Paul Coudamy is a French architect whose work is a contemporary mash up of inventiveness supplied by today’s technologies and materials.

We’ve heard a lot of brands wishing to ‘own’ music recently, and we always get a bit, well, annoyed about it, because music belongs to people and persons, not brands. And the only thing brands should be trying to do in terms of music are those bandied-brand words, ‘facilitating’ and ‘enabling’. Ruby Pseudo’s team in the UK did a focus group recently where – in six minutes – the kids named 44 brands they saw as being part of the whole music “thing”, either in a good or an appropriate way.
Our results? The same brands kept coming up. As an [...]

Last night, we attended Microsoft’s soft launch party for Softwear, the company’s new line of graphic tees designed by hip-hop artist Common and “inspired by the 1980s when both Microsoft and hip-hop really came of age.” The software giant’s foray into fashion is intended to conjure a sense of nostalgic hipness around the brand, while reacting to the “I’m a PC” stereotype made popular by Apple. The shirts, which will hit select stores in the US on Dec 15, incorporate old DOS iconography, geek vernacular, and a retro-futuristic aesthetic into some surprisingly stylish designs. Softwear’s two lines, Classic and Common’s [...]

In contrast to IBM’s unimaginative predictions, Microsoft’s Future Visions videos are actually a bit inspiring, pointing to innovations in technology we’d be excited to see and use. Their “future vision on manufacturing” concept video brings to life many advances that seem rather intuitive: ubiquitous touchscreen interfaces, holographic video conferencing, virtual paper, 3-D guided assembly processes, and a host of other efficiency boosting technologies. Watch the video below:

[via 360design]

At our Good Ideas in 2009: Digital salon yesterday, much of the conversation surrounded how our online identities are created, both actively – through our own decisions of what we share about ourselves – and passively – through the actions and perceptions of others. Given that we only have control over half of that equation, how do we ensure that the best and brightest portrait of ourselves is seen by the wider community?
Piers posited his “Red Coat, Black Coat” theory back in 2006, which proved to be a harbinger of conversations to come about approaches to online privacy [...]

On last night’s episode of The Simpsons, Springfield was graced with the appearance of a fake Apple store, known as Mapple.  The iconic cube store appeared in cartoon form complete with MyPods, MyPhones, MyCubes and an appearance by Steve Mobs reminiscent of the 1984 commercial.  Should Apple take offense or is satire is the sincerest form of flattery?

[via Laughing Squid]

Screens are everywhere—in bars, taxis, movie theaters, living rooms, city streets, in your hand, in front of you right now—and it’s making media increasingly fragmented. Yesterday we talked about how the ad business is being affected by this proliferation of media channels. “We have a story we want to tell, and we use different media channels and different touch points to tell it. We have to rely on the consumer to pull the story together,” said Robert Rasmussen.
However, the mark of a good campaign is not just narrative cohesion between these channels, but truly connecting them in an [...]

A while back, we wrote a short post about the Engaging Ideas Card Pack and mentioned, “We haven’t gotten our hands on the full set, but it looks like a neat package for a broad range of ideas.”  Well, now (thanks to Rob Fox) we’ve gotten our grubs on the entire pack and sifted through the stack of colorful cards.
The first impression is that they look like a deck of large novelty sized playing cards printed on thick stock cardboard.  The front side of each card is an image meant to invoke the message or activity presented on the back.  [...]

A while back, we wrote a short post about the Engaging Ideas Card Pack and mentioned, “We haven’t gotten our hands on the full set, but it looks like a neat package for a broad range of ideas.”  Well, now (thanks to Rob Fox) we’ve gotten our grubs on the entire pack and sifted through the stack of colorful cards.
The first impression is that they look like a deck of large novelty sized playing cards printed on thick stock cardboard.  The front side of each card is an image meant to invoke the message or activity presented on the back.  [...]

This is the latest work by Robert Burden, an artist most known for his beautiful (and huge) paintings of toys. Previous themes include Mattel’s BattleCat and a Foot Soldier from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This particular work is called “Defensor Mundi” (Defender of the Earth in Latin) and depicts a triumphant Voltron, standing 11 by 7 feet tall. Burden spent a year working on it and we’re truly impressive to see an artist that can pursue a vision with such dedication. The entire process of this oil-on-canvas piece was captured with this time lapse video:

[via Make]

Herman Miller’s heir apparent to the Aeron Chair, the Embody series, is a design that promises to promote clear-minded thinking by lowering the stress placed upon the body while sitting. With that in mind, they’ve created a microsite called Thought Pile that invites users to participate in an ideas forum by answering weekly questions that are meant to provoke conversation and innovation. The results are displayed visually in a mind map on the screen, the circles displaying individual concepts growing in real time as the audience votes. Interaction can be as simple as clicking agree or disagree based [...]

Fast on the heels of what many are heralding as the most successful presidential campaign ever staged, folks everywhere are hoping to be the first to uncover the valuable lessons that made this historic election possible. Those in the marketing industry choose to look at the Obama campaign from the perspective of “effective sales pitch to the entire nation,” able to cross all demographics with a single message. However, maybe this is view is too narrow and fails to see the broader implications as we move forward.
To that end, Gawker offers five realistic takeaways that paint a bigger picture [...]

Allison Mooney, friend and Contributing Editor to PSFK, will be moderating our first Good Ideas in 2009 Salon on Tuesday, November 18th. The discussion will surround ideas and innovations in the Mobile space as we look ahead to next year.
Allison Mooney has been working in media and marketing for six years and was part of the launch team for Mobile Behavior, a new Omnicom Group company. As the Director of Trends & Insights, Allison manages the group’s R&D lab, NGT, leads behavioral research efforts, and guides thinking on youth trends, mobile innovations, and consumer behavior. She also started and [...]

A visually stunning new advert from Nike has come to our attention.  The ad was created by Darbotz, an Indonesian artist best known for his monochromatic and intricate style.  Though it may not come across in the video, it’s a promotion for a new version of the classic Air Force Ones.  The video is supposed to reflect the evolution of the brand and give a taste of the reinterpretation and remixing in the Sportswear division.  It was animated by Randy Rais with music by Arianjie.  Here’s the video:

[via Limité Magazine]

Taking a page from their customer friendly food service model, Burger King recently took “Have It Your Way” into the realms of D.I.Y. fashion.  A collaboration between 5 designers and artists tasked with reinterpreting elements of Burger King’s icons and logos culminated at an event held in Chicago on October 24th.  The gathering invited participants to take part in the studio creation process by silk-screening the final designs onto their own clothing in any combination they chose.  Essentially, a clever form of marketing that allowed Burger King to subvert their own image, while at the same time maintaining recognizable aspects [...]