Sharp Thinking

Recenty Sharpie has released an ad campaign that has allowed passers-by a chance to very publicly take part in an act of “vandalism”. These interactive billboards allow a viewer to pick colors and leave their mark all over cities’ ads, sort of taking the opinion: “Its going to happen anyway, why not facilitate it.”


There are a couple reasons why something like this is/can be so successful, especially in the techno-savvy world we are living in:

One, it allows any ordinary person to feed their inner-desire to vandalize. Honestly, we all know it feels great to do something risky and get away with it. It’s human nature.

Secondly, and more smartly, Sharpie has caught on to this “touch-screen” lifestyle everyone is starting to live. With iPhones and Blackberrys offering the Internet and so many other apps literally at the consumers’ fingertips, touch screens and interactivity have become commonplace. Therefore the interface / framework is more familiar to the average viewer and usability becomes almost natural.

This expands Sharpie’s audience as well as changing advertising and guerrilla type campaigns for competitors, both in the permanent marker business as well as those just competing for the attention of the daily commuter on the city streets.

Source: the cool hunter
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Movie Title Screens R' Us

This guy, Steven Hill, has collected a countless amount of movie title screens on his website that are really pretty fantastic. From a design and typographic standpoint, the site really highlights what I feel has been an overlooked part of the movie-going experience.

Steven has mainly pulled from his collection, but also takes submissions from faithful viewers. He has collated from all forms of media: dvd, vhs, laserdisc (who knew?). The result is a stunning collection of movies old and new. Scrolling through, its pretty interesting to see where movies have come and gone, sort of the trends of older westerns like this:



To the latest movies that have relied on minimalism:


Either way this site portrays the strength of typography to carry an emotion. Not only what that title is but how it is displayed, what the typeface(s) is/are, can set the mood of the entire movie. In this way the type becomes more than just words. This realization leads to some of the more successful movies because the director is able to create a completely cohesive experience for the audience in which they can immerse themselves entirely into the emotion of the film right from the start. Now, these are the thoughts of a major typophile but if it isn't this deep to you, at least its a fantastic way to spend an hour.
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