Insurer FBTO has changed its logo. VBAT, the agency responsible for the new design, explains in its press release that the logo was inspired by a “community of independent and optimistic people that want both a reliable and easy to manage insurance”. The blue in the logo represents the solid base of FBTO and the dynamically coloured ‘O’ the personalized insurance options. The colours are translated on the website by giving the different insurances (health, travel, etc.) a different colour. What do you think?

On the left a screenshot of RRRGGGBBB; a playful website paying a tribute to the “delightful” colours red, green, and blue. On the right, the internet’s “first and official” test card, designed by Anthony Burrill – sound by Malcolm Goldie and art directed by Ewoudt Boonstra. Nothing spectacular these sites, but it shows that some agencies out there still love what they do – or at least have fun in between. Both sites were initiated by Banana and Associates – very nice website – or Mr. Boonstra if you like.

On the 29th of April, one day before Holland celebrates Queen’s day, the Brits have their own royal celebration; prince William and Kate Middleton get married. And since the European country where people drive on the wrong side of the road and still pay with the Pound Sterling can be somewhat traditional, most memorabilia produced for this marriage (teaspoons, mugs, and other dust collectors) look as if they’ve been designed in 1952 – when Charles and Diana embarked on matrimony. What a great  opportunity, thought KK Outlet (KesselsKramer’s sister in London). The agency created a set of Royal Plates for a more modern generation. In the picture a detail of one of the plates; “Prince Charles, Camilla, HRH The Queen, and 6,000,000 others like this“. We also liked ‘Thanks for the free day off’. This “irreverent” PR stunt got exactly what it wanted, a huge amount of press around the world; from USA Today to the New Zealand Herald, from Time to Vanity Fair; they all wrote about it. And if even John Lewis and Selfridges are selling your plates in their stores, you know you’ve done something right.

From now on every Monday Avinash Sampath, creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi | Leo Burnett, will be sharing the wise advertising lessons of his alter-ego ‘The Armless Corporate Robot’. Today the first one; click on image to see it. Sampath was born in Madras, India. His family wanted him to become a software engineer, but he joined ad school instead, because he thought he was a talented illustrator. Soon he found out he was a better writer though. Since he finished ad school in ‘97 he has worked for a great amount of agencies: Lowe Chennai, Ogilvy Bangalore, Contract (JWT) Mumbai, Saatchi Dubai and today Saatchi | Leo Amsterdam. Along the way he helped a shirt brand sell more off their hangers, increased foot-fall in the world’s largest mall, helped families choose the right diaper, sold cheese, launched an airline, added noodles to the Indian cuisine, inspired men to buy a second watch, and created multiple pro-bono campaigns for charities.
 He’s glad his mother finally agrees that his decision to work in advertising was a good one.

180 created a new font, called EcoDIN. The font is designed to use less toner when printed – which gives the impression that ‘Eco’ stands for ‘Economical’. The font was inspired by the Ecofont by Spranq (an ad agency in Utrecht) – using 20% less toner. 180’s font, based on DIN Mittleschrift, goes one step further. While in Spranq’s font holes are punched through the glyphs, 180 did the opposite (a nice case of 180 thinking); it just shows the holes. We would love to recommend 180’s EcoDIN, but instead we’re going to bring this yet another step further; we recommend you to start a paperless office, like ourselves; it uses no ink at all. And what’s really eco about it; it doesn’t require any dead trees.

This week it is the national Book Week, an initiative of the ‘Collective Propaganda for the Dutch Book’ (CPNB). For this occasion CPNB asked Erik Kessels (KesselsKramer) and writer Christine Otten, to create an essay around this year’s theme ‘Written Portraits’. The result is Good Luck, a story based on a found photograph album of two unknown lovers. The two lovers were given a new life by Kessels and Otten; they became Betty and Pierre Vincent. Kessels is known for his fascination for lost photographs. He already created several books and exhibitions with pictures he bought or found on flea markets – e.g. the wonderful series In Almost Every Picture. Unique about this essay is the fact that it comes with a perfume, especially designed for the story. This makes it the most complete love story you can imagine; in words, images, and scent.

This poster – with a young Picasso in 1906 – is spread throughout Amsterdam to advertise the new Van Gogh exhibition ‘Picasso in Paris, 1900-1907’ – a joint exhibition with the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. Amsterdam based Koeweiden Postma designed the visual identity of the exhibition. The design agency even created a customized font – we assume that’s why so much weight was given to the text in the poster compared to Picasso’s self portrait. According to Koeweiden Postma the font refers to Picasso’s inspiration by African masks, art nouveau/jugendstil, and the colours of the different periods in Picasso’s life. This sounds more like not being able to make a choice than creating a strong visual identity. And though the lay-out of the poster makes us a little dizzy, we’ll be definitely visiting the Van Gogh Museum soon.

How to make teenagers wear a condom? A difficult one. Or maybe not. SOA-AIDS (‘STD-AIDS’), an organization that wants to prevent the bad juices from flowing too freely, asked Vanabbetotvessem to create a campaign that playfully explains the importance of using a condom. These posters were the result. They convey tips about how to go about when the C-word comes into play. From left to right: “Start about a condom before your trousers come off”, “Women appreciate it when you start about the condoms”, and “A self assured woman starts about condoms herself”. O.k. nothing spectacular here. What is really special about this campaign is the way the outdoor posters were created. Forget Mac, forget Adobe, it was all made by hand. Why, we asked Vanabbetotvessem. “We like the touch of human imperfection. When you see the outdoor posters from close by, you actually sense that it’s made by hand”. Vanabbetotvessem also designed a booklet with more tips and a condom packaging – with the same visual identity, so that it will nicely add up to the rest of the campaign. Here you can watch the making of the posters – it’s good to see that some agencies still make advertising with love.

As you can see our new design is live. We hope you like it. What is new? The 3D logo, wider posts (640 pixels, instead of 560), and a more elaborate sidebar. Please note that there are still many technical and visual bugs to fix – so please bear with us. In the coming weeks we’ll be working hard to get it all sharp.

The 60 Layers of Cake Foundation last year came up with a new purpose for the thousands of kilos of scaffolding sheets, used as advertising; it was turned into design. The foundation – part of advertising agency 60 Layers – organized a contest among designers to transform the PVC sheets into new products. The contest was dubbed ‘Re:Frame’. The winning design – the ‘Chameleon Chair’ – by Roos Kalff was built from a steel frame and more than 200 square meters of advertising sheet. The chair can be changed in colour and design by flipping the sheets over. The second prize went to ‘Pillow Up’, as set of pillows designed by Emma Klinkenberg. The best designs were exhibited during the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, last October, and the winners were included in a book about the entire scaffolding sheet project. The book, recently published in a limited run of 500 copies, was created by Martin Pyper and covered in scaffolding sheet, so that every copy is unique.