Things that caught my eye this month
Creative inspiration for the advertising professional | June 2020
Each week, I send a things-that-caught-my-eye email to my creative colleagues. Here are all those things from this past month.
These eye-opening videos, articles, and links that were shared with me about racial injustice in this country
These Black artists on Instagram:
She Is This | Melissa Alexander | Amir Khadar | I Am Jeremy | Kader Diaby| Alexis Hunley | Kendra Dandy | Michelle Norris | Lorna Simpson | Monica Ahanonu | KaCey Kal | Adrian Armstrong | Jekein Lato-Unah | Ciara LeRoy | Natasha Cunningham | Frances Smith | Justine Agada | Nikkolas Smith | Adrian Brandon | Jade Purple Brown | Simone Sanders | Stanley Whitney
This Lions Live thing that Cannes Lions did in place of the cancelled 2020 festival
These hand-tufted portraits
This charming little film about emotion
These print brochures designed to look like VHS tapes
These AICP award-winning campaigns
This piece on the “power of yes” in advertising
These brands that are re-evaluating their mascots and packaging in light of the realization that they might be racist AF
This reminder that Aunt Jemima was never about the pancakes
This font and why it’s everywhere
This brain-melter scientific theory that there are at least 36 intelligent alien civilizations in our galaxy 🤯
This explanation about how Aaron Sorkin makes his dialogue so melodic
This direct-to-consumer Facebook ad that a.) is clever, b.) says something interesting about using humor in the time of coronavirus and c.) uses the interesting strategy of including a Medium article link in their post copy
The feature-length documentary 13th (which is really required viewing)
This reminder to capitalize the “b” in Black
This collection of links about “defund the police” (including the fact that well-meaning white ad execs probably shouldn’t try to “rebrand” something just because it makes them uncomfortable)
The show Watchmen on HBO and also available on Amazon Prime (the hype is justified)
This look back at some favorite posters from Milton Glaser
These new vertical Starburst ads
This use of OOH to support Black Lives Matter
This family who built a pub in their backyard
This look at what LGBTQIA+ representation looks like outside of Pride month
This unique approach to putting your brand name on new stadium
This new e-commerce website from Kanye that throws out the “rules” of e-commerce websites
The news of Kayne’s 10-year deal with Gap (and his Instagram-worthy OOH “letter” to Chicago to celebrate)
This creepy face mask design (that I wish I’d thought of)
This updated list of brands joining the Facebook boycott
This look at the PR reality of brands “boycotting” Facebook
This audience of plants
The WWDC Apple keynote
This take that Apple’s watch-from-home keynote address might be the future of keynote addresses
These annual design awards from Apple
This ad where they took audience complaints and made a promo out of them
These crayons that redefine “skin tone”
This new email service
That the founder of said new email service took on the Apple app store as part of the launch
These behind-the-scenes documentary series on Disney+ about the making of The Mandalorian and Frozen II (and, yes, if you don’t have kids, you may not have seen/care about Frozen II, but it’s a fascinating look at the creative process)
The irony that this 30-second soap has a 75-second case study video
This search for the next generation of creative leaders (women and non-binary creatives, please enter by July 31)
This new framework for creative effectiveness from WARC and Cannes Lions
This look back at the amazing career of Carl Reiner
Previous things that caught my eye: Early 2019 | Late 2019 | Early 2020
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.
