i ain't afraid of no ghosts

'i ain't afraid of no ghosts' is the latest installation from Taylor Baldwin. Baldwin's bizarre and strangely beautiful collection of sculptures are really intriguing and not only that, they have a Ghostbusters connection - winner!

These somewhat eccentric looking creations are made using a variety of materials as 'a tool to stitch messy personal relationships with objects into a web of history and material, civilization and landscape, politics and knowledge'.

But enough o'that, this collection is definitely worth a look. Check out the rest here. 

El mas Santo

This Lucha Libre inspired art project has deservedly gained a bit of a following. The El mas Santo project created by a Polish art student was set to spice up the streets of Poland, or in other words, to 'juxtapose the world of Mexican wrestlers with the grey and sad reality of the Polish streets'. Anyway, 200 tiny Mexican wrestler figurines were created and placed on the streets, giving people the opportunity to interact with the project. The idea caught on and little Luchadores started showing up all over the shop.

You can view photos of the little warriors found in various destinations around the globe on the site here. If you happen to see a mini Luchadore be sure to take a photo and send it to the El mas Santo project and pass it on.

We like things everyone can get involved in and can't think of anything nicer than seeing fierce little Luchadores dotted around these streets. They might just put a smile on some of the po faces of the oh-so-fashionable types round here. 

Eyes peeled... 

Clean Street Art

We spotted this mysterious creature on the pavement near Sell! Towers this morning. It's a superb design that looks like it's been cleverly created by a pressure washer. A nice clean addition to our street. Lets hope the East London grime doesn't covert it too quickly.

Jonathon from Spotify...

If you listen to Spotify, then you will love this site.

The best thing since...

We have just spotted these lovely Sliced Bread notebooks. Nice visual pun and the notebooks look quite tasty too. Find out more here.

Via EffektiveBlog

Sugar packet mascots

Check out this great flickr collection of sugar packet mascots.

Buy More Shit Or We're All Fucked

I popped into the small but perfectly formed Ink_d gallery in Brighton over the weekend to have a look at the Modern Toss exhibition. There's some great stuff in there; prints of some of the latest funny stuff from the new book, and some other great things like this print. You can also get it as a cotton bag too, which I couldn't resist buying. It's a great bunch of stuff, on until the end of the week if you get chance to go.

Planning. A Global Affliction. But Still Worse Over Here.

Planning. It's not all bullshit. Some of it comes from cows.

There was a little piece in this weeks edition of the weekly ad-tabloid Campaign asking Why is the UK failing at awards shows? As regular readers of the Sell! Sell! blog will know, I couldn't give a monkeys about creative awards schemes, but nevertheless, one of the opinions made me cringe so much that my chin and my forehead almost touched.

It was the planning director of MCBD, who said "Planning has now become the norm around the world, rather than a peculiar job function that only existed in the UK. In turn, this has helped international agencies develop more insightful and lateral strategies".

I offer another view:

Even though most of the advertising world has now been afflicted by the debilitating scourge of planning and it's associated nonsense, the UK ad business is so fucking hamstrung by its powerpoint-fuelled bullshittiness, that we're still fucking streets ahead in the production of meaningless, stilted and waffly advertising.

It's all opinions though, innit?

Thanks Anyway, But I'm Not A Trustworthy Indian

Since I posted our doubles email address on the Bullshit Free Zone post, it's been getting a rather interesting selection of spam and scam emails. Normally it's just a click and delete, but I thought this one from Diplomat Mr Steve Adams (very English name) was worth sharing...

Andreas Banderas

Norwegian artist, Andreas Banderas' (spectactular name!) collage work is random, vivid and totally brilliant. Peruse his site for more visual delights. His book of images 'U Tell Me' looks rather neat and is currently on sale - far too tempting.

72 Rivington St.

72 Rivington Street is the new physical home of YCN, a multi-purpose space comprising a public ground floor, two floors of studio and a rooftop too. The space has been designed for YCN by the Klassnik corporation, with interiors installed by OKAY Studio and Rob Thuring.

One of the highlights of this new space is the free membership to the lending library. If you're in the area get yourself down, have a nosey and a chat with the friendly guys there. They have some lovely printed collateral as well.

Over the wall

On the 9th of November 1989 the Berlin Wall came down. Illustrator Christopher Niemann was 18 and living in Germany. He moved to America but went back to Berlin last year and 20 years on, he recalls his experience of the event here with some great illustrations.

Meet Terry

Terry is the frontman/dinosaur in this film produced over the weekend by Ryan, Emma and one of their mates for the Cannes Young Lions Competition. They had 48 hours from brief to deadline to write and make a film up to 60 seconds long, and post it up on yootoooobe.

I had a look at the brief myself, and it was incredibly complicated, so fair play to anyone (like these lot) who made it into something simple with a clear call to action.

There are loads of entries, hats off to everyone who entered, there are loads of excuses you can make not to do something like this, but actually doing something is the important bit.
Best of luck with it.

Have a watch, and pass it on to your friends. Oh and maybe sign the Copenhagen Summit Petition while you're at it.

Art & Copy

Art & Copy is a new film that reveals the stories behind and the personal odysseys of some of the most influential advertising visionaries of our time and their campaigns, including Lee Clow (Apple Computer 1984, and today’s iPod); Dan Wieden (“Just Do It”); Phyllis K. Robinson (who invented the “me generation” with Clairol); Hal Riney (who helped President Reagan get re-elected); and George Lois (who saved MTV and launched Tommy Hilfiger overnight).

This looks very nicely shot and sounds well worth a watch but no word on a London screening yet.

Cover Up

This is the cover artwork for the new Manic Street Preachers album, Journal for Plague Lovers by Jenny Saville.

But you won't be seeing it in Sainsburys, Asda or Tesco anytime soon. It's been deemed so offensive by these British supermarkets that they are censoring the cover with a plain black sleeve. Sainsburys reckon "that some customers might consider this particular album cover to be inappropriate... As such, the album will be sold in a sleeve provided by the publisher."

Personally, I think it's a painting that makes you feel slightly uneasy at best but inappropriate? Certainly not. As James Dean Bradfield points out, there are far more offensive images in the magazine and gaming aisles (FHM, Nuts and Grand Theft Auto spring to mind).

"You can have lovely shiny buttocks and guns everywhere in the supermarket on covers of magazines and CDs, but you show a piece of art and people just freak out," Bradfield said. "We're not going to censor it or anything ... It is what it is."

You can read the Guardians article on this here.

New Ad For The New Madness Album The Liberty Of Norton Folgate Breaking This Weekend

A little preview for our loyal and highly attractive readers. Our commercial for the new Madness album The Liberty Of Norton Folgate breaks this weekend. The smashing Madness gents decided that to promote their new album they'd like to do an ad a bit more irreverent and well, Madnessy, than the usual 'clip-of-the-video-and-a-pack-shot' music release ads. So they approached our friends at production company Gas & Electric and ourselves to see what we could cook up.

And this is it, a parody of those old detergent ads, Suggs tests the new album in completely fictious brand Zazz! and an Ordinary Detergent. A big thanks to Gas & Electric for their hard work, and of course the Madness crew for doing it. It was also the Sell! Sell! directorial debut, which made it doubly enjoyable for us.

As seen in the work in progress post.

48 hours and counting...

The eagerly anticipated Cannes Young Lions 48 Hour Ad Contest charity brief goes live at midnight, tonight! It will be a 48 hour scramble but a great challenge.

Last years' winners, from Argentina, won gold with this film entry.

To enter yourself and/or find out more information about the contest visit the official site here.

Cards of change

Cards of change is a collection of business cards and stories by people who have recently been laid off and ended up turning it into a positive apparently. Quite a few seem to have went on holiday for a while and are now back to where they started, nice idea though.

Awkward Family Photos

Exactly what it says on the tin. Although I think weird photos might be a better name for this site. Especially after looking at the one below, wrong on so many levels. It made us laugh so hard a little bit of wee came out.

Western Frieze

At first glance the above photos might appear desolate, static and a little eerie but if you keep looking you'll see that the pieces are elegantly composed and somewhat calming. These photos are taken from Texan photographer, Bryan Schutmaat's 'Western Frieze' collection. Schutmaat's work has real presence - he captures appreciated moments frozen in time, and offers a different take on Texan living. His work is worth a look. See more from his collections here. 

via booooooom