This has to be just about the geekiest bit of advertising we’ve ever seen.
These ads for Fritz Kola feature a character based on a caffeine molecule… who is concentrating. So firstly you’ve got the caffeine molecule turned into a character – and been scientifically accurate. Then you’ve got the bad pun on the word concentrated. Just terrible.
That said, we secretly think they’re brilliant.
(for video versions of these ads (possibly even better) go to artverrtising)
Posted in advertising, baby creative, creative, drink
Tagged advertising, caffeine, cola, Fritz Kola
The cafe culture seems to be one of those things that just keeps on growing. And of course alongside this, we therefore have cafes all trying to do something new and different to make sure they get a slice of the pie. Which is why we were a bit mystified by la Boite when we first saw it.
It is, at first glance, an old trailer. Not much threat to Starbucks and co. However, we were slightly missing the point.
The idea of la Boite (designed for designSTUDIO by Mark Meyer) is that it is portable. The cafe comes to wherever it is needed. During the day, it could sit outside a huge office block, and then it could move to sleepy suburbia for the evenings and weekends.
And what’s more,
La Boite is a green, environmentally sensitive cafe with locally baked goods, sandwiches, and coffee, built from an old shipping container. For the project, DesignSTUDIO used Rainwater HOG’s for greywater collection, biobased spray foam insulation, and Forbo linoleum for the floor and one wall.
So all in all we’re rather impressed. We’re just still not sure we’d have coffee in a trailer.
(source: Architecture4Us via Notcot)
Posted in baby creative, design, drink, environment, food, green, home, transport
Tagged cafe, designSTUDO, la Boite, Mark Meyer
We’re loving this new Coca-cola packaging which sees the iconic bottles revolutionised to become square and streamlined.
Unfortunately, it’s actually the work of design student Andrew Kim, rather than something by Coca-cola themselves, but nevertheless it looks pretty awesome. And it might just be an undergrad project, but its brilliance lies in taking what has to be one of the most ‘accepted’ designs around, and trying to make it better.
Firstly, we really like the simplified logo and graphics, but this isn’t the main selling point of the design. The square edges mean that these bottles can be packed tighter and closer, especially into huge (square) containers and packaging crates, and they even stack. Consequently, an extra 4,000 bottles fit into every packing container, saving huge amounts of money and oil on transport.
This might not sound like a big deal but we’re guessing that there are quite a few containers of Coca-cola shipped around the world every year, and decreasing the volumes can’t be bad…
(via The Dieline)
Posted in advertising, baby creative, creative, drink, environment
Tagged Andrew Kim, Coca Cola, packaging, square
Now from the title you might think we’re talking about some dodgy place in the wrong end of Istanbul, but we’ve actually found somewhere even older.
This was in fact the fast food shop of Vetutius Placidus in Pompeii, which closed one thousand, nine hundred and twenty one years ago, and reopened yesterday, with quite a bit of the original decor still in tact.
Fast food of course seems like a very modern thing, but the Romans apparently loved the stuff, with many people in Pompeii not even having kitchens and getting takeaway on a regular basis. And if you look closely, you can see there’s not even that much that has changed.
You’ve still got the long, L-shaped counter, and people could either sit in or take away. Apparently the real difference is the food, with considerably less kebabs and pizza, and more cheese, honey and assorted fruits.
Still, it’s nice to know that at the height of the Roman Empire, they were still no more cultured than a bunch of boozy students…
(Kuriositas via Notcot)
Kotik design have recently launched an online shop which sells jewellery constructed from bits of branded packaging, such as bottle tops or bits of cans. It might not be to everyone’s taste but we love the concept.
It’s all available to order online, with prices ranging from $20 to over $400. This may seem like a lot for a load of bottle tops and scrap metal, but we think the finished items are cool enough to warrant it. And we really want some of the cufflinks.
We also want to know what happens to all this stuff once the tops and bits of can have been used, and wonder whether they employ someone to drink all the leftovers. If so, we want that job.
(via Design Fetish)
Posted in baby creative, creative, drink
We love this stunt from Heineken Italy. We don’t want to say too much, but they basically managed to convince over a thousand fans of football team AC Milan to abandon the game of the year so far (the Champion’s League fixture against Real Madrid) to go to a night of poetry and classical music…
As far as experiential advertising goes, this has to be just about one of the best examples we’ve seen, purely for the look on all their faces.
Skyscrapers are ugly things. Even most of those supposedly pretty ones over in Dubai and Shanghai. And, despite all efforts, they all look roughly the same. Apart from this thing.
Design Crew for Architecture have created what is in fact a huge water purifying tower. Each ‘soap bubble’ is in fact a greenhouse full of mangrove trees.
Mangrove trees have the unique ability to grow in brackish (salty) water, and then “sweat” clean water. Designed to be built on the Almeira shore in Spain, the whole thing would be filled with huge tidal pumps, and then drained to irrigate land. The designers reckon it could irrigate one hectare per day. We have no idea if that’s good or not, but it sounds like a big area.
All this aside however, it was the beauty of the thing which captured us. We’d love to see something similar made but as a residential block, with each bubble forming a luxury flat…
Posted in Conservation, creative, drink, environment, food, home, Plants
Tagged architecture, bubble, design crew, irrigation, mangrove, skyscrapers, trees, water
All teenage guys seem to feel the need to carry a bottle opener on their keyring. Just for that house party where you can’t be bothered to go all the way to the kitchen. But, aside from these rare situations, the bottle opener tends to make your keys bulky and fairly ugly.
That’s why we love this skeleton key bottle opener from Urban Outfitters. This concept has of course been done before but this execution is particularly pretty, coming straight from the 1700s.
It doesn’t appear to be available in the UK, which is far from ideal, but there are still going to be some stylish US guys out there.
(via Notcot)
Quite a while back, we featured the biosphere farm from Phillips, and assumed that was something of a one-off project to attempt to get in on the whole green thing. But now we’ve come across this.
This ‘Green Cuisine’ kitchen is inspired by Japanese Teppanyaki-style cooking; the notion of cooking and eating in the same place. But what makes this a bit unique is the interactive nature of the table. Each instrument (the kettle, steamer, and cooking modules) has a performance monitor, telling you exactly how much energy you are using.
And, as always with these Phillips projects, the whole things looks just excellent.
(source: Home Quotient)
Posted in drink, environment, food, home
Tagged cuisine, ecological, green, kitchen, Phillips, Teppanyaki
Packaging is dangerous stuff; it can sell almost anything. Cigarettes, chips, snacks and all sorts else are made so appealing largely by their packaging. Fruit, veg and the healthy stuff rarely has this advantage however.
Therefore, we love this attempt to redress the balance by Daizi Zheng, a Chinese designer who has been working in the UK for 16 years.
This may look like a standard pack of cigarettes, but it is in fact a pack of carrot sticks (with houmous!).
Then you’ve got what seems to be a carton of MacDonalds chips (mmm…) but is in fact celery…
And finally blueberries packaged as drugs.
Much as we’d be a little peeved if we bought some chips only to find we’d been given celery, we’re still loving the idea. Someone really needs to make this stuff more interesting, or the kids are going to choose the chips every time…
(source: Hundertmark Blog (German) via Notcot)
Posted in advertising, creative, drink, food
Tagged Daizi Zheng, drugs, fruit, MacDonalds, packaging
