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So the new star trek is finally upon us, and I know there is at least 1 trekkie among us here who will be heading out to see it tonight. I have high hopes for J.J. Abrams new visionary epic and I will be sure to report back on what might actually be the first good trek movie in some time, but then again all it will take is a glimpse of a Patrick Stewart cameo. If you’re out and about tonight, beware of the nerds!!

I’m a sucker for cute robots, but these guys are extra special. They’re part of a little art/social experiment.

These little guys have a little flag which lists their destination and then they’re set loose into the city. They can only move forward which means they need human assistance to get to where they’re going.

If i found one I would steer him into traffic ’cause I’m evil like that.
tweenbots.com

Lately Gatorate has been running an ad campaign called “What’s G?”. For anybody who follows/plays/enjoys sports, this is really cool and inspiring as it features sports legends from past and present. I like how it’s really simple and just lets images deliver the message and it works for its audience. Their website is really cool too which shows what others believe “G” to be.

Check out the ads.
Check out the website.

First things first, I’m not the kind of guy to brag about my work. I hope not anyway. BUT this is a real phenomenon and I’ve never really spoken publicly about it. By now anyone living in a medium to large city in Canada is familiar with that red, reusable lululemon bag. It is absolutely everywhere. A day does not go by here in Vancouver where I don’t I see at least one (usually more) walk by me on the arm of someone out and about in the city. I attribute this to a few key factors; its slogans are inspiring to the target market, it is associated with a cool, hip brand in that market and, well, it’s a cool design. Design wise I don’t consider it my Magnum Opus, but it is the one thing I’ve done in my career that everyone immediately recognizes.

The thing is it was never actually designed to be what it became. Long before it was on posters, bags, tech tops and water bottles around the world, it was originally created around 2004 as a way to creatively display Chip’s wordy manifesto on the back cover of a printed lululemon magazine we were working on here at Cowie and Fox. (I’ve still got a few copies actually if anyone is interested.)

In the last few months, it has been hard for me to ignore the plethora of, dare I say “knockoffs” of the design. I’ve included one here from a the window of a clothing store in Yaletown I saw the other day. I see it even features some very similar wording to the original one…

-dtm

So like every graphic designer on the planet, I own a Mac, a macbook pro to be specific. I love the thing to death.. Well one day (almost a year ago now) I was doing what I normally do, charging it up. I left it in over night and the next day I went to pull out the cable and burnt my finger! Smoke and sparks everywhere. (I’m not exaggerating).

Evidence of the disaster is shown in the photos below. Needless to say, I now take extra care in what I do with my cable, I can only imagine what could of happend if I wasn’t home!

Thankfully I had AppleCare.

It’s no wonder that the advertising industry is known as being “Evil” (Cowie and Fox, The Agency of Change, excluded of course) considering they would pretty much push anything to make a buck.

Not long ago my mother was telling me about when my grandmother was younger. She went to her doctor because she was a little stressed out and was prescribed to take up smoking cigarettes of all things! She tried it for a bit, but never really enjoyed it so she quit not long after she started.

This seemed really weird to me so over the weekend I thought that I would go online and dig up some of the old cigarette ads to see just how low some of the agencies would go. These are just a few of the weird and disturbing examples that I found.

Posted by: Noel Fox

I’ve often wondered why lots sit empty for years downtown, with perfect grass that’s always groomed, the sun is always shinning on it, yet there’s one problem, it’s locked up for no one to use!

This is near Yaletown. Why can’t it be filled with benches and tables for all the people that work in Yaletown to gather and eat lunch.

The grass really is greener on the other side.