Brilliant: Reverse Graffiti Project -

From the site:

On April 14, 2008....

"San Francisco’s Broadway tunnel is a highly traveled thoroughfare in the heart of the city. Over 20,000 cars, trucks, and motorized vehicles pass through it per day. Its walls are caked with dirt and soot, and lined with patches of paint covered graffiti from days gone by. It set the perfect canvas to create a beautiful work of art showcasing the talents of reverse graffiti artist “Moose”, and the power of Green Worksplant based cleaner."

Clever: Oops: a short film of dropped shots - on Creative Review

Created by Chris Beckman

"Beckman describes the film here as "a ten-minute art video composed entirely of appropriated YouTube videos, seamlessly stitched together via a motif of camera drops" that "serves both as transportative adventure and metaphorical elucidation of YouTube itself (i.e. endless related videos), exemplifying the internet's infinite repository of 'throwaway' social documentation."

Pic-Nic Village launches as first social networking site for creatives

From the site:

Pic-Nic Village is a blueprint for an evolution in social networking, devised and conceptualised by Pete Lawrence and is the first social networking community for people who are passionate about creativity, innovation, ideas generation and seeking positive solutions to everyday problems.

Social Networking v1.0 brought us new ways of connecting with our friends and colleagues and opened up a whole new set of opportunities. As a v2.0 Social Network, Pic-Nic Village intends to build a unique platform where members can showcase their own talents and passions, exchange ideas and inspire others. We plan to shun the advertiser-funded model used by many social networking communities by inviting members to part own and build the community and to be central to helping it come to life.

We are inviting you to join us by becoming a Founder Member and playing an important part in helping this exciting project come to fruition using a relatively new concept called crowd funding. We believe that this will give everyone a greater sense of involvement both as individuals with a shareholding and as part of a collective.

We have started a forum for general discussion, not only about Pic-Nic Village, but about any subject that matters for you. It's free to join, so why not come and have your say about what happens next?

What the press are saying:

"This one deserves to be taken seriously" - The Register

"The first social networking site aimed specifically at the creative sector" - Music Week

"The old style of marketing and advertising is now faced with a potentially devastating competitor" - Startups

"The ethos that Pic-Nic village is founded upon should be something that's echoed in all online communications" - Reputation Online

Beautiful new book from Canadian Graphic Artist Marian Bantjes, Master of Graphic Frills

Media_httpwwwfastcode_eacee

Excerpt from fastcodesign.com:

by Alyssa Walker

"Over the past decade, Canadian graphic artist Marian Bantjes has taken the contemporary design world by storm with her rich, labor-intensive ornamentation. Bantjes began her career as commercial designer, yet famously eschewed corporate gigs in favor of self-initiated works, calling herself a "lapsed graphic designer." She recently spoke at TED about this transition, and her devotion to creating meaningful, beautiful work that pleases both herself and her clients."

Yup. Let's rethink the metrics: How Lady Gaga's One Billion YouTube Views Changes the Music Industry | Fast Company

 

The Influence Project

Which metric more fully captures Lady Gaga's global superstardom: the 15 million albums she's sold to date, or the one billion views she reached this week on YouTube?

Though CDs are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, replaced by digital music, physical album sales still remain the gold standard for the industry. Isn't it time that metric is updated to include the wealth of ubiquitous digital platforms? "The notion of tracking sales and correlating that to success is a bit antiquated," says Vevo CEO Rio Caraeff. "There's no single indicator you can look at now--you must look at everything."

That means measuring not just physical but digital album and single sales, and pulling data from a variety of non-traditional platforms. The record industry must track downloads on iTunes and Amazon, fans on Facebook, followers and mentions on Twitter, streams on Pandora and MySpace, views on Vevo and YouTube and MTV, ticket sales on Ticketmaster--to name a few.

"When you look at Lady Gaga hitting a billion views, I think that's a very positive wake-up call for the industry--that we need to think about the metrics of success differently," says Joe Fleischer, CMO of media measurement firm Big Champagne. The Beverly Hills-based company recently developed Billboard rankings for the digital age. Called the Ultimate Chart, Big Champagne culls data from as many digital portals as possible to provide a more real-time portrait of an artist's success.

"The right way to understand success is to include all of those points of contact that are meaningful into the charting environment," explains Fleischer. "Just look at gold and platinum awards from the RIAA. When an artist like Disturbed reaches No. 1, are they now bigger than Taylor Swift? No. It means for just that one week they've sold more albums. It's one component of success, but it does not give a consistent, undistorted view of the market."

Indeed, after one week atop the Billboard charts, it's common for artist sales to plummet 60% to 80%. But that doesn't mean their success or popularity has experienced such a drop. Fans still watch videos on Vevo; they buy tickets for concerts; they follow artists on Twitter and post messages about them on Facebook. In other words, the artists are still relevant, regardless of their position in the Top 100 physical album sales.

It is those rankings which have become irrelevant.