Creative Review - Create your own Kaiser Chiefs album

Creative Review - Create your own Kaiser Chiefs album

Here at Landscape we always advocate personalised and bespoke communications and Kaiser Chiefs have taken this approach with their latest release. At www.kaiserchiefs.com, you can choose your album (10 songs from the 20 available), design your own artwork and then purchase your creation direct from their website. What's more, your album can be then put within the album h.q and bought by other fans, from which you receive £1 commission. As it stands, there is one standout leader with 73 downloads, rickyw which I am presuming is singer Ricky Wilson. So he gets a double whammy - royalties from you buying the album, and then another cut when you choose his version. Tchuh! Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles is also in the top 5.

They are obviously sidestepping any distribution deal that they would lose revenue from if it was sold through iTunes or another digital store. It's also a fun way to launch, the interface is engaging and the fans have a deeper relationship as they feel like they have made a personal contribution to the album's creation. I like it. But not necessarily the music.

Royal wedding fever

Though I am rather non plussed by it all (but will probably watch some of it), the stories that follow it and piggyback on it are generally quite fun. Like this online ad by T-Mobile. As long as there is a celebrity culture, there will be a demand for look-a-likies...

Creative Review - A new logo for London

Creative Review - A new logo for London

Terrible logo, originated with Saffron but apparently the Thames was added on later. Goodness me...

Moving to a new Landscape

After over two years of careful discussions and cogitation (read indecision), Spinner have finally decided on two things – to change our name to Landscape to reflect communication in 2011 and on; and to migrate my blog into Landscape's website. Hopefully there will be a few more posts, but not any less opinion and passion for content that has grabbed our attention. Please come back again, and join in if you have something to say.

Give it a rest...

Just days prior to Tiger Wood's heralded return to golf at the Masters, Nike released their latest commercial featuring the troubled superstar. The hoopla that surrounded his dethroning and his now his return has been strange to say the least as a professional career in the spotlight has been used to rebuild his battered brand - press conference to apologise, press conference to announce a return and now a swiftly produced ad to apologise again… via his late father.

A lot was made of his loss of endorsements from Gillette etc, and this is obviously a (clumsy) show of support from his most significant backer. And in fairness, his return at the Masters was excellent - no dream win, but still a tied 4th position. Yet it is still way too early to crudely don the Nike baseball cap, no matter how sorrowful your eyes look. Suffice to say there are already countless spoofs on YouTube, it's too easy to parody.

2012 pictograms

The proposed pictograms for the 2012 Olympics have just been released, and seems to have raised quite a few opinions, if the number of comments on Creative Review's blog is any kind of guide. There are two versions, a silhouette and a 'dynamic' version, apparently inspired by the London Underground map though to me, the more than generous nod is towards the identity itself. Of course it's easy to knock, and many, many people have criticised the Olympic brand identity, but, to add to the noise, I wrote the following on CR;

'The dynamic versions are interesting and could be quite memorable but the 'plain' version just smacks of compromise. Too much detail and manner, combining to create an overly stylised infographic. At a guess, the dynamic version came first. Too many stakeholders, but it goes with the territory.'

The old ones always seem to look better, see Munich 1972. Call it nostalgia if you will, but there's just more soul.

Popeye

What with the Brooke Shields furore at the Tate and Jeff Koons recent show at the Serpentine, Pop Art has hit London. The Koons show (sadly now finished) was hugely intriguing, his trademark juxtaposition of the banal and everyday, the crafted and the manufactured. Children's inflatable toys float, captured and entwined with metal and plastics, the nearby sign being the only suggestion that everything is not as it initially seems - the toys are actually anodised aluminium. You don't believe it - every crease, fold, valve and type is faultless, so the urge to reach out and touch, to be sure, is contained only by the hovering gallery staff standing next to each piece. As such, the experience becomes frustrating yet remains fascinating, as smiley rubber rings, try to escape rusty 8ft industrial fences they connect with. A typically shallow Koons experience that sits with you for a long time.