Category Archives: Art

Light Photography’s New Best Friend

pixelstick1

With the rise in DSLR camera ownership, light photography has emerged as an increasingly popular form of photography. While it has traditionally been a difficult style of photography to master, New York-based designers Duncan Frazier and Steve McGuigan have entirely revolutionized it with just one product: the Pixelstick. The Pixelstick is a LED-lit stick that can display the “pixels” of images, as it is pulled in front of a DSLR camera with a long exposure. With the Pixelstick, photographers can create still images, or capture several images to put together into an animated video.This gives photographers the freedom to “paint” images and even video clips and gifs onto whatever real-life (dark) background they can imagine. It also gives brands an opportunity to put their logo in some creative locations. Take a look at this video and see some of the incredible possibilities.

Light painting with pixelstick from Bitbanger on Vimeo.

What Sparks Our Fire: A revolutionary new product that can expand creative possibility

Probably The Best Beer Ad In The World

Screen Shot 2015-04-16 at 12.08.16 PM

Last week, Carlsberg UK, the UK-arm of the Danish brewery, delighted Britons with “probably the best poster in the world.” This poster– no ordinary poster, of course– had a built-in tap that gave out free beer to passersby in London’s trendy Shoreditch neighborhood.

This ad is similar to a recent Coke Zero advertisement at the NCAA Final Four competition in Indianapolis. There, a billboard with a 4,500-foot straw pumped Coke Zero into nearby fountain spouts.

In both cases, the advertisements gave consumers a chance to sample the brands while showcasing their respective billboards. This effectively combines recent ideas around “activations” with “traditional advertising.”

What Sparks Our Fire: New ideas that create not-so-traditional advertising

The (he)ART of NYC

Screen Shot 2015-04-09 at 3.37.23 PM

New York City at it’s core, is known as a center of the arts.  You can get your art fill all over the city, making stops along museum mile, gallery hopping in Chelsea, taking in the street art in Dumbo, or making the trek out to PS1 in Queens, and now even in one of the most iconic spots in all of the city… Times Square.

Now, as New Yorkers, we tend to avoid Times Square at all costs, but artist Peggy Ahwesh’s City Thermogram, has made it a destination spot for art lovers as well as tourists.

Screen Shot 2015-04-09 at 3.36.58 PM

City Thermogram unveils both NYC’s electrical grid and the heat signatures of the human bodies that crowd its streets onto many of the largest billboards in the area. It’s a portrait of the urban everyday through the lens of a heat-sensitive camera. Using innovative technology, the piece recasts our ‘photographic’ world into one of unexpected revelations about our bodies, energy sources and personal devices. While this technology is usually used for scientific purposes, in Ahwesh’s hands the camera reveals the dynamism of the human body and offers a heat-based visualization of the electrical power grid that we all operate within.

This is part of the Midnight Moment series, the largest coordinated effort in history by the sign operators in Times Square to display synchronized, cutting-edge creative content on electronic billboards and newspaper kiosks throughout Times Square every night.

What Sparks Our Fire: Innovative Art in Unexpected Places

Pixel Art and Post-its

office-mural-with-post-it-notesOver the past few years, there’s been a resurgence of pixel inspired art and pop culture of the 80s and 90s.  This trend has been spurred on by nostalgic Gen x-ers and first-wave millennials looking back to their youth and the joys of 8-bit gaming.

Last week, an SF based creative agency was looking for a way to spruce up their drab office walls.  After a couple of suggestions and internal discussions, designer Ben Brucker, found a cost effective solution to improve his office decor.

v6gldQ3

With a budget of $300, Ben and his coworkers purchased nearly 9000 multi-colored post-its to create pixelated murals of Wonder woman, Superman, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Iron Man, Spiderman and Batman.

mural-jpg

While it may not be a long-term solution, it’s a great exercise in creativity and team building.

Watch the entire process:

What Sparks Our Fire: Creative, cost-effective design solutions

Leave Your Brain At The Door

Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 11.44.53 AM

Every year, the ADC Festival brings hundreds of creatives together from the fields of advertising, design, photography, illustration, digital and motion graphics to celebrate their inner artist. Featuring hands-on workshops, networking lunches, and poolside cocktail parties, the festival provides both aspiring and established industry folks a place to learn about our industry and some of the key movers in it. 

This years festival is bringing together heavy hitters like James Victore, Jessica Walsh, Timothy Goodman… just to name a few.  Sign up and get ready for a great line up, including: “No Brains Allowed”, led by Rich Tu, an award-wining NYC based artist. This workshop “is geared toward unsettling your creative brain and reigniting the initial spark that brought you to where you are through different creative interactions”. James Victore’s workshop is all about getting to know yourself as a designer and tapping into the roots of your creativity, thus unleashing your best work.

What Sparks our Fire: A great program, put together by our friends over at The Art Directors Club.