Product of the year.

Ever since discovering the existence of blackboard paint, I've wanted to buy some. Partly because I couldn't really believe it exists - surely blackboards are made from some kind of slate, or the dried resin of oak trees?

Anyway, it does exist. I bought some...
Then, I painted a big splodgy blackboard on our office wall (very satisfying it was too)...
And I ordered the cool-liquid-chalk-pen-things that pubs use...
Then Robbie took over and had all the fun. Hmpf.

Working up a lather.

After 4 years experience, a handful of awards, and your own start-up agency, you think you just about understand the creative process. Then, you see something done by a complete amateur that unceremoniously pops your bubble (so to speak):

You stare at it, dumbstruck, and marvel how the art direction subtly reinforces the obvious-but-brilliant knob joke. And all the while you're wondering "Will I ever craft anything as good as this car wash guy from the crap end of Fulham?".

So, all you can do to console yourself is whinge at your girlfriend until she agrees to pose for this shot:

*Image made tiny due to insistence of girlfriend.

Kick someone, feel good.

I've just been having a look at some new work from Weiden + Kennedy Amsterdam, on behalf of the Burnout series of games by EA. The campaign is built around a fake Eastern philosophy called Kah Ra Shin, which promotes "Inner peace through outer violence".

First of all, I like the insight: Anyone who's played video games, particularly ones that involve smashing stuff to bits, knows their stress-busting qualities. And I imagine the Eastern philosophy treatment works well for the Kill Bill generation too. What's more, there's no arguing the site isn't beautifully crafted.

But that's not why I chose to write about it. The thing that interests me is the level of brand presence. The banner ads have none, there's a subtle logo on the website, and some of the content on the site and the YouTube channel of the movement's elders plugs the game.

Now, it's clear that over-branding Kah Ra Shin would've ruined my enjoyment of the piece (and I have no doubt W+K's creatives repeated this like one of their mantras). But, if it wasn't for a bit of perseverance on my part, there's a chance I would have missed the Burnout connection (where the game is mentioned in the content is done nicely, it's just not very up-front). And it's not as if the campaign relies on the intrigue of me not knowing where this mysterious organisation came from: its obviously a joke, and obviously done by a brand. And it's done so well that I reckon Burnout should take more of the credit. But is that just because I like EA?

I guess the trouble is there can't be any hard and fast rules about how prominent branding should be in pieces like this, because it's dependent on the context of the creative idea, the brand's reputation, and who's interacting at the time. (Royal Mail's stoplateness.com is another example that I liked, but was unsure about how branded/unbranded it should've been.)

So all I can say is, for me, EA got pretty close to getting it right for Burnout. What do you think? And have you seen any examples that raise the same issue?

"My lips; Google's Arse. Google's Arse; My Lips."

I'm really conscious that I can't seem to help banging on about practically everything Google do. It's got to the point where I nearly didn't post this:

There's some cool new functionality on Google Maps. It lets average punters like me do the kind of mash-ups that crazy coding people having been doing with the free Google Maps API thingy.

Anyway, I had a bit of a play with my girlfriend's cycle route to work. (I wonder if she'll give it a go?)

It really is brilliant. As well as the obvious bits like doing your own lines, shapes, text & picture annotations, you can even export a KML file and open it with Google Earth. I tried it with the cycle route above and it worked a treat.