I stumbled across this wicked short film/advert for Johnnie Walker whisky the other day. The advert features Robert Carlisle narrating the history of the famous Scottish whisky brand as he walks along a path in the Scottish Highlands. A simple enough idea, even boring you may say, but the end result is far from it. The advert is shot in one long take and features Robert Carlisle interacting with various props along the journey. The acting is mesmerising, the timing meticulous and all in all a brilliant example of how to present a brand and it’s heritage. 

It seems as though the film, directed by Jamie Rafn, has been around for a while but I certainly have never seen it on TV.

Viral marketing campaigns are becoming the de-facto way of creating hype before the launch of a new product or film, and i love nothing more when companies push the boundaries and come up with an innovative way of grabbing your attention..

A couple of different campaigns that have really impressed me recently are the “Wario Land Shake It” youtube page, and Apples iPod touch tilt banner that was on yahoo games (video above).  Both of these adverts integrate themselves into the whole website rather than just being limited to their advertising space, which is a technique that really does make you stop and pay attention.

Apple also created a range of “Mac vs PC” campaigns that appeared on websites such as the New York Times and CNN, involving multiple placements on the page that interacted with each other. Videos after the break:

KURO meaning black, a colour associated with beautiful hair in Japan, gives its name to A new Japanese Denim brand debuting there first collection for SS10 at the Pity and Bread&Butter trade shows. Hopefully this means they’ll be available in Europe and not insanely priced. Joining a large number of excellent Japanese denim brands, I was particularly taken by the Indigo used. A good range of fits from wide to skinny, their vintage washes live up to the high expectations placed on the Japanese. I’m off to Tokyo tomorrow, which I’m ridiculously excited about, expect me to come back wearing nothing but garments recovered from the actual titanic. Think I might have to route out KURO though, very cool indeed.

This amazing piece of 3D illusionary-projection art is the work of German artist Daniel Rossa. Amongst other things, Rossa works as a freelance creative director for Urbanscreen, a German company who love nothing more than projecting giant moving images on to large urban spaces. This piece, entitled ’555 Kubik’, was projected onto the huge, flat, grey surface of the Hamburg Kunsthalle with the aim of breaking through the building’s ‘strict architecture’. As Rossa more romantically imagines, it’s ‘how it would be if a house was dreaming’.

I came across this collection at the Bread&Butter trade show last week in Berlin and it is mysterious to say the least. The only information I was given was a paragraph outlining the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes. The designers behind this premium range of jackets, Paul Harvey and Alessandro Pungetti, formerly working for  Stone Island have stated these are the best they could possibly ever make. The range consists of 7 styles, covering all the classics, Harrington, mac/peacoat double breasted, field jacket, Belstaff style motorbike coat etc. Each comes in two colours, khaki green and navy blue. The real touch is the fabric, specially developed for Ten – c the only other use is for convertible car hoods. Its dense and smooth, I’ve never felt a fabric quite like it. Virtually indestructible; they are set to retail at about £800 but considering it’ll be the last jacket you’ll ever have to buy, worth every penny. Unfortunately the only contact details I have at this stage are for the German sales representatives and even these guys don’t advertise the collection (I got laughed at when asking if Ten – c had a web site). Anyway, you heard it here first, if anyone gets wind of anything to do with this, let me know..

One of the best things I got for Christmas this year was a set of twenty books, forming the first collection of the Penguin Great Ideas series. Across four collections and a soon-to-be-published fifth, Penguin draw together works by influential writers and thinkers, emphasising the thesis that it’s ‘great ideas’ that shape the course of history. Fair enough. In series one, for example, you get everything from Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life, to George Orwell’s Why I Write, via Machiavelli and Marx, and a whole bunch of other familiar-sounding stuff that you should have probably read but actually know nothing about. Aside from being a fascinating collection of books, however, the real key to this series is in the beautifully designed covers, each one good enough to frame on your wall.

See more covers and continue reading after the break.

Rosie H-W is probably the hottest, Poshest, English chick going right now. She looks A – mazing smoking a cigarette in this shoot for Spanish magazine DT, the people over at fashionising summed it up; “Pity the people behind the anti-smoking campaigns. No amount of pictures showing tar filled lungs or rotting fingers will ever have the same impact of a sole image sexualising smoking”. So true. I need a cigarette.. More pics after the jump.

Now I’m not for one posting negative things but this is so bad I had to post it. Check out Reebok’s new trainer, designed in collaboration with Emporio Armani. I’m not sure if this is some kind of joke or not but let’s hope so.

Via World’s Best Ever

Banksy is to appear on film for the fisrt time… but, by the looks of things we still wont be able to make out the man himself!? Oh well, the film looks fairly interesting anyway!

More bizzare but brilliant images after the break

Words by Fergus McDonald

Is there ANYTHING that downtown photographic New York bad boy Ryan McGinley can’t do? His photographic series ‘Moonmilk‘, focusing of a gang of his friends horesplaying naked around scenic spots in America have tickled everyone cool around’s fancy, and made me salivating to get my hands on one of these prints (in my dreams). As if making money out of shooting your best mates naked jumping out of canyons weren’t enough, he’s just shot the Pringle campaign with Tilda Swinton with a picturesque Scottish backdrop. Watch this video. It will make you quiver more in between your thighs than Mel Gibson’s girlfriend in Braveheart.

Words by Kate Atkinson

The optimus maximus keyboard from the industrial design group Art. Lebedev Studio is any gadget freaks dream, but at almost £1500 its not an item that is going to be gracing many peoples desks (including mine!!).

It is made up of 113 keys, each with their own OLED display capable of displaying a range of images and videos. The whole keyboard can be programmed to work seamlessly with any application you choose, displaying pictures instead of letters for the important keyboard shortcuts. This makes using programs like Illustrator or Photoshop an absolute breeze. And lets face it, its damn sexy as well!!

More images after the break…