Be A Man, Self Exam

Nutty stuff for non-profit Sean Kimerling Testicular Cancer Foundation.

Agency: Struck
Creative Director: Steve Driggs
Writers: Nick Driggs, Rich Black, Steve Babcock, Edgar Sanchez
Art Directors: Mark Rawlins, Brandon Knowlden

That's Right,

HMK

Yeah I Know, I'm Old...

I'm in the process of scanning my old concert tickets and I've scanned about 100 so far, in no particular order, as a set over at my flikr site: Migwell's Concert Tickets.

In general, 1977 was a great year for albums, probably my favorite year. I was a sophomore at Madison High School and had a weekend gig at Northern Hills Golf Course and so I had a little cash for music and concerts.

The above ticket is from my first Rush show that was in support of their 5th studio album, A Farewell To Kings. The album would become Rush's first US Gold selling album going Gold in almost two months of its release and eventually Platinum.

The more I think about it the more I realize how lucky I was to have such awesome bands and great music providing the soundtrack to my life. A few of these albums* from 1977 truly changed my life.

Cat Scratch Fever from the Nuge, *AC/DC - Let There Be Rock, UFO Lights Out, Meatloaf’s Bat Out Of Hell, Live at the El Mocambo from April Wine, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors, The Ramones Rocket To Russia, Jackson Browne’s Running On Empty, Elvis Costellos’ My Aim Is True! Plus the first Clash album, Jimmy Buffett’s Changes In Latitude (with Margaritaville), *Steely Dan’s Aja, *Even in the Quietest Moments from Supertramp, the Grand Illusion from Styx, *Point of No Return from Kansas, Sin After Sin by Judas Priest, Billy Joel’s The Stranger, Kraftwerk’s Trans Europe Express and last but not least *Tom Petty & the Heart Breakers first lp!

I was lucky enough to see all of the above live excluding Meatloaf, Supertramp and Kraftwerk.

Let There Be Rock indeed.

That's Right,

HMK

Whopper Freakout

What would happen if Burger King, Home of the Whopper, 86ed the Whopper?

Awesome new campaign by Crispin Porter for Burger King: The Whopper Freakout.

They pretend that the Whopper is no longer available and instead they give out Wendy’s burgers, Big Macs etc.

Watch the customers, as they “freak out” over here: Whopper Freakout.

Genius.

That's Right,

HMK

Que, Wieviel? Nein!

Ah, the power of 9. Did you know that you can create any letter with a 3 x 3 base unit grid?

And now, thanks to the generous folks over at ABC Button: Der Button, you’ll not only be able to see the power of 9 via some buttons in action, but you can also grab the typeface that was influenced by the buttons for absolutely amazing low price: Nada!

That's Right,

HMK

Big gracias to Michael Surtees, lots more insightful design related items over at his cool blog: DesignNotes.

shoe

Innovation & Creativity Rule

According to Advertising Age, in 2008 Marketers' ingenuity will continue to expand as the competitive marketplace challenges brands to devise ways to reach their audiences online and via other "out-of-the-box" avenues. Targeting consumers using unconventional methods in creative places will be the gold standard for outstanding creative. Marketers won't run away from traditional media -- but will leverage technology and new media to accentuate message delivery to consumers and customers. There is no turning back -- and creativity will rule.

Read the rest of Bob Liodice's insight: Trends to Watch in 2008

That's Right,

HMK

Christmas Rewind!

Happy Holidays! And as the Fab 4 once brilliantly observed: "Everywhere it's Christmas, at the end of every year!"

With that in mind - Wanna make your iPod super holiday happy and the hit of your next get together?

Well then, check this out...

Way back in 2005 I made it through the entire month of December, each and every day, posting some of my favorite and obscure Christmas gems.

If you missed it, fear not and behold the beauty and power of the blog!

Here's a day by day posting of some tasty December's goodies all on one page - and like most things in life that prove truly worthwhile, you're usually best off starting at the bottom (of the page!)

Enjoy and Happy Christmas!

Take Me Back: Audio Stocking Stuffers!

Everywhere it's Christmas at the end of every year!

Peace,

Migwell

The Dias

Introducing the Dias, a nice little floating storage unit from FurnID out of Denmark.

According to the site, the Dias opens up sideways like a matchbox, dictating the positioning of other furnitures by claiming a central space on the wall. The drawer is covered with pyramids with the exception of a small flat tray-like surface. This has partly been in order to create strong contrasts caused by the highlights and shadows from the surface structure, but also to limit the tendency to place all sorts of knick-knack on the horizontal surface.

Very nice, I'll take mine in black por favor.

That's Right,

HMK

How to Do 'Riskier' Work

Or: Who Cares If Your Ideas Are Brilliant If You Can't Sell Them?

Back in April Sally Hogshead gave six speeches in five days in four cities. They varied from a half-day brand workshop in Milwaukee to a tech conference in Northern California, with audiences ranging from venture capitalists to marketing executives.

Yet no matter what the industry, the topic or the geography, she was asked the very same question: "How do I sell riskier ideas?"

The question's wording varied, but the point was the same: The client/boss/board of directors kills new thinking that's deemed "risky." Now, these audience members aren't scheming to sell wacky, perilous, ill-conceived ideas for the sake of being creative, but rather smarter, fresher, more relevant ways of finding and connecting with consumers.

Problem is, in business, risk doesn't work like that.

Business isn't a coin with "risk" on one side and "security" on the other; it's a two-headed coin and that head is risk. Not taking a risk is risky. And if you take a risk, well, that's risky too. The landscape is changing so quickly that we must literally invent as we go. There are no off-the-rack solutions anymore. Today, the opposite of risk isn't security. The opposite of risk is getting run over by a truck filled with a shipment of status quo while you dawdle in the middle of the road.

So, what have you got to lose? Read the whole thing over at Ad Week: How to Do 'Riskier' Work.

That's Right,

HMK

Covered in Color

The smart folks over at Color Lovers have a nice section over at their site focusing on the color palettes used on current magazine covers.

These simple visual clues of color make a significant impact on folks browsing the magazine rack, illustrating and accentuating the contents of each issue while providing a nice pulse on what's happening in the ever changing world of color trends.

It's a pretty nice reference tool - check it out: Magazine Cover Colors.



And while we're on the subject of nice time saving color reference tools, I'm digging the Color Pallette Generator, Kuler from Adobe and Color Hunter. Both sites enable you to enter the tag, hex code, or image URL of an image to get a color palette that matches the image.

That's Right,

HMK

Rock Posters That Don't Totally Rock

Not sure who compiled Billboard’s list of the 25 Best Rock Posters of All Time - is it just me or are some of these just ok? I mean dude, we're talking of the Best of All Time!

Judge for yourself: 25 Best Rock Posters of All Time.

Really digging the above 1967 Johnny Cash poster from Hatch Show by artist Dennis Loren.

Thanks to AdFreak.

That's Right,

HMK

Feast Your Eyes

If you're like me and you appreciate the time, effort and talent involved in creating the perfect restaurant space you're going to love Interiors.

Mermaid Inn, Upper West Side

Allen and Delancy, Lower East Side.

Mercat Negro, East Village.

Interiors is an awesome and ever-growing photoblog documenting some of photographer Noah Kalina's favorite shots while on assignment for numerous dining and entertainment related websites in New York City.

Go Noah!

That's Right,

HMK

Now That's Fresh

Nice stuff from McCann Erickson, London.

That's Right,

HMK

Color & Mood Play

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was a key figure in Pop Art, an art movement that emerged in America and elsewhere in the 1950s to become prominent over the next two decades.

The Fauves used non-representational color and representational form to convey different sensations. Apply the same idea to the portrait of Marilyn Monroe below, using the controls to adjust the colors.

Click on Marilyn and experiment with how the color affects the mood:

how bauhaus was shaped into greatness

Bauhaus building, Dessau, photographed in 1926 by Lucia Moholy. (Lucia Moholy/Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin)

It was, as the young Philip Johnson wrote excitedly to his mother, "the most beautiful building we have ever seen" with "great strength of design. . . majesty and simplicity."

The building in question was the Bauhaus, the German art and design school designed in the mid-1920s by the architect Walter Gropius in the industrial city of Dessau. On his visit in 1929, Johnson, who grew up to become a famous architect, was equally entranced by the work of the students: so much so that he adopted Bauhaus habits, like typing solely in lower case letters. One of the teachers, the graphic designer Herbert Bayer, had banned capitals on the grounds that there wasn't enough time for them in the frenzy of modern life.

Read it all: bauhaus.

That's Right,

HMK

Holiday Style

Well, it's officially December 1st, 2007 - the Holiday Season!

Check out the nicely designed new web site of T, the New York Times Style Magazine as it makes its debut with a Holiday issue. T Style Magazine.

That's Right,

HMK

Yakety Yak

I really don't think I need to go into any great detail as to the where and why regarding the content of this post...

And speaking of travel - the above airsickness bag is from a wonderfully tasteful collection known as: Johnny's Barf Bags. Very nice and well worth the visit.

And if you're digging Johnny's stash, I've got a gut feeling you're gonna love THIS!

Special thanks to Wallace and Grommit.

That's Right,

HMK

So, What Makes a Product Cool?

You might want to read this before you head out for your next round of Christmas shopping. Especially if you're buying anything for yourself.

We may try to hide our lust for goods but our brain can't. Steven Quartz, a neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology, is part of a new generation of researchers exploring neuromarketing -- a new field that uses brain science to understand consumer behavior. Quartz and his colleagues roll subjects into MRI machines (which measure oxygenated blood flow) to see what parts of the brain light up while viewing images of iPods, Aeron chairs, Capresso coffee machines, and Oakley sunglasses. Their findings are challenging some basic assumptions about marketing and economics.

What exactly is neuromarketing?

A lot of people think neuromarketing is just using brain imaging technology to understand the decisions that underlie consumer behavior. Although technology is a really important part, brain science over the last decade has advanced at a tremendous pace. Neuromarketing is the application of this huge amount of information that's available in the literature in terms of how people make decisions.

Check out this The Fast Interview by Kermit Pattison: Steve Quartz on Neuromarketing – and why iPods are like heroin.

That's Right,

HMK

The above social commentary is an illustration I did back in 1996.

Very Well Done!

Croatian creative agency Bruketa & Zinić have designed an annual report for food company Podravka that has to be baked in an oven before it can be read.

Entitled Well Done, the report features blank pages printed with thermo-reactive ink that, after being wrapped in foil and cooked for 25 minutes, reveal text and images.

Now that's just genius!

That's Right,

HMK

Having A Lovely Day

Having a nice quiet Sunday afternoon after a long walk with the dogs and enjoying a few of the beers leftover from Friday night's little Tiki bash.. Just finished listening to a cool segment on NPR about paring wine with music.

Here's a little excerpt:

The Doors may seem like an unusual musical choice for a wine bar. If Cabernet dominates the tasting list, however, the sommelier would do well to play some of the group's angriest songs — at least according to a theory espoused by vintner Clark Smith.

Smith, co-founder of the R.H. Phillips Vineyard and senior enologist at Vinovation, a wine consultation firm, proposes that a wine's taste is dramatically impacted by the music that accompanies it.

Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, is best when paired with "music of darkness" — thanks to the ability of rage-filled songs to smooth out similarly aggressive tannins, Smith's theory holds. An idyllic Mozart composition, on the other hand, works in reverse, potentially ruining a good Cab.

Check out the rest and listen to the piece over here: National Public Radio.

Sounds interesting and I can't wait to test the theory. As for right now, I know for sure that this song goes great with just about any ice cold beer...

That's Right,

HMK

Cheesiest Classic Creatures

This is pretty sweet. Wired Magazine is featuring 10 of the Cheesiest Classic Creatures to celebrate Tuesday's release of the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series in an HD DVD/DVD combo pack. The list comes complete with some nice screen grabs along with each creatures powers and weaknesses.

My favorite is this white gorilla with a horn and spines from the episode: "A Private Little War".

Powers: Poison, brute strength, surprising stealth.

Weaknesses: Women in bright-orange fun fur, blatant flouting of the Prime Directive.

Thanks to the magic of high def, and a painstaking digital remastering effort, we can now see these monsters in more detail than ever before - not that that's really always a good thing...

Take me to the Cheesy Monsters.

That's Right,

HMK

Movable Type

The New York Times Company Debuts "Moveable Type"

Movable Type is the awesome new permanent art installation in the lobby of the newspaper's new Renzo Piano-designed headquarters building on Eighth Avenue and 41st Street.

Artist Ben Rubin and UCLA professor/statistician Mark Hansen have created a multi-media installation of 560 small screens, mounted on two walls, which display information culled from the newspaper's archives and live feeds. Information is parsed and displayed by algorithms created by the artists.

That's Right,

HMK

Who's Blogging And Why?

Good question. Find some answers, lots of facts, theories and mucho mas over at Alex Iskold's wicked smaaht Technology Blog.

As for why I started blogging, I covered that in one of my very first That's Right posts back on my soon to be wife's birthday, July 23, 2004.

Have a great week and Happy Thanksgiving!

That's Right,

HMK

(thanks to swiss miss)

Nowhereland

There is no shortage of logos in the world, no dearth of brands striving for consumer allegiance and no chance that the creation of new brands and logos will cease.

In fact there’s an interesting subset of brands and logos that don’t bother with what seems like a crucial component: an actual product, service or company.

Consider the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. It’s part of the fictional universe depicted in the 1979 film “Alien” and its sequels; Nostromo, the spaceship freighter in the first movie, is a Weyland-Yutani vessel.

The company doesn’t do much in the way of branding in, you know, reality. But as it turns out, it’s possible to buy yourself a Weyland-Yutani T-shirt, or even a Nostromo T. It also turns out many people have.

Read the whole thing over at: The New York Times or go straight to the shirts: Last Exit To Nowhere.



Reminds of the custom Belushi COLLEGE sweatshirts I used to make for myself during my art school days at MassArt.

That's Right,

HMK

Cool Illustration by Peter Arkle

Left Brain or Right Brain?

Wow, this is kind of trippy and interesting.
Do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

According to Australian Herald Sun, if the woman is spinning clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

Once again, more proof that I am in fact a right brainer. I can see it both ways (when I focus on her waist or her foot) but she's always spinning clockwise upon first glance.

Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
"big picture" oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking

That's Right,

HMK