Nike have created some memorable sports TV ads but for their skateboarding sneaker brand ‘Nike SB’ they raise the bar higher once again. The August TV spot ‘Today was a good day’ created by Nike Brand Kitchen, features Paul Rodriguez Jr., who won the bronze medal last year in the X Games plus cameo appearances by Ice Cube and Kobe Bryant.

Subtle product placement, excellent cinematography and a killer track from Ice Cube all combine perfectly for something special. Have a look at the extended cut here. Thanks to Johnny B. for the heads-up.

One or two of their visualisations especially caught my eye. Right is a small section of a large chart representing ‘Time travel in popular TV and film’ complete with nerd-tastic paradox alerts. Get an eyeful here.

The second, almost as useful is ‘Reduce your odds of dying in a plane crash’ seen here. Lovingly rendered throughout with a nice tag cloud of the deadliest airlines. I’ll be sure to bookmark it for viewing on my 8 hour trans-atlantic flight next week.

Following in the footsteps of many of today’s hottest websites they’re about to release a book with some of their best renderings. A worthy addition to the coffee table collection.

While I did appreciate the production values and a wag of Deltalina’s finger,  it’s still the same in-flight video we’ve been watching for years, albeit with added sex appeal.

For a fresh approach we must turn to Virgin America. I’m not a fan of the scratchy animation style (I find it dated looking only a year later and it may be difficult to watch on those tiny seat mounted screens) but the humour is spot on and the apathetic delivery genius.

Of course then there’s this.

An excellent exhibition of painting, photography and illustration inspired by the work of late film director Stanley Kubrick is currently running in the Lighthouse Cinema, Smithfield. Visit the exhibition website here.

The fantastic promotional print right is by Uruguayan illustrator Martin Ansin. A signed copy will be adorning the walls of my home courtesy of my lovely wife Sue (1st wedding anniversary gift).

Those who know me, know I’m a massive fan of the work of Kubrick. Almost every celluloid frame is a work of art in itself. I have always been enthralled by his vision of mankind, the world and the future. 10 years after his death his dedication to the art of cinema and storytelling continues to inspire.

Courtesy of National Geographic comes this incredible map of all man’s exploration of the Solar System to date. Unfortunately in order to view the map on Natty Geo’s site you have to navigate a ridiculously cumbersome viewer. But science fiction blog io9 comes to the rescue – see it the map in all it’s glory here.

Japan is a culture obsessed with ‘cute’. On a visit to Tokyo I couldn’t help but noticed the sheer amount of brands that employed the use of a mascot. Brands in Japan frequently try to connect with consumers on the most basic emotional level so ad agencies and design firms are often called upon to help develop mascots that embody a brand’s personality. But this isn’t confined to children or youth brands, even TV News channels are in on it – Yume Lion being one of my favourite examples. Here him roar on the channel ident here.

So on my return I made it my mission to run the same experiment here in Dublin. An opportunity arose with maryb.ie, a white collar recruitment company. They were looking to recruit more temps to their books through a TV and cinema campaign. So on the tightest of budgets we at io created the character ‘busyb’ (below). The ad proved quite successful and even spawned mascot merchandise including busyb pens and t-shirts.

All sorts of incredible pattens and algorithmic art can be found on one of my favourite sites – Data Is Nature, by Paul Prudence, a computational artist from London. The blog showcases some of the best worldwide examples of “Robot Art, Algorithmic and Procedural Art, Computational Aesthetics, Glitch Aesthetics, Vj’ing, Video Art, Computational Archaeology”. His words, not mine.

Somewhat less complex but no less beautiful is this 90 minute exact mapping of the inch-perfect passing of Denilson Pereira Neves of Arsenal in a recent game against Portsmouth. It’s courtesy of The Guardian’s excellent new Chalkboard feature and gives new meaning to the phrase ‘the beautiful game’. All the blue lines represent 77 successful passes. And the red? Just 1 unsuccessful.

Check out Data Is Nature here. Some of Prudence’s own work can be found here.

Leading the charge of the new media agencies, Glue London have come up trumps once again with a series of four virals for ‘Visit Sweden’. Featuring the voice talent of The Fast Show’s Simon Day, the virals centre around Dave, a yobbish, loud mouthed ‘Brit’ and his visit to Skåne in Sweden (Dave reminds me a bit of Badly Drawn Roy).

Is it just me or has the name Dave become a handle for British working class culture? The instant popularity of the TV channel Dave over its sister channel Watch would seem to suggest it has captured the zeitgeist.

I digress. The virals are well scripted, with ”Beach” being the strongest. The others are a little less subtle but still hit the mark.

Maybe it was the budget but I think there’s one thing that lets the virals down. As the backgrounds are flat static images they don’t really make Skåne look all that appealing.

Give them a gander here.

Moon, made with a fraction of the budget of most Hollywood blockbusters heralds a new dawn for indie sci-fi. What was once million euro CGI, is now possible for thousands. And in an age where TV advertisers are struggling to hold the attention of audiences, we’re sure to see more hollywood effects applied on our small screens during the breaks in Corrie.

The films promotional poster employs some visual effects of its own and it embodies perfectly the film’s theme of complete physical and emotional isolation.

Many comparisons have been made of the film. In fact, on the official site director Duncan Jones gives you his own list – Alien, Silent Running, Outland and of course the mother of all brain-bending sci-fi – 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But one comparison I have not yet heard made is for me the strongest of all. The interaction of the two one two main protagonists did without doubt draw inspiration and direction from the symbiotic relationship of Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo in the superb Midnight Cowboy.

Sam Rockwell’s lead performance as Sam Bell mimics that of Dustin Hoffman as Ratso, with quite a bit of overlap in their roles as sickly companions.

Although my role in io means I’m involved in the creation of advertising campaigns, my background is in graphic design & branding. Working closely with some of the countries top creatives should prove to be great experience and better my art direction skills.

Each week I’ll be given a challenging brief to tackle with the end result hopefully being a stronger portfolio and a better understanding of the industry.

The creation of this blog is actually the task of the first brief – a place to gather my thoughts and demonstrate what drives me as a creative person. Also each week I’ll likely be posting the result of my Upstart endeavours for your critique.

There’s a bit of an echo in here at the moment. So in the best tradition of the internet, if you can spare the time I want you to feedback and comment on my work and anything else I’ve posted.

Initially, in order to be considered for the Upstarts program, I had a submit a creative response to a set brief – the results of which can be seen below. The brief was to create a press advertising campaign for a bookshop to encourage people to get reading. Let me know what you think.