Stash is celebrating its 30th issue this month with 70 minutes of animation, vfx, motion design, behind the scenes extras and music downloads. Watch the issue trailer here.

You are not the intended audience for this PSA via ACLC Toronto. The intended audience is the illiterate and moderately literate. It uses visual imagargy to show how people can get "stuck" in life. A simple message presented in a strong visual style. ACLC creatives are Tony Miller, Jason Locey and Rodger Eyre.

Back in January I expected that Kia would get into trouble with this ad featuring a female cop making out with a guy she pulled over. Sure enough, controversy ensued. Well, on Sunday night during the Oscars, I saw the new revised "non offensive" version of this spot. See it here, read the story on the change here. Hats off to Kia & Publicis Toronto for taking such a wonderful, not to mention creative, stand.

I love when clients let agencies do great creative for rather boring products, like this spot for Shera Flexy Board ceiling tiles. Agency is Publicis Thailand.

Reginald Pike director Christopher Hutsul has created Big City Feelings, a coming-of-age tale meets soap opera told featuring a cadre of characters drawn from Japanese monster movies, anime and pop culture. It premiers on Showcase.ca on March 12th. You can watch the trailer here. You can watch Hutsul's commercial reel here.

I love PES and I love this new spot for Sneaux sneakers which uses the age old art of pixilation. Read the full story on the creation of this spot in shots.

Reginald Pike director Lena Beug brings across an important message, with some great art direction, in this campaign for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The agency is Cactus Marketing Communications, Denver, editorial by Owen Plotkin at the now corporation & visual FX by my friends at Click 3X.

PandaPanther is a new NYC-based design & animation studio launched by Jonathin Garin and Naomi Nishimura. I found a link to their great website on Motionographer. Be sure to watch their new showreel -- great work set to really fun music.

The first time I saw the new Pepsi Pinball commercial, I knew the music sampled Jet Boy, Jet Girl by new wave band Elton Motello.I did a bit of googling and validated my theory. The song in the commercial is The Presidents of the United States of America's version of Plastic Bertand's Ça Plane Pur Moi (the latter version featured the musicians from Motello's original). But what is interesting, and the entire point of this post, is the lyrics to the original song (which go through my head each time I see the spot). I wonder if Pepsi wants people to think about these lyrics, with key words like blood, penetrate & head, while they are enjoying a Pepsi. What do you think?

If you have some time to kill on a Friday, check out this site for the new Volvo C30 via Euro RSCG 4D, Holland. There are 16 tv spots (based on the general public's comments on the car), a bunch of games, gagets & mobile downloads. Found on the FWA.

The cfp-e/shots Young Directors Award is now open for entries in five categories: broadcast, test, film school, viral & short film. This year, for the first time, the general public will be able to view all the entries online & vote for their favourite along with the usual panel of professional judges. The work from the winners will be shown at a special screening at the Cannes Lions festival in June.

On Thursday, March 1st, Boards magazine is hosting their inaugural Creative Workshop. The keynote speaker is David Droga of Droga5 (AKA Mr. I was a creative director at 22). View all the speakers here. Full event details here. If you are interested in attending, get your ticket now. I hear there are only 20 or so left.

18 London-based artists were invited to illustrate things they hate on dartboards for this exhibition, that open's today, at London’s Dazed and Confused Gallery. View some of the work here. Scooped from Creative Review's blog.

The luscious Chunky Pam, for MTV, is back with Valentine's Day wishes to be Pampered. Directed by Reginald Pike's Lena Beug, edited by Jeanette Prostowich at the now corporation, song written & produced by Geremy Jesper. If you want to sing a long, the lyrics are posted here.

Are you in need of some cool Valentine's Day cards? Foureyedbat has done all the work for you & posted a bunch of great ones on his blog. This one & this one are my favourites. Nothing says Valentine's Day better than zombies & red siamese twin kittens. Happy VD.

I love this new Levi's spot, Dangerous Liaison, via BBH London. I like it so much that I watched it three times back-to-back. It's directed by Ringan Ledwidge who also directed one of my favourite TV commercials of all time: Lynx "Getting Dressed". This Levi's spot has the same type of dreamy, romantic without being cheesy feel to it, no? The music is great too, Strange Love by Little Anne.

Although these are not new (released Summer 2006), I love this Perlorianesque-campaign (Perlorian - Japanese for cats dressed in clothes & placed in different scenarios) titled Cat Fight for Harvey Nichols via DDB London. Scooped from The Ad Feed via Ad Nerd.

This new TV spot for BMW, directed by Nick Thornton-Jones & Warren Du Preez of Wanted Films, utilized 80 cameras to create a visual driving experience. I like how part of the aesthetic is reminiscent of BMW's aviation history The music, a reworking of Beethoven's 9th, was done by Richard File + James Lavelle aka UNKLE.

The 2007 Marketing Awards will be held on Thursday, March 29th at The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre. To promote this year's awards, Marketing and Rethink have created these two very funny TV spots - Shower and Jogger. Pirate Radio & TV created these two radio spots - Radio Gold and Sell Through (I prefer the latter).

DDB & Knorr got very creative this week and put three painters-at-work on display in Calgary, Toronto & Montreal, to raise awareness for its soups & money for art schools in Canada. Read the full story in Marketing magazine here. View stills of the art here & visit the Knorr site here.

Very cool watch designed by 22 year old Russian Balykin Pavel. Scooped from Freddy at Advertising/Design Goodness.

The Perlorian Brothers provided Beamo at Best ads on TV with some behind the scenes antics on their Toronto shoot with actor Robert Goulet for the Emerald Nuts Super Bowl spot. Keith McArthur, from the Globe and Mail, also did a story on the Brothers here & a Q&A on his The Hard Sell blog here.

4-H is no longer about sheep & goats (at least that was the public conception). So Youthography created the Make Your Escape campaign which features actual 4-H members escaping from their dull parental environments using skills they learned in 4-H. See the print & stickers here, the bandana & poster design here and the interactive here.

AdAge's Bob Garfield has put together a great summary of yesterday's Super Bowl ads. He names Goodby, Silverstein & Partners' Emerald Nuts as the best of the lot (directed by Reginald Pike's The Perlorian Brothers). The consumer generated ads & Snickers get his vote for the worst ads. Watch Bob Garfield here. See all the Super Bowl ads here.

I love the UK TV series Peep Show - I have the first season on DVD. Apple UK have just released a TV campaign featuring Peep Show's stars Robert Webb & David Mitchell. The five very funny spots are Pie Chart, Virus, Tentacle, Trust and Office at Home. Directed by Kevin Thomas of Thomas Thomas. Agency: TBWA\Media Arts Lab.

This spot was viewed 9 million times on YouTube before it was pulled (it's now back up). There was a ton of media speculation as to whether or not it was real or fake & now the "actresses" are doing the US talk show circuit (it's fake). ABC story here. Toronto Star here. Here's an interesting twist, I've just been told by the producer of the spot, Robbie McNamara, that it was done for Sunsilk via Capital C Communications & directed by John Griffith. The story is that Sunsilk pulled out at the last minute.

I read somewhere that Rubik's Cubes were making a comeback (not sure if I believe that). But this art, made entirely from Rubik's Cubes, is pretty cool. The still for this post is titled RUBIK KUBRICK II. Scooped from Computerlove.

I usually don't post things like this, but I think this video of these kids performing at a talent show is great. It's perfect for a Friday too. Enjoy.