Things that caught my eye over the last six months (January to June 2019)

I send a weekly things-that-caught-my-eye email to my colleagues. Here are all those things so far this year.

January

This podcast/interview with John Krasinski

This ad (and the fun of imagining what the licensing cost and how long it took to get studio approvals)

This ad about a guy who wakes up in a different bed each day

This time lapse film of our planet

This searchable San Francisco map of historical photos

This tweet asking “What does Trump smell like?” (the replies are sort of a masterclass in funny copywriting, IMHO)

This piece that I wrote about one of my favorite marketing campaigns of 2018

This Super Bowl stunt (a one-time Broadway musical instead of an ad)

This shaving commercial about toxic masculinity

This and this and this and this response to the Gillette ad about toxic masculinity

These, the best wedding photos of 2018

This installation of old books

This book, which I just finished and loved

This article about how some production companies are trying to eliminate the need for agencies

This article about what public transportation drivers/workers see on a daily basis

This Q&A about Geico running the best of their old ads

This batch of news and teasers about the upcoming Super Bowl spots

This animator’s Instagram

This ad…for a bank

This article about Generation Alpha (under 10s) that mainly makes me sad

These large-scale drawings of cities

These great live-read ads

This article about an e-commerce platform that just created it’s own TV/entertainment division

The cast recording from the Skittles Broadway musical

This Stella Artois Super Bowl ad (and this and this article SAVAGING said ad)

These colorfully minimalist photos

This article about who is to blame for the crisis in American journalism

This list of food puns from Megan Amram (a wonderful reminder that there are ALWAYS more ways to write a joke)

This knitted seafood

February

These winners of the best magazine covers of 2018

This video

This all-in-one-spot link to the Super Bowl ads from Sunday

This article about the future of Super Bowl advertising

This article about advertising “in the age of anger” (which foretold how bland the SB advertising would be)

This photography

This UI on this new agency website

This photo essay about how female ranchers are reclaiming the American West

The annual end-of-the-NFL-season bad lip reading

This piece about an artist that is changing the face of black girlhood

This design-a-poster-a-day photo essay

This behind-the-scenes look at SNL cue cards

This article about how Geico became the one advertiser it’s OK to love

This game to test your design eye by choosing the UI that looks most correct

This bit of marketing genius from a zoo

This Instagram account about gorgeous pies

This new charming campaign from Cheerios

This article about W+K, who just keeps producing great work

This new way that we’re going to buy packaged goods

This reminder that we can’t rip shit off, never ever

This disclosure of Twitter’s daily active users

This way of using celebrities that I didn’t hate

This website for pillows

This reminder that creativity can be used for good or it can be used for…whatever this is

This idea from Tide to bring the brand into the real world

This thread on how AOC’s Facebook ads are better than other politico’s FB ads

This article about gender cliches

These people that do not exist

This Instagram account that is worth following (their stories are a cool way of highlighting stories about new trends)

This monologue from Chelsea Peretti at the WGA awards last week (so many good jokes)

This new font with an amazing amount of variability

This abandoned airport terminal that’s now a hotel

This map and these maps

These shadow illustrations

This list of the “50 most innovative companies” (which is more a measure of PR muscle than true innovation, but still some interesting insights)

These ads that debuted on the Oscars last night

This video about sizzle reels

This new Apple Watch ad

This crazy story about a town that went silent for a violin

The revelation that KFC got Robocop (!) to be one of their new colonels

These identity design award winners

These hood ornaments

This article about the “We Work of kitchens” in China

This “puffer coat” fashion

This LEWK that won the red carpet at the Oscars last night

This menswear collection

This reminder that brands can’t “cost cut” their way to success

This animation of how global brand rankings have changed over the last 19 years ( though the idea that you can really measure the “value” of a brand is suspect)

This behind-the-scenes on how that Skittles musical thing came together (the work I’m most jealous of so far this year)

March

This new Nordstrom spot from Droga5

This AMAZING reference site when you need build a presentation or sell anything

These icons for everything

This flat-pack Easter bunny from Ikea

This BLEAK fucking look at the life of a Facebook content moderator

This new campaign for sugary cereal

This “cherry blossom” art installation

This PSA about how we raise boys

This article (I don’t love ad award shows and I think “storytelling” is the most overused word in advertising, but there are lots of great campaigns on this link)

This retailer’s test-and-learn approach to Instagram Stories

This article about how Jim Cummings made and distributed his independent film, “Thunder Road”

The surprising journey our text messages take (which is impossibly dense and I couldn’t understand a lot of it, TBH, but that’s sort of the point)

This crazy sketch-to-photorealistic comp tool

This snack food’s Instagram account

This gaming ad

The real scoop on how much people get paid to make music videos

This Spotify-for-creatives resource called…Spotify for Creatives

This three-dimensional type

The idea that Amazon is the next big influencer platform

These bank ads with Snoop, Afghan hounds and more

The fact that every brand is dropping an album, apparently:

This weird one from our friends at Venables

These minimalist takes on popular brands

This article about what really matters (spoiler: community) that made me re-evaluate my entire life at 2 a.m. when I read it. (Don’t check your phone when you wake up in the middle of the night, y’all. But this is a great piece.)

This Instagram artist (who also does lots of cool Insta filters)

This high school production of “Alien” that the Internet was buzzing about this weekend

These performance-art self portraits

These winners of a 2018 drone photography contest

This new logo from DDB (and the accompanying promo video)

These snapshots of people in their living rooms in the 1960s

These paintings of robots attacking European peasants in the early 1900s

This article about the SIX templates of successful advertising

This 8-bit art installation

This article about the “stupidity of sameness and the value of difference” (the value of creativity proven with charts and graphs!)

These alphabet animations

This classic (which I rewatch every few months) about how the “storytelling” trope is one of marketing’s biggest loads o’ horseshit

April

These people animated into bizarre GIFs

This infinite zoom

This project where they made the poster first and the film second

These quotes; GenZ in their own words

This piece on what the music we listen to at work does to our brains

These 17 projects to celebrate the Game of Thrones finale

These embroidery tattoos

These stock photos that go beyond binary gender roles

This un-zipped building

These blurry billboards

This stop motion film for Corona beer

The annual “name of the year” bracket

This Dwayne Wade spot that so many people shared over the last week (I’m a cynical bastard and I find this type of manufactured emotion to be super manipulative and I generally hate it in advertising…but it IS effective, so maybe I’m wrong.)

This blog post about creative conformity

This design-toolkit for one of the presidential candidates

These cross-stitched everyday objects

This year’s Pulitzer winners

This unpacking of the art of film editing

This blog post about how ad people shouldn’t copy filmmakers

This daily logo design challenge

This ad (when your client says “keep our product center frame throughout the spot” and you find a way to make that visually interesting, not horrible)

This example of MickeyD using their iconic product line in an interesting way

This camera ad (really a short film) about photojournalism

These architectural illustrations

This short film that tells its story through fake ads

The annual list of “A-list” agencies in AdAge’s 2019 ranking

This nifty little creative quiz

This blog post about camouflage (and why we need to avoid it)

This billboard that WANTS your dog to pee on it

This calculation about when the dead will outrank the living on Facebook

These visual hierarchy principles

This look at kung fu…from space

These gems from Obvious Plant

These trends in package design

This campaign from Burger King that uses x-rays of its customers (victims?)

This reminder that Twitter is not real life

This look at Giant Spoon, Adweek’s experiential agency of the year

This French design blog

These “products” designed for babies addicted to opioids

May

This Instagram account

This article about how Avengers became the biggest movie franchise by acting like a TV show

These tiny billboards

This string art installation

These new Amazon ads

This story about how Amazon created Amazon Prime and profoundly changed online shopping

This gallery of outfits from the Met Gala

This “leak” of the full Detective Pikachu movie online

This ad blog (with links to other ad blogs) that talks about how even prolific ad bloggers need a kick in the head for inspiration

This article about how conference room air is making us dumb

These “real meals” from Burger King because nobody is happy all the time

This dumb AirBNB stunt

This new Google spot (that would be better as a :30 rather than a :90, but still has charming real moments)

These 30 logos

This thing I wrote with some friends about a “show” we made at GS&P a decade ago

These One Show winners

This scavenger hunt

This motion/animation collaboration

These top 10 print ads from the last few years

This app that claims to enhance mood and mindfulness

This Kitchen Aid billboard that changes color

This report from the Venice Biennale

This bookstore

This piece on the 134 new print magazines that have launched since 2017

This cotton candy cloud that rains sugar into your coffee

This “taste test” product demo that shows that even taste test product demos can be executed with a little style

This ad for the German women’s World Cup team that addresses gender inequality in sports

These Hong Kong Ballet ads

This story about the social manager who filled a jar with her piss and didn’t get fired

These time-lapse compositions

This Lacoste ad and this behind-the-scenes video of the Lacoste ad

This article about how to write social media captions that get more likes and shares

This Kia car ad from India

This dude’s illustrated movie maps

This video shot from a sushi conveyer belt

This celebration of diarrhea, er, Taco Bell (a Taco Bell hotel!)

This article about a recent tone-deaf Chase tweet and why hypocrisy is a bad look for brands

The Effies “5 for 50” shortlist

These KFC print ads (which have been around for awhile and I’ve probably shared before, but they’re still great)

This look back at Apple advertising

This stunt (I sort of hate stunts like this — putting garbage out to garner a reaction and then saying the reaction was the point feels deeply cynical to me. BUT, it’s a highly successful ad/experiential trope these days, so I’m probably a dinosaur.)

June

This terrific book on creativity that I’m reading right now

This Pride type font

This new Nike ad

These black pencil winners

These frightening-when-you-think-about-it animations done by artificial intelligence

This cool aesthetic YouTube channel for up and coming musicians

This when-the-government-fails-to-uphold-its-promises-you-take-measures-into-your-own-hands 3D stamp

This blog post about ad-land conferences

This article on user-friendly design

This blog of drawings of little everyday things that people notice

This break-your-own-news generator

These stop-motion animations

This rat-infested bar that’s coming to San Francisco!

These plastic bags to shame customers

This new tool from Ideo to help foster innovation

These logo and branding trends

This art installation that’s also an experiential “ad”

These charming tea bags

This recap of Snapchat’s new pitch to advertisers

This reminder that corporate expressions of support are meaningless unless they actually walk the walk

This example of “walking the walk” from MasterCard

This article about the challenges of targeting Millennial consumers (spoiler: they’re broke)

These five takeaways from Mary Meeker’s annual Internet trends report:

This reminder that a Cannes lion doesn’t mean that your ad actually worked

These stackable beer cans

This (long but terrific) article about the creative process and how we navigate feedback on the way to great work

These Cannes Lions Grand Prix winners

This gloriously cynical (and truthful?) riff on Cannes Lions

This pride month sign from MasterCard

This article about Facebook’s new (ripped off?) logo for its crypto currency

This piece about how maybe we should make our work look…ugly

This animation showing how the most popular social media networks have changed over time

This article about how the world’s largest advertiser (P&G) is looking beyond advertising

This article about Esports

This and this and this article, all of which illustrate the hugeness of brand partnerships these days

These spliced fruits

This choose-your-own-adventure Twitter thread (about Beyonce!)

This music video’s use of motion capture and animation

This focus-group sketch

This new Apple ad (which feels like a riff on this dance performance from a few years ago, but still cool)

This guy who vandalized nature to create an Instagram worthy pic (eye roll)

This it-can’t-be-real ad (and the story behind it)

This article about vaginas deserving great advertising too

This horseshit

This commercial/stunt that was shot on a bunch of phones

This zig-while-everybody-zags-toward-a-meatless-future move from Arby’s — carrots made out of meat

This pun-tastic Christmas-in-July campaign for America’s favorite fish fast food

This follow up to P&G’s “The Talk” called “The Look” that illustrates unconscious bias

This opinion piece in AdAge that is kicking up a lot strong reactions, pro and con

This new Firefox add-on designed to fool advertisers

This advice from a 103-year old runner

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Kovacevich is a creative director in San Francisco. He publishes a weekly newsletter with bits of creative inspiration, just like the stuff above. You can see the newsletter here and subscribe if you’d like.

You can read all his musings about the advertising biz here.