MTV and hp have teamed up to create a global cross-promo campaign which places art and design centre stage. Fresh from their innovative adventures with the bfi and National Gallery, hp are using the MTV platform to engage new consumers.
MTV EngineRoom revolves around 6 creative challenges for international teams using hp gear. Challenges include interpreting time travel using digital media, designing websites for indie rockers, and mash-ups of college music.
And for the next challenge…
We’ve had Dell’s artist-designed laptops, now hp are taking personalisation to the next level. The Notebook Design Contest asks users to submit designs for a limited edition laptop, which Joe Public will vote on to select a winner.
This is your Engine Room challenge.
Use your art to make your mark globally! Design unites. It’s one of the most personal ways we communicate with each other through art; it transcends language and culture. We invite you to submit your best designs for a chance to create the next global special edition HP notebook. Whether you’re classic or modern, cosmic or grounded, explosive or minimal, show the world what you’ve got!
In the midst of this global financial turmoil, CNN reports that expensive art is suffering but at the Affordable Art Fair, sales are up. ‘Low price art pieces’ are hot.
We’ve had enough of ‘choose what you want’, now it’s time for ‘tell me what to choose’. Whether it’s listening to friends or to trusted influencers, Curation is hitting the mainstream.
By now, sites such as Last.fm have firmly established the idea of social recommendations: “Every track you play will tell your Last.fm profile something about what you like. It can connect you to other people who like what you like - and recommend songs from their music collections and yours too.”
Social search is on it’s way too, from start-ups through to Google. Techcrunch recently posted a video of ‘the future of Google search’, complete with a Digg-style interface that allows users to vote search results up or down, comment on results, and prioritise whose comments/recommendations they listen to (see below for a demo).
Back in the real world, club nights like Matter London are bringing in specialists to ‘curate’ the evening. One recent import was LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Pat Mahoney, who have been running a party in New York, ‘Special Disco Version’. The mix of DJs and artists they curated for one night only at Matter included Brazilian light and visual artists AVAF (Assume Vivid Astro Focus), who usually only do shows in art galleries.
Bestival, the boutique music festival on the Isle of Wight, is proudly “curated by BBC Radio 1’s Rob da Bank” and his wife, Josie. According to their intro, “It’s Rob and Josie da Bank’s creative vision that sets Bestival apart. Whilst the massive musical brain of Rob ensures the Bestival line-up is the most eclectic you’ll ever experience, it’s Josie’s creative wand that casts its magic over Bestival land. From the most original boutique campsite experience, to the Bollywood Cocktail Bar, fancy dress en mass and even a Hidden Disco, it’s this uniqueness that makes Bestival a wondrous world of discovery and adventure that will inspire peace, love and dancing not only in September but all year round…”
Since curation is the bread and butter of galleries and museums, the timing’s perfect to feed the mainstream hunger for ‘curated’ offers from authoritative influencers.
10 years and $500million USD later, San Francisco’s new California Academy of Sciences has been declared by the BBC as the ‘greenest museum ever’. Not least because of its indoor, 4-storey rainforest and ‘living roof’ - 2.5 planted acres of native species.
Sustainable design was built in from day one. The Pritzer Award-winning architect, Renzo Piano, envisaged a roof design that “is like lifting up a piece of the park and putting a building under it.” As well as looking pretty, it starts new conversations about sustainable design and green issues among visitors – exhibits within an exhibit.
At 410,000 square feet, the building draws together the 12 separate structures previously housing the collections. The one building ensures that both the physical and the thematic intertwine throughout.
One final note. As should be expected considering its pioneering neighbours, the Academy boasts awesome technological integration. Among other attractions, visitors will be able to “view the most accurate rendering of the Universe ever created, catch virtual butterflies with a digital net, make a public video pledge that’s instantly shared with others over the internet, and use a cell-phone to go on an Academy-wide scavenger hunt.”
£222.70 London Heathrow to San Francisco with Air France – anyone else feel a trip coming on..?
Product co-creation, available from Barneys and featuring limited edition jeans, t-shirts and polka dot denim jackets.
The pictured jeans are available only through silent auctions in Asia, Europe and America. Definite investment potential.
Crowned today as Favourite Web Award (FWA)’s website of the day (the Oscars of web design), GrandPalais.fr challenges museum pre-visit web pages to enter a whole new ballpark.
As most of our potential museum or gallery visitors head first for the web to check the usual opening hours, directions and what’s on, this opportunity to whet appetites and set expectations represents a crtitical touchpoint.
For the Grand Palais, pre-visit means Google Earth-esque swooping flyarounds, interspersed with introductions to key narratives, concepts and collections. The rich media, video, animations and photos make it feel like you’re already there - energy, intrigue… where do I get a ticket again? Oh yeah, there’s the link… (perfectly positioned next to the ‘Support us’ button!)
We talk about understanding your punters a lot on here, in order to meet them where they’re at rather than expecting them to go out of their way to come to you. Here’s a store that just seems to ‘get’ 11-year-old girls and their sock-wearing habits.
Fresh from conquering US shoppers, Littlemissmatched.co.uk has arrived in the UK. They only sell mismatched socks, in hundreds of varieties, and in packets of three, “(so you’ll never be without a pair a socks ever again!)”.
Seth Godin makes two great points to take home from this: 1) Turning socks into collectibles is a simple, obvious idea that many people would have been too scared to try; 2) Littlemissmatched.com are changing socks from a low-margin, low-interest commodity into a higher-margin, high-interest fashion.
As usual, it’s the simplest of ideas…
