Excuse the pun. Who says that advertising can’t help people? This innovative bus stop poster combines creative with functionality as it doubles as a charging station for mobile phones.

Despite Vitamin Water actually have very little to do with technology, the message is beautifully simple. It tells you that the drink will revive, restore and recharge your internal batteries, much like what the poster will do for your phone.

(Source: www.trendhunter.com)

St. Patrick’s Day is all about tradition, and we think this ad for Fujifilm from last March appeals to the nostalgia of bygone celebration. The copy, though somewhat hard to read, speaks of a distant memory that so many can relate to, conceptualizing the timelessness of a Fujifilm photo.

(Source: Coloribus)

Following the theme of tradition, McDonald’s clever promotion for its Shamrock Shake plays on the annual dying of the Chicago River. We’ve heard the shake isn’t quite appetizing, but really appreciate the advertiser’s optimisation of placement at a spectacle that gathers tens of thousands every year. The Shamrock Shake “spilled” into the River for the past two years.

(Source: Ads of the World)

The following ad from Durex employs the stereotypical Irish phrase “to be sure, to be sure.” We like the use of white space to make the product the main spectacle, and assume the green condoms are meant to resemble four leaf clovers, creating a second layer of play on “getting lucky.”

(Source: The Chip Chop Awards)

Finally, what would St. Patrick’s Day (or advertising, for that matter) be without Guinness? We love this one, calling all to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day like a “real holiday,” and we couldn’t agree more!

So, as Durex advises, have a fun, safe St. Patrick’s Day!

The result is a very cool looking ceiling that has dramatically increased the acoustics of the restaurant, whose high ceiling had forced the restaurant’s sounds to bounce around, echoing.

The curved shape of the wine bottles allows the sound waves to instead be “broken,” resulting in better sound quality and ambience. The bottles, most of which are shades of green, also illicit a smooth glow throughout the restaurant.

(Source: Tree Hugger)

Pouring a pint takes time, about 30 seconds, and usually results in quite a lot of waste: getting the head right can sometimes be a bit of a challenge.

But someone in America has come up with a genius idea. What if instead of pouring a beer, you filled the glass from the bottom, which would solve the head and waste issue? The question is how.

Well, the way this system works, is with plastic cup, and a magnet which fills the hole at the bottom of the glass. When you remove the glass from the tap, it pulls the magnet to the bottom of the glass, and with the pressure from the liquid, the magnet stays in place, sealing the glass.

And on top of that, it pours a pint in about 5 seconds. Saves time, avoids waste, which keeps customers and bar tenders happy. A revolution for any future big event.

We’re just not too sure about the magnet waste though. And does it actually save more money, than traditional taps?

(Source: Youtube)

What if you could melt and make your own as you please? A design student cleverly came up with wax dishes that you can make on the go, melt again and remake.

The set, called Meltware, is made of 3 stoneware pieces: a spoon, a bowl and a carafe. Seems a bit limited, but it actually gives you a fair amount of possibilities, as it allows you to manage the size of the dishes you are creating. So bowls, big bowls, plates, side dishes, big spoons, small spoons, it’s all possible, and it’s all up to you.

What’s even better is the fact you can just melt the whole thing off for storage, so as not to clutter your cupboards with 25 plates!

It sounds like a lot of fun to do as well, even though a bit of practice is probably needed before managing to make whole sets that are pretty consistent. But still, a good buy for Christmas! And you can then show off at your dinner party, calling yourself a true designer. How cool is that?

But obviously a few precautions have to be taken, such as not serving hot tea in one of those, as you’re pretty sure that the whole thing will melt away. But otherwise, perfect for a cold buffet!

(Source: Co.Design)

With charity being such a brutally competitive advertising sector, it is
welcome relief to see something that literally stops you in your tracks.

Instead of the typical billboard portraying a poor African kid drinking dirty water, they have packaged the water, loaded a vending machine with it, and installed it in the middle of Manhattan. For $1, New Yorkers could purchase one of the 8 flavours on offer, including malaria, cholera, hepatitis and yellow fever, which would provide a child with 40 days of drinkable water.

And for the ones who didn’t have change or didn’t fancy carrying a bottle of infected water, they could just text the number on the machine to donate money.

We think it’s a very inspiring initiative, as rather than playing on feelings of pity and guilt, it engages the public, confronting them with the reality of living in a third world country. And it was very successful! It’s all part of their Tap Project, which also includes World Water Week where participating restaurants charge $1 for tap water that you would normally get for free.

Check out the video below for people’s reaction.

(Source: Zeutch and PSFK)

The concept is simple but audacious: one idea a day, turning common and often boring items into exciting ones.

Selecting our favourites turned out to be a rather difficult task though, as most of their ideas are just brilliant! And not only is it all creative and fun, but it’s also accessible and cheap.

So next time you need a coat hanger and a pizza slicer, don’t go Ikea, just recycle an empty egg box and a scratched vinyl!

You can check more of their crazy work on their blog.

(Source: ignant)

These glasses from the lovely The Way We See The World have the rather excellent quality of being totally edible. They are made from agar agar, and come in flavours including lemon-basil, ginger-mint, or rosemary-beet, so you can match the glass to your drink.  We love the idea of Pimms in a ginger-mint glass, for example…

The other brilliant thing about them being edible is that they are of course also completely biodegradable. In fact, they actually aid plant growth. So when you’ve finished (or just when you inevitably break a glass) you can throw it in to the flower bed and feel good about it.

(via ifitshipitshere)

Pete Geyer and Andrea Parrish are however much more ingenious. They set themselves a wedding budget of $4000, and decided to raise it purely by recycling cans. 400,000 cans to be precise.

And they succeeded, in just 197 days, and have even learned something in the process:

When I got further into the research of the impact that the just 400,000 cans would have, I would definitely say that the environmental impacts are equal to, if not more important than the budget friendliness.

So they’ve even learned something in the process.

We’re big fans of this whole recycling thing, but it does seem to lack something by way of romance…

(source: TreeHugger)

Snoutcups play on that thing we all do (yes, even you) with plastic cups when we’re drinking from them. And as silly as this might be, the results are excellent – we especially love the dog nose.

And okay this might all be a bit inane, but the really excellent bit is yet to come. On the maker’s site, it says the following:

As we care about animals we donate an amount from every pig snout cup sold to Pigs in Need, a Dutch organisation who cares about the health of pigs.

This has to be one of the most bizarre methods of charity giving we’ve ever seen. And can you think of a more worthy cause?! We’re pretty sure we can…

(via Notcot)