Month: March 2011

“This Kinetic Typography project was created from the dialogue of Conan O’Brien’s final episode of The Tonight Show on NBC. In this farewell address, he describes his feelings towards NBC and the situation at hand. His personality exudes positivity and humor allowing this dialogue to describe his character very well. Even through the hardships of leaving NBC he promotes hard work and kindness.

The concept behind this video is to show Conan O’Brien as a the monumental entertainer and solid wall that he is. Conan O’Brien is and will continue to be a seasoned television entertainer. After drawing inspiration from Lou Dorfsman’s Gastrotypographicalassemblage, this concept was achieved by creating a literal wall from over 60 individual typographic layouts. These custom crafted layouts reference a variety of eclectic type design. The combination of eclectic typography and modern 3D letter forms achieved in Cinema 4D provides a contrast between old and new. This contrast emphasizes time to create a sturdy and timeless object. This solidity and timelessness is the perfect representation of Conan O’Brien.”

“There’s nothing like air travel to drive home just how broadly social media has per­meated the mar­keting psyche. I drew this on my way to NTC last week in DC. At every turn on the trip, I saw Twitter and Face­book icons: littered throughout the in-flight magazine, plastered on the now-ubiquitous illu­min­ated bill­boards in the ter­minals, on the cash registers at news­stands and restaurants.

I visited a few of those Face­book Pages and Twitter feeds, and most of them actu­ally do have an active pres­ence: tweets, updates and content designed to engage me.

What they lacked, with one or two excep­tions, is people — a name, a photo, a human face to attach to all that Content™ and Engage­ment®. I had no idea who I was dealing with.

Absent a per­sonal iden­tity to relate to, I have to assume that I’m talking to The Brand: a mix of carefully-crafted inform­ality and meticulously-planned spon­taneity. And maybe I’m an outlier, but I don’t want to be friends with a brand.

You?”