New York, New York
“The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine was facing a plague of pooches whose owners wouldn’t pick up after them, but instead of banning the beasts, the church elders turned to New York design firm Pentagram* for a scriptural solution… that would preach the values of respect, fellowship, and proper poop removal etiquette. Fine tuning the balance between sass and sacrilege was the key challenge… the designs were blessed by the church’s leadership and have become so popular that they’re considering enshrining them in a place of great honor — the gift shop.”
*Pentagram partner Michael Bierut had refreshed the church’s identity in 2009, creating a minimal system that leveraged a modernized blackletter font, bright colors, and cheeky copy to help spread the good word to jaded New Yorkers.
(source) Thanks to my colleague Adrian Shum for the link.
The Vatican, Rome
It would seem that the Italian State Mint needs a better spellcheck program. The Vatican had to hastily withdraw more than 6,000 papal medals (commemorating the beginning of Pope Francis’ papacy) when the misspelling of “Jesus” as “Lesus” was discovered earlier this week as the medallions went on sale.
“Blame the Lesuits.”
(source)
New York, New York
Banksy’s latest body of work takes the form of a “residency” in New York entitled Better Out than In, featuring a new graffiti work daily in one part of the metropolis or another. Some of the pieces have 1-800 telephone numbers stenciled beside them, allowing viewers to listen to an audio recording that compliments the visual work.
“The thrill is in the chase for many of the graffiti artist’s fans, as they rush to figure out the location of the next piece.” As might be expected, you can now trace NYC’s “Banksy Art Walk” via a live feed, here.
See more (with links to audio) here.
Bucharest, Romania
Back in January, news spread that Britain was considering running an anti-immigration campaign in Romania and Bulgaria tagged, “You Won’t Like It Here.”
People all over Europe were nonplussed by the lack of tact shown by The Brits. But Gândul, a daily Romanian newspaper, saw an opportunity where others saw only red. They launched a cheeky response campaign tagged, “We May Not Like Britain, But You’ll Love Romania.” They placed the ads on Facebook, and even bought some outdoor media in Britain.
The campaign has gone viral, resulting in massive free coverage for Romanian tourism, and it just won a Gold Award at AdStars, one of Asia’s biggest advertising awards festivals. Well-deserved… watch a case study on YouTube here.
Thanks to Phred Martin for the link (source).
Ad agency: GMP Advertising, Romania.
All images via: Gandul.info.
These are fun. Lots more here…
(Thanks to Keith Leinweber for the link).
I’m not sure Leyendecker’s illustrated ad would make the cut today…
“Ivory Soap had a good many unusual experiences during the war, and was found in many strange bath-tubs… ‘We all had a bath in a large canvas arranged for the purpose a few days ago, about 25 being under the hose at one time. Best of all, we had Ivory Soap. It certainly seemed like home to rub in the mild Ivory lather from head to foot and then feel the delightful exhilaration following a brisk rub down.'”
A Proctor & Gamble advert in The Geographic, 1919 (source).
