especially the blog (HumanBirdwings.net) describing the entire project that made things look so real. The first post was written already in July 2011: “My dream [is] to fly in the same way as birds do. Like Leonardo DaVinci envisioned it centuries ago”. As from then on there were regular updates with prototypes, animations of how the wings worked, interviews, and test runs. The only question that remains is, why would you want to pull a stunt like this? We asked Raymond van der Kaaij from Rotterdam/Amsterdam production agency Revolver, who was one of the leading forces behind the project. Van der Kaaij: “We initiated this with Dutch TV channel NTR to tell a story about a universal dream. By using a viral and social strategy we wanted to think beyond TV. Especially the interaction with the audience through social media were crucial for the credibility of the story.” And what a story it was. Hats off.
Last week we wrote about the new FBTO logo, today we share the insurer’s new advertising, created by Only and Qi. Ilse’s voice over tells us how she enjoyed her vacation in Spain with her 4 best friends; they met cool people, went out every night, did some dangerous stuff, and checked out the scenery. A bummer though: mom and dad were there too [end of paraphrase]. The new logo, the kaleidoscopic animation – created by PostPanic – and the catchy score – created by Audentity – give the brand a very refreshing look and tone. And using the distinctive circle from the logo as a brand element in the commercial is also smartly done. The only thing that gave us a small ‘syntax error’ is the radical plot change at the end. The male voice-over: “If you’re world, just like Ilse’s dad, doesn’t revolve around insurances, you should go to FBTO”. As if the record player jumped a few grooves. And we wonder: are there any dads with teenage daughters that have made a hobby out of insurances?
Goose bumbs!!!