"Hey, know what’d be great? Let’s put some company logos on some protective masks to cash in on this swine flu hysteria! Go SWINE! It’s VIRAL!" Check out the full scoop on Nick Parish's blog.

Here are the F5 Titles created by Barcelona based Dvein. I attended F5 and I have to say I think these are the best opening titles I’ve ever seen at an event and I found that to be the general consensus. Here are some notes from Dvein on their creation:
When we were invited to make the F5 titles, we wanted it to have a real match with the eclectic spirit of the conference. The idea was to get the soul of the speakers into this titles in some ways. We asked them for five names of objects that inspire them or has anything to do with their work. We received all kinds of answers, really interesting objects that could make us get this starting point and translate it into our images: Wind Turbines, Microscopes, Lights, Smoke, Lamb Rib Cage, French Bulldog...
The speakers didn’t know what their answers would be used for, but they were the seed for all the story. In this way, all the speakers haveadded their bit and there is not a unique authorship but a multiple collaboration.

Download the press kit for more info, credits and some making of stills.

Motionographer has posted the first batch of the F5 RE:PLAY films on their site. Check out the goodies from Buck, Crush and Holbrooks here.

Here's some really cute character design from the folks over at Anima Boutique in Finland. Eliza Jäppinen designed the three wonderful illustrations that were then turned into ten second animations for each (directed by Jäppinen too). View the three animations here (the little green kiwi guy is my fav). Thanks to Anttu for sending them my way.

You may have seen the Gladiator spot in this campaign that broke a couple of weeks ago, but this latest spot, Circus, just broke yesterday - and who doesn't love the circus? These two spots for The UPS Store are a wonderful feast for the eyes and I love how Psyop has created beautiful worlds out of cardboard and engaging story lines in just 25 seconds. Agency is Doner and the campaign was headed up by Psyop creative director Eben Mears. Full credits and some notes from Psyop on the campaign are posted here.

Jordan Seiler's incredibly ambitious "New York Street Advertising Takeover" became a reality yesterday, when over 120 illegal billboards throughout the city were white washed by dozens of volunteers. NYSAT was organized as a reaction to the hundreds of billboards that are not registered with the city, and therefore are illegal. While illegal, these violations are not being prosecuted by the City of New York, allowing the billboard companies to garner huge profits by cluttering our outdoor space with intrusive and ugly ads. After the illegal spots were white washed, late in the day yesterday over eighty artists transformed these spaces into personal pieces of art. Copied from Wooster Collective (click to see pics). Found via thegirlRiot (Twitter).

A-Ha's Take on Me is one of my favourite music videos of all time so I was happy to see it spoofed in this new commercial by Swedish director Jesper Ohlsson. Thanks to Nina at La Fabrique Films for the link. For more A-Ha goodness, check out this literal version of Take on Me that surfaced on YouTube back in December (love it).

LA-based Blip Boutique has launched a new site with some new work like this film for fashion line JMM. Nice.

By now you have probably seen the amazing Carousel spot for Philips directed by Stink Digital's Adam Berg. If not, the 2:19 film runs as an endless loop, allowing viewers to control their moves through the scene. The film also contains embedded hotspots, which, when triggered, give us a behind-the-scenes look at some of the shots. More behind-the-scenes info is here on Boards.

It's not the most flattering pic, but I was lifting buckets of cement in 40-45 degree heat (celsius) with 80% humidity. Boards mag was kind enough to feature my Sri Lanka excursion in the Extracurricular section of their new site. Check it out here. Thanks to Christine Clarke at Boards for doing up the piece. Are you in advertising and do something extracurricular? Send your photos, art, writing, films, music, origami or whatever to Kevin Ritchie.

I wanted to say "take Viagra", to get your attention, but that would have been misleading. Here's Taxi's latest Viagra campaign directed by The Perlorian Brothers (we are SO OVERDUE for that coffee we keep talking about). Speaking of TPB, have you seen this letter they sent to Shots? Happy to see that they haven't changed in the two years since I've seen them. Still tapping trees. Thanks to Elana at Soft Citizen for the link.

Blacklist's againstallodds takes to the skies in their latest campaign for JetBlue out of JWT New York. Check out Seat Monster and DVD. Credits are here. There is a third spot on the way and I'll post it as soon as I get it.

A few posts below I mentioned that I was attending the inaugural F5 in NYC & I wanted to update you with my thoughts on it. Motionographer's Justin Cone put on a great 2-day conference. It was held at the Roseland Ballroom which was an amazing venue, despite its Times Square location, for a creative conference as it's an old music hall so you didn't feel like you are at a job fair, which is the feel of so many conferences. The speakers were a great mix of advertising, design, animation, motiongraphics, technology, art, photography and current events (loved hearing Rachel Maddow speak).

As I sat listening intently at F5, I thought that it would be a great place for agency creatives or media planners to attend to inspire them to come up with the next big idea. Sadly, in my two days there, I only met one person from an advertising agency. Kudos to Jason Drakeford, an art director from BBDO Atlanta for attending and respect to BBDO Atlanta for seeing the importance of footing the bill in this economy.

I hope Justin Cone puts on another F5 conference next year. And I do hope that more agency people attend. I can't wait to get my hands on the opening reel that Dvein made, as it was the best event opening I have ever seen (everyone was talking about how great it was).

For more info on F5, its speakers and what you missed if you weren't there, check out the F5 Blog. F5 Added bonus: free drinks at a bar that was open all day long.

The latest from Legs, the NYC-based crew who created Pete the Meat Puppet, is this online film for Diesel's new fragrance Only the Brave. It's actually three films that play at once to create a fourth film - more of an experience really. To check it out, go to isbrave.com click play & it is best viewed full screen. I think it's amazing. Full credits are here. Posted by glossy.

Fuzzy here. So Chris Cunningham has decided to follow in the footsteps of the great David Lynch and hit up a Gucci commercial. To launch their new Flora fragrance Gucci got Cunningham out to Latvia to film a lavish 60 second film with Australian model Abbey Lee in a field of 20,000 fake flowers.

And if that wasn't special enough, Cunningham also teamed up with disco Queen Donna Summer to re-record her classic tune I Feel Love and create a uniquely mesmerizing sound track to the film.

shots have the full film up here and there's an interview with Creative Director Riccardo Ruini on the Dazed website. Posted by Fuzzy.

I'm just back from Sri Lanka and now I'm off to NYC for F5 (this means that within one week I've been in Sri Lanka, London, Toronto & now New York - tired just thinking about it). F5, headed up by Motionographer's Justin Cone, has a great line-up of speakers, including my friends at Psyop tomorrow at 3:50, and I'm keen to see the films of RE:PLAY - a number of studios created original works (short films) around the themes of rebirth, rejuvenation and regrowth. Watch the teaser reel here. A full list of studios is below.

Holbrooks
Pistachios
Buck
Crush
Imaginary Forces
LaFlama
Ubik
Superfad
Digital Kitchen
Ryan Rothermel & Sean Pecknold
Sehsucht
Shilo

Check out this video with a (short) interview and some insight in to the work of Jen Stark. Via Computerlove. Posted by glossy.

Are times really that tough that Michel Gondry is doing personal drawings for $19.95 USD? I don't think that's the case, but I had to make the joke. I think it's brilliant & now I just have to decide which picture I want to send in. Scooped from Creativity. Posted by glossy.

I didn't see any creative advertising in Sri Lanka - pretty basic stuff (as one would expect). But I did find this fruit juice name and tagline very amusing. View full size pic here. Posted by glossy.

I've been away in Sri Lanka with Trip Canada and Developing World Connections helping to build houses for tsunami victims. It is breathtakingly beautiful country and the people are so wonderful and friendly. It was an incredible experience - one I will never forget. I have posted a selection of pictures from the house I helped to build here. The working days were fun and very hot. One day was 45 Celsius (113 F) with 80% humidity! I have never been so hot & sweaty in my entire life. The shower in my cabana did not have hot water, but not once did I wish that it did. My favorite job was the mixing and pouring of cement, which I was lucky enough to do on three different days – two days on my job site and one on another site as they required some extra help and I’m a good cement mixer (I’ll have to add that to my CV). For this activity friends and neighbours would come over to help and it was a total group activity requiring lots of team work (it was also a great workout – added bonus).

I was able to take in a bit of the country in my downtime. I went to the amazing Mulgirigalla Rock Temple and climbed the 536 stairs to the top, the Sunday market in Tangalle and to the historic city of Galle, a fortified city built by Europeans which is a great example of the interaction between European architectural styles and south Asian traditions. Galle fort is a world heritage site and the largest remaining fortress in Asia built by European occupiers (thank you wikipedia). Pictures of all three are posted here. I also took some photos of the beautiful people of Sri Lanka. You can view those here.

Thanks again to my guest bloggers who did a great job at keeping glossy alive while I was away. I hope they'll continue to post on occasion (hint hint). Posted by glossy.

Check out this new spot Adam Massey just shot for SKOL beer and Tempo Advertising in Bucharest, Romania. Makes me want to drink beer again (in Romania).
Posted by JN

Check out these Adidas Originals spots directed by Wayne Holloway with RESTLESS. My EP friend Brian Farhy was nice enough to send me 3 of the 6 viral spots that have rolled out so far this year. You can view them here. Kudos to Wayne and Brian and SID LEE's Kristian Manchester and Claudia Roy.
More viral videos at adidasoriginals2009 YouTube channel and Facebook (1,535,138 fans so far).
Posted by JN

I love this site.
The Selby features photographs, paintings and videos by Todd Selby of interesting people and their creative spaces.
Check out Holiday's own Georgie Greville.
Colette, Paris recently launched The Selby Show and The Selby Shop.
Posted by JN

Happy 10th Anniversary First Boards Awards!
Congrats to all the winners.
You can view them here.
Posted by JN

Psyop, the leading design, animation and mixed media collective has joined bi-coastal, international production house SMUGGLER for worldwide representation and production.

Posted by Dylan

I was off in Miami this past week for the Winter Music Conference for Ultra - caught some amazing acts and and heard some incredible sounds. In that spirit, and since I know Ms. Glossy is a fan of AVH and cool camera work, I thought maybe this was appropriate.

Parts of this video are a little out there, just to give you a head's up - nothing explicit, but really quite a eye opener. You can watch the video here after the jump.

And since I know this is probably of interest to some of you, this is what I've dug up for the credits:

DIRECTOR HIRO MURAI
PRODUCED by ROSS GIRARD
SHOT by CLAY JETER & WILL BASANTA
EDITED BY ISAAC HAGY
FX by GHOSTTOWNMEDIA

Posted by Dylan

W+K Amsterdam created this spot, Let It Shine, opting for computer generated effects over live action. Real or not, the results are quite clever. Watch it here.

Posted by Dylan

Frito-Lay of North America presents a Snack Strong production that you won't soon forget.  The site, Hotel 626, requires you to use a webcam, a microphone, and register with the site so that they can immerse you properly into this hellish nightmare.

The site runs entirely on flash, and utilizes your webcam to make sure you're playing in the proper conditions, namely with all the lights turned off.  As a bonus, Hotel 626 is only open at night time, from 6pm to 6am, so you won't be getting out of the creepy factor too easily. 

There aren't many sites that take full advantage of different types of interactive online media the way Hotel 626 does.  You can even share your journey on Facebook and Twitter.  After work tonight, definitely check this one out.  You'll be impressed with how well this site works, and how engaging the game becomes.

Posted by Dylan

Part sustainable water company, part art project, part philanthropic project, and completely curious. Boxed Water is Better is a boxed water company.

I thought this would be a great companion link to The Tap Project featured last month on glossy. A lot of companies are talking about "going green" these days, but here's one that's actually doing it. Boxed Water Is Better discovered that it was actually kinder to the environment to box rather than bottle the water. Turning to the century old milk-style beverage container for inspiration, 90% of the boxes are made from renewable resources, shipped flat, and filled on-demand with great tasting water. And you can feel even better knowing that 20% of Boxed's profits are spent on planting new trees and creating new forests. Plus, the black-text on white-background boxes will look cool in your fridge, like something out of the Dharma Initiative.

Posted by Dylan