When I was a little girl my mother worked in a sewing studio called Cody’s Couture in Georgetown (D.C.), which is where I spent a significant amount of my preschool years. The owner of the studio was a Frenchwoman named Solange Cody who loved me to death. Every time I was there I would join her on her errand-runs, which involved walking around Georgetown picking up lunch, buying flowers, and window-shopping at all the little boutiques. Hanging out with her allowed me to absorb everything in this trendy neighborhood within Washington, D.C. I remember loving all the clothes, the fashion, and window displays ? even then I appreciated the treasures in these little spaces. It’s truly amazing what stays with you because today I love doing the same thing. No matter what city I live in I ha ve to explore the boutiques. I don’t need to buy anything, because for me there is something very nostalgic and wonderful about just visiting and admiring the unique flavor in each of them. Blogging for Fly gives me more opportunities to do so and an excuse to take pictures so I can share these inspiring spaces with others.

Here are some pictures from some recent boutique visits in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

Cute earrings and colorful clothing from Harriet’s Alter Ego.

Funky clutches and pretty tops from Redberi.

Dom was a fellow speaker at the Idea Forum in Bucharest the other week. Since Glue is blazing quite a trail in the interactive world at the moment, I thought it was worth asking its technology guru some questions about his job and the changing world of brands in the interactive space.

1. Briefly describe Glue and your role at the agency?

I work at UK digital ad agency glue London (current clients include the likes of Adidas, Toyota, Bacardi, Nokia, 3, Playstation, McCain, COI and Virgin Trains)

My role is Head of Emerging Technology which is a job title shrouded in ambiguity I know, but actually means I focus on identifying how technology can enhance glue’s creative idea, and how technology can be harnessed to take the creative idea out to new audiences. A lot of time is spent digging out links to the best campaigns and technology partners, creating learning's and then trying to educate and inspire the wider agency on how to do cool stuff.

2. How does technology integrate itself into the creative solution?

We strive to integrate technology as seamlessly as possible. We always approach things from the consumers perspective who on the whole couldn't care less about technology. What people want is a great experience that's tailored to the channel they're on. People should stay oblivious to what's going on under the bonnet. The best technology is invisible.

Once we have a creative idea and understand who the audience is, we're then in the position to identify which channels could be relevant - out of which the technologies generally fall. It's massively important to fully understand the opportunities and limitations of each of the channels, and to try and push those boundaries with each project.

3. What new demands are clients placing on interactive communications?

We’ve witnessed a shift from brands buying time with an audience, to a need for brands to create time with an audience – and by that I mean creating experiences or utilities that add value and that people choose to spend time with.

It’s human nature that once we’ve had a great experience we tell our friends about it (and by experience I mean any experience). Our objective is therefore to enable our brands to enter peoples everyday conversations in a positive fashion, and we do this by building rich and engaging experiences or utilities that people want to spend time with. 

4. Looking ahead, what technology trends do you think are going to be big in the interactive space?

Everything is so new that the industry as a whole is on a collective learning exercise to understand what channel opportunities are out there, how people are using these channels, how brands can add value to people on these channels, and also how to build for them. (Made easier by the fact that all of these are constantly evolving!)

For me the special campaigns will be those that understand how people use particular channels, and identify when to employ them in combination to produce something special. The Nike piece is a perfect example.

The other big thing for me is dynamic video. The digital industry has historically been restricted on how work is executed by the limitations of Flash. Motion graphics and 3d applications offer a much wider variety of techniques and better production values, so I think we’ll see a lot more agencies moving into this space.

5. What work out there do you wish Glue had been involved with?

There is so much good work out there. The work R/GA do for Nike is amazing. I love Absolut Machines as an example of how to create a real world experience that is controlled virtually. The Japanese have always been good at technology and their creative skills are now catching up fast. The recent Uniqlock piece is a great example of this and is a strong creative idea is deployed over a variety of channels.

6. Where do you find your inspiration?

I have a wide group of friends from all walks of life. I expose myself and absorb as much as I can across all disciplines. I make time to look on the interweb but also make sure I do real world things too.

There’s an interesting insight to be had everywhere. We’re lucky in London because there’s stuff going on around us all the time, the trick is finding the time to go to it.




Posted by Ed Cotton

Things seem to be happening so fast as the  rapid change in the economy coupled with all sorts of other concerns seems to be changing consumer behavior in a rapid fashion. The suburban dream has been questioned for years, but I find it fascinating to see the European and New York city mantra of the value of neighborhoods starting to be widely embraced. One great manifestation of this comes in the form of the Seattle based Walkscore, a website dedicated to helping citizens discover the walkability of various neighborhoods.

The site explains the multiple benefits of walking.


Posted by Ed Cotton

Level Vodka invited star fashion designer and artist Hussein Chalayan to create a pioneering work of art with a focus on taste. He was given completely free rein. The result is The Level Tunnel – a 15 meters long and 5 meters high travelling installation that captures the essence of Level Vodka. But the road leading there was anything but straight. Follow The Level Tunnel Team’s blog on the daily twists and turns of this spectacular project (the blog will only be updated during the tunnel events).

After the premiere in Mexico, The Level Tunnel will continue to Athens and Paris. It will visit each city for 1-2 weeks and is partly open to the general public. The visitors will experience the taste of Level Vodka with all their senses but one - sight. They wander blindfolded through the tunnel as they hear music from flutes made out of Level bottles, inhale scents of the super premium vodka, and are enclosed by the soft leather of the railing. And when they climb out, it all ends with a tasting event.

Ping Intressant.se

Andra bloggar om: level vodka, hussein chalayan, reklam, marknadsföring, kreativitet

We are winding down on the conceptual design work for the Unger Studio today. Posted are current images of the state of the design.



The building will be clad, as its location requires it to be insulated. The owner is considering steel insulated sandwich panels similar to what we use on the EcoSteel projects.



The balconies are intended to be made from an industrial mezzanine system. The roof is a self supporting corrugated steel arch, a very economical structure. Normally its used to create inexpensive space under roof and would come all the way down to the slab in a quonset hut like fashion. We are experimenting with several appropriated building technologies in this project to try and keep the cost to a minimum. We will continue to report on how that plays out.

Technorati Tags: container house, modern design, modern house, prefab house

Here’s an interesting interview with fashion designer and artist Hussein Chalayan about the Level Vodka tunnel that he has designed.

Ping Intressant.se

Andra bloggar om: reklam, marknadsföring, vodka, hussein chalayan, varumärke

A snapshot of the latest trends of Location-based Service (LBS) in Beijing, Shanghai, Hongkong and Tokyo.

Trend Description:

Many people would agree that Location-based Services (LBS) are becoming increasingly popular worldwide and are opening a host of opportunities for business, but few would agree on the business model that will best monetize the service. Nokia expects to ship 35 million GPS-phones in 2008 and the latest  ABI report blueprinted a $ 3.3 billion market value for LBS, but still the way to whip up revenues from existing technology and infrastructure remains unclear. Here we filtered some promising, if not profitable, practices of LBS in Asia to summarize new trends for industrial practitioners and those who may be concerned.

Cases:

GyPsii is a social networking platform headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherland. It has partnered with Shanghai Rannuo and China Unicom to launch its GyPSii service during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and has opened a China Data Center to enhance local user experience. What GyPSii is doing in China is encouraging its network users to send back location information via mobile devices and integrate it into the digital map. Other users (who are also content creators) then, can experience a seamless mobile lifestyle, connecting with friends and communities, searching UGC and viewing maps and directions to points of interest.

Naviblog X is Japan’s first location-based moblog/mobsearch website. With this service, usrs can easily create their mobile diary sites within 60 seconds even if they know little about programming.  After the sites are created, they point their mobile phones to the QR Code auto-generated with the sites and transfer them to the mobile phones of their friends or clients to log on the sites. It is also designed to geo-tag users’ information by one-click. Naviblog is said to be used on non-Japan phones soon.

Fashion makers lag behind to none in creativity if not in high-tech. With thousands of foreigners entering China this Olympic year, Louis Vuitton, the French luxury fashion brand entered the mobile space with a unique location-based audio guide, available in six languages, to three major cities, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. The voice is coming from three locally born actresses: Gong Li for Beijing, Joan Chen for Shanghai and Shu Qi for Hong Kong. It directs visitors by mobile phones in real time through the cities and costs 17 USD for for each city in one of the six languages, English, French, Cantonese, Chinese, Korean and Japanese.

Trend Impact:

The convergence of social networking, user-created content and location is a big trend. Mobile-enabled LBS is important because it links up something missing on the internet. There are some major barriers for business related to mobile internet, such as licensing and sophisticated algorithms, but as some of the global players have discovered, a fast track to enter a local market is to line up with local mobile carriers, technological developers and last but not least the users, who know best what they want.

Photography by Jonathan Cruz Photography

Researchers at Iowa State University have found that photovoltaic thin film has advanced to the point where it is durable and efficient enough to be incorporated into clothing. Following these advances, they have decided to craft the photovoltaic material into a snazzy solar powerneck necktie, along with several other solar-powered garments. Talk about the ‘power suit’!

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