Cherryflava

DJ Skooky – engineering the rebirth of a nation

Posted on 29. Feb, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

New York-based DJ Spooky aka Paul D. Miller describes himself as an independent artist, writer, producer, and musician.

While most of Thursday’s speakers at the Indaba we’re very focused on visual arts, Mr Spooky has a strong audio design background.
We particularly enjoyed his sound recordings and film featuring melting ice shelf in Antarctica. [see it here]

Best presenter on the day.

Check out his site: DJSpooky.com

Electricty saving winning print ad

Posted on 28. Feb, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

Ta da – the winner of The Times Young Creatives Competition held at Design Indaba has been announced…and here’s the winning ad.

No T&A, no unnecessary stunts, no excessive Photoshop work…in fact no electricity-using computer generated design at all, just a pencil and a simple sheet of paper, all of which took 2 hours from brief to final ad to create.

Jennifer Macfarlane, art director, and Cuan Cronwright, copy writer, of Ogilvy Cape Town who won the competition created their hand-drawn ad without using a computer or any other electrical equipment. The ad was stylishly hand-crafted with a simple pencil and the copy highlighted that 350 watts of electricity was saved by switching the computer off for two hours.

Simple, but thought provoking. The winners head to Zanzibar, and Ogilvy score a full-page in The Times for another pro bono client. [thanks Alison]

Most beautiful object in South Africa in 2008 is…

Posted on 28. Feb, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

…this Nested Bunk Bed, designed and developed by Cape Town-based Tsai Design Studio.

What is it – you may wonder….well as the name cunningly describes, it’s a bed design specifically to offer a space solution for overcrowded, low-cost houses in the developing world.

When not being used for sleeping purposes, it also doubles up as grandstand seating for the all important Stormers vs Crusaders game or the upcoming Oscar del la Hoya bout with Floyd Mayweather.

Living space is at a
premium in South Africa’s townships – it’s not unusual for six to eight
people to share 36 square metres of space. The Nested Bunk Bed offers a
space solution for overcrowded, low-cost houses.

Sections of the Nested
Bunk Bed can be pulled out to serve a number of purposes, such as a
sofa for two, grandstand seating, or five beds that can be packed away
into a standard bunk bed area. When fully extended, the bed system can
sleep 20 children in a tight space of 50 square metres, as well as
providing play space when the beds are retracted.

A worthy winner we think…let there be more.

Website: Tsaidesignstudio

Animals, Babies and Children – still advertising gold?

Posted on 27. Feb, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

This morning on CapeTalk we spoke about the ABCs of advertising and local current TV ads we’ve recently spotted using Animals Babies and Children to create soem form of emotional brand appeal.

Here’s that Hyundai Santa Fe ad, which was actually created by a New Zealand-based agency and shamelessly uses the baby cute factor to pimp this over-sized station wagon. Upon closer research, we discovered that this ad has actually been banned in Australia for ‘promoting illegal activity’. Babies in cars – they got some serious criminals down under there matey.

For our Children example – we chose the latest offering from financial services brand Allan Gray. Which is clearly yet another cracker with big budget production values, wonderfully moody black and white grading which is all rounded off with a hauntingly appropriate backing track that pull the entire montage together like a live Marilyn Manson stage performance.

But are the ABC’s of advertising still relevant like the were when Sanlam used gurgling toddlers to build their brand in the 80’s, or has sex, drugs and hip hop booted the traditional trident of emotional advertising appeal be relegated to the old-school bin?

It’s not going to work for everybody, but we reckon a heartwarming story and a cute shot of a baby without snot all over it’s face is still gonna get granny to part with her millions.

The Cherryflava Show heads to the Design Indaba Expo

Posted on 26. Feb, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

[video link]

From customised Vespas to condoms which are packaged in a cartoon and slip on in just 4secs, we went to go see what was new and cutting edge at this year’s Design Indaba Expo.

However, we couldn’t help but feel disappointed in the quality of the creativity on show. Beaded handbags and trees made from recycled plastic bottle tops are nothing new or innovative and for us there was just a lack of an overall X-factor that is going to launch South Africa as a world player on the design stage.
There is clearly a abundance of talent around and the Design Indaba Expo is an awesome platform to showcase that radical creativity to the public, but those talents need to be focused on changing society and the world though forward-thinking, problem-solving African inspired design and innovation rather than just nice pieces of art.

Critical? Yes we are, but we just know that we as a world-class design centre can do so much better.

Pop Up houses for the idle rich

Posted on 26. Feb, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

At this year’s DI Expo there is a ‘livable’ version of a pop up apartment made from a shipping container. Clearly it looks very flash when attacked by a talent flush interior designer, but with such thin metal walls for protection against the elements it’s still amazing to think that living in this kind of box can in any way be practical.

Art on a Vespa

Posted on 25. Feb, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

The winner of this year’s Art Vespa competition was scheduled to be announced [unless we understood the press release incorrectly] at 3pm this afternoon at the Design Indaba Expo. But is seems that the winning design has been let out of the bag a little prematurely.

So, the winner [according to Biz-community] is this Ice Cream Vespa done by Rory Allen. Nice….now if Rory can just pop a cherry on top of the ice cream flow, we’ll take 5.

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When product branding goes horribly wrong

Posted on 25. Feb, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

Spotted while on a weekend road trip, proudly displayed at one of the Cape’s most popular farm stores….chocolate coated raisins branded as Baboon / Elephant / Ostrich [pick your beast] droppings.

Apart from a 5 year old with a natural fascination with animal poop. why would anyone pay to pop a chocolate baboon dropping into their mouths. A nasty misadventure into the world of confectionery branding.

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Talking Heads – mark your diary

Posted on 22. Feb, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

Brett Bailey has come up with a cracking idea for this year’s Spier Arts festival. He’s producing a kind of speed snapshot of The Future where members of the public can spend 20 minutes alone with a surprise ‘talking head’.

Talking Heads gives you the chance to have a series of intimate ‘speed-dating’ conversations with some of Cape Towns most interesting people on The Future: Ronald Suresh Roberts, Rod Suskin, Sheryl Ozinsky, Neo Muyanga, Jonathan Cherry [that's us] and 40 others.

Tickets are limited, so book at Computicket early.

For a full programme check out www.africacentre.net and click on the “Spier
Performing Arts” ticket in the bottom left hand corner.

We’re honoured to have been invited, and have developed a little something special just for this occasion – so book your spot and we hope to see you there.

VW Citi: It’s your choice

Posted on 22. Feb, 2008 by Jonathan Cherry.

As far as we are aware, Ogilvy Cape Town have been handling the VW Citi Golf account since the car was first created way back when mullets and the Bee Gees were still fashionable.

This series of print ads featuring various teenage choices is the latest work they have done for the brand which now have new names like TenaCiti, CitiStorm, CitiSport, and CitiRox.
Times have changed, and so have kids and the range of choices they have available to them. Hey why choose one when you can have all four.

Ogilvy have also included an interactive new Citi website, featuring customisable avatars and a predictive model suggestion app which draws its power from the items you select for your character.

See the rest of the print ads after the jump…[thanks Alison]

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