Archive for January 2006

Guns for sale is a nifty advertisement for AK47 Machine guns. Don’t worry, illegal arms traders are not using the web to market their weaponry. (or are they?) This is actually an extremely well executed viral campaign for Amnesty International. The ad ends with the caption “The arms trade is out of control” and asks people to text msg the word “ARMS” and their name to join a petition for tough action
to control the sales of deadly weapons. Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:

"Some people might find our advert disturbing. But whats truly shocking is that one person dies every minute from armed violence."

The microsite was produced by the team at Poke, and the film was by Mother. The goal is to get as many eyeballs as possible to see this piece, so spread the word. Its available for both the iPod (via iTunes) and PSP.

Amnesty Int. Press Release

On his latest podcast, Ricky Gervias says that he expects 4 million downloads by the end of their 12 part series. Gervias co-hosts the podcast with long term collaborator Steve Marchant and a northern chap whose face goes all the way back and whose head is the shape of an orange (pictured). Fans tune in from all over the world. Funny.

Ha. Ha.

Ricky Gervias Podcast

At PSFK, we like water. But the thing is,the plastic packaging for products we consume in 2 minutes weighs on our conscience a little. Thank goodness that US supermarket Publix is now stocking Biota Bottled Spring water - water that comes in corn-based biodegradable bottles. Clever people.

NBC Article
Biota
<via Treehugger>

Trends fella Michael Tchong highlights the interesting food and beverages he came across at a private event called Food Fete. There notable trends include high-fruit-content drinks, infused water, grapeseed oil and the
intermingling of ethnicities (huh?).

Ubercool Article

A couple of articles recently referred to "The New Suburbanism" - a term apparently coined by author & scholar Joel Kotkin. The New York Times says:

"…This
is what Joel Kotkin calls the New Suburbanism. These new suburban
villages, he says, will combine with revived older suburban villages,
like Naperville, Ill., and Fullerton, Calif., to create an ‘archipelago
of villages’ — a new sort of landscape that is neither city nor
sprawl. " (1)

And this was echoed too recently in the LA Times. The
question we must ask is, at what point is dense pedestrian-oriented,
mixed-use, mixed-density, mixed-price suburban redevelopment not
"suburban?"  Suburbia, by definition, is low-density, single-use,
single-price homogeneity.  Why are we so afraid to say that an area is "urbanizing," or that we are building "new towns?"

We
can hope that Kotkin & Brooks are right, that we will develop an
Archipelago of Villages.  The big question is what is the sea between
the islands?  Is it rural? Is it suburban? Or worse, is it dead suburbia,
the dangerous gangland of vacant and neglected real estate?
(beautifully depicted by the Sierra Club in their recent ad campaign -
see image below)

The Congress for New Urbanism espouses a concept called the Transect.
If our municipalities were INTENTIONAL about creating an archipelago of
villages, the Transect would be the model to follow.  In essence,
it encourages a full range of human habitats from fully rural to fully
urban.

Contributed by Jeremy Fretts

Since 1927 the skilled, Swedish craftsmen of Bookbinders Design have been perfecting the art of bookbinding. It’s a swedish franchise concept based on traditional bookbindings including on-request customizations. They have stores in every bigger Swedish town and offer anything from enevelopes, calendars, boxes etc. in a high quality and nice design.

Maybe these high qualiuty handcrafted items will grow in popularity as people use services like Flickr and want a unique flickr album, calendar, etc.

Booksbinder Design

Contributed By Mizubitchy

Metropolis Magazine seeks to identify the next
generation of Big Ideas by the next generation of designers. They offer
$10,000 to an individual or team of designers seeking to develop a Big
Idea that will make our designed environment better, safer, and more
sustainable. The Next Generation Design Competition was established in
2003 to recognize and encourage activism, social involvement, and
entrepreneurship among designers.

Metropolis Mag Big Idea Competition

Pentagram Feedback is a worldwide guidebook full of travel tips provided by friends and family of the design agency. Gridskipper says that the concept is for readers to feel like
they’ve been taken to some pleasantly random corner of a city by
friends who live there.

Feedback is free but the catch is that it’s limited. You have to ask nicely for a copy: info@pentagram.com.

Pentagram Feedback
Gridskipper Review

Facebook was supposed to be an interactive college scrapbook - filled
with stories, photos of college life to share with your buddies / potential hook-ups. Now,
practices by recruiters threatens to destroy the ethos of Facebook as
they scan potential recruits’ personal pages as back ground checks. The
Daily Bruin suggests:

Employers are beginning to use sites such as
Facebook to access personal information of candidates for employment,
said Kathy Sims, director of the UCLA Career Center.
And not all employers are pleased with what they find.
Sims said there have been several cases of employers rescinding
job offers to student candidates because of information obtained
through Facebook.
 

Daily Bruin
Facebook

Related PSFK Articles
The Facebook