12 December 2007by Mark Hinxman

Great annual report

A great annual report from Bruketa & Zinic for Podravka, the biggest food company in south east Europe. The concept is that a small book comes inside the larger report and has to be baked in foil before it can be read.

The pages are printed in thermo-reactive ink and when cooked te ink becomes visible and you have a book full of recipes and pictures.

4 December 2007by Kevin Smith

You have mail...

It's the festive season. A time for good will. But not, it seems, in the world of email. Have you experienced the season deluge of junk emails? Selling everything from corporate Christmas gifts to dodgy pills.

With all these junk emails flying about how do you stop your own campaign from getting unceremoniously binned?

First, make sure you have permission to email everyone on your list. Second, target people with the right message. Third, use professional software such as mailchimp to send and monitor your campaign.

Have a junk free Xmas.

27 November 2007by Phil Carré

Soda Creative

Our old friend Tim Diggins is involved with this company which consists of artists, developers and entrepreneurs best known for their BAFTA-winning online construction environment, Sodaplay .

Sodaconstructor is a construction kit for interactive creations using masses and springs. By altering physical properties like gravity, friction, and speed, curiously anthropomorphic models can be made to walk, climb, wriggle, jiggle, or collapse into a writhing heap.

Marvellous.

15 November 2007by Lee McAuley

Type jokes

Here's a collection of fonts about jokes and graphic design found around the internet.

Four fonts walk into a bar.
The barman says, "Get out! We don't want your type in here."

How many designers does it take to change a light bulb?
Couldn't say--ask an account executive.

How many web designers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Three. One to change the structure, one to update the style, and one to blog about the inadequate bulb support offered by today’s socket manufacturers.

What font did the astrologist use to write the daily horoscopes?
Futura

1st Designer: “Wow, you always have so many fonts, where do you get them from?”
2nd Designer: “Oh they come from Monaco, Geneva, Chicago, New York… I get them delivered at various Times throughout the day…”
1st Designer: “By who?”
2nd Designer: “A Courier!”

What did the horse say to Bordeaux?
Why the long type face?

14 November 2007by Kevin Smith

Lock up your daughters, the iPhone's in town

My head said no, my heart said yes.... my heart won! I know what the critics say – a meagre 2 MB camera, a lack of 3G and a fixed 8 GB drive. Frankly, who cares! It's beautiful, it's tactile and it makes you smile like a cheshire cat whenever you need to phone, email, surf, text, make the coffee.... well maybe not but you get the idea.

Critics smitics. My only question is why didn't someone do this sooner?

13 November 2007by Mark Hinxman

Mac OS X Leopard

We've had this in the office for a week or so now and have to say it's pretty impressive. Lots of new features and an all round smoother interface.

Better than that though, nothing stopped working when we switched over.

8 November 2007by Mark Hinxman

Who shot the serif?

Quite simply an amazing type resource. lots of articles all about typography and updated regularily. Check it out here

1 November 2007by Kevin Smith

Helping iMeta Fast Track to a bright future

What a great buzz to discover that iMeta Technologies, a client of some years, has been ranked 91 in the Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track league 100 table. Through re-invigorating the business we've helped
iMeta capitalise on its global, confident approach and better reflect the core values. Congratulations iMeta, recognition well deserved.

31 October 2007by Kevin Smith

21st Century Kaleidoscope

If like me, the mention of the Kaleidoscope brings back fond memories of childhood then check out the virtual Kaleidoscope .
A modern day twist on a classic that allows you to create your own virtual Kaleidoscope. Hours of discreet fun at the office – excellent!

31 October 2007by Mark Hinxman

Archive of inspiration

At a time when a lot of really good magazines are being forced into smaller sizes and shorter print runs due to the internet it's refreshing to see a website dedicated to archiving some of the best magazine covers of all time.

NMCA has started compiling covers from magazines like Time, Dazed & Confused, Grafik and Thrasher to show inspirational magazine design.

29 October 2007by Mark Hinxman

Apple use student ad

Apple were so impressed by the advert apple-fan Nick Haley created and posted on Youtube that they decided to buy the rights to it and use it themselves.

The advertisement was made "broadcast-ready" by Apple's advertising agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day, but remains remarkable faithful to the original version.
See Nick's original here and Apple's version

25 October 2007by Mark Hinxman

VW Shadow Poster

What better way to sell convertible cars than by using the sun? VW made a poster that creates a shadow on the ground with the sales message on it. They reportedly gained a 12% increase in test drives and a lot of favourable PR.

25 October 2007by Mark Hinxman

Donkey Kong

A pretty innovative take on scaffolding at The Computer Game Museum in Berlin.

The scaffolding was decorated with Vinyl printouts to make it look like a level from Donkey Kong.

15 October 2007by Philip Cuff

Creativity

You can understand why we at Think should like this quotation. Its something we strive for - client willing!

"There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns."

Edward de Bono

I like his thinking, but not his taste in hats.

10 October 2007by Philip Cuff

Millions at work

Following on from my August blog about billions of galaxies being classified by internet users. Here is a book that explains the enormous potential of collaborative working.

"Wikinomics heralds the biggest change in collaboration to date. Thanks to the Internet, masses of people outside the boundaries of traditional hierarchies can innovate to produce content, goods and services. In order to understand the opportunities this presents for companies, read this book." - Eric Schmidt, CEO Google

10 October 2007by Mark Hinxman

Sony vs Koyzndan

Some of you may have seen this new ad for Sony Bravia on your televisions this week and it truely is an amazing piece of stop motion. But... Illustration duo Koyzndan had this to say: "someone from Passion Pictures contacted us almost two years ago asking to see samples of our work (including this panoramic ) as they were interested in working with us. We sent them samples and then heard nothing from them ever again."

The similiarity is pretty striking to say the least. Read more here

25 September 2007by Philip Cuff

Boston project completed

Think Creative provided the complete conference materials package.

"Fresenius Medical Care (NYSE:FMS) AG confirmed its target of more than 9.5 bln usd in sales this year, up from 8.5 bln usd in 2006.
The operator of dialysis clinics also reiterated that it aims for more than 11.5 bln usd in revenue in 2010, according to slides from a presentation that chief financial officer Lawrence Rosen is making at an investor event held in Boston yesterday and today."
Source: cnn.money.com

24 September 2007by Mark Hinxman

Cards of distinction

As Patrick Bateman would agree, your business card says a lot about you. This Flickr Photostream shows some of the most innovative business cards around. Perfect for some inspiration.

24 September 2007by Lee McAuley

Paypal logo change

Paypal recently made the step of refreshing their logo to show off their web 2.0 standing. Unfortunately, they didn't make much of a change at all.
Read here for a funny insight into a process which probably cost £££'s but could have been completed in minutes...

24 September 2007by Lee McAuley

25 years of the smiley

The :-) computer smiley symbol celebrates its 25th birthday today.
Prof Scott Fahlman (Pictured) was the first to use a colon followed by a hyphen and a close bracket to form a smiley in a computer message. Prof Fahlman said he prefers :-) to the modern computer graphic of a smiling face, adding: "It destroys the whimsical element of the original."
Source: Ananova

24 September 2007by Mark Hinxman

Photoshop Rebrands

Adobe appear to be making steps to create a seperate identity for the Photoshop family of products. The new identity is quite a departure from the Creative Suite branding.

13 September 2007by Phil Carré

Smoked out

We've had painters working on the building this week. They've been burning paint off the windows – which stinks. Two days ago there was a smoking window frame we had to put out with a washing up liquid bottle. Today it happened again and the smoke was so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face (or breathe) so we had to get the fire brigade in. They've demolished a sash window and damped it down. They blocked the road with two fire engines and a police car. It caused massive traffic congestion in Winchester.

12 September 2007by Phil Carré

Lovely devices

I'm installing a new network for us and I've used it as an excuse to get some tools. I got these lovelies from Screwfix They're very nice. The big one's a hammer drill with rotation stop, which means you can put SDS chisels into it as well as normal twist drills. Marvellous.

4 September 2007by Mark Hinxman

Helvetica at 50

Blanka together with the Candy Collective are celebrating 50 years of Helvetica by comissioning 50 artists to celebrate a year from 1957 to 2007.

The exhibition has just finished at The Design Museum but a lot of the work can still be viewed online.

2 September 2007by Mark Hinxman

Running the Numbers

An American self portrait by Chris Jordan is an eye-opening look at the incredible consumption that occurs every day in America. 106,000 Aluminium cans every thirty seconds for example!

The incredibly detailed prints are made from thousands of smaller photographs and Chris Jordan himself recommends the photos be seen in person to fully appreciate them.

1 September 2007by Philip Cuff

The fish were biting

On a recent trip to Montana, Think Director Philip Cuff, returns with a 30 trout tally. Surrounded by limestone cliffs, pine forests, as well as 130 Minuteman missile silos, the fishing on the Smith River was the 'best yet'.

17 August 2007by Philip Cuff

Galaxy Zoo

A new project known as Galaxy Zoo is calling on members of the public to log on to its website and help classify one million galaxies. The hope is that about 30,000 people might take part in a project that could help reveal whether our existing models of the Universe are correct.
Kevin Schawinski, an astrophysicist at Oxford University, UK, is one of the team who devised the project. "I classified about 50,000 galaxies myself in a week," he said. "It was mind-numbing."

16 August 2007by Lee McAuley

Conformal Mapping

I found this image and many others like it on Flickr whilst browsing one night, looking for inspiration! It’s a great way to fire up your imagination. Hope you enjoy...

16 August 2007by Phil Carré

Where are the Joneses?

An internet video campaign for Ford consists of comedy clips on YouTube and www.wherearethejoneses.com featuring the Jones family. Members of the public can write a script which is made into an episode by the travelling crew. The series is created by Steve Coogan's production company, Baby Cow . Viewing figures have been on the low side so far, but it's early days for this new type of campaign.

13 August 2007by Mark Hinxman

Simpsons Movie Website

After a long wait and much anticipation, the new website for the upcoming Simpsons movie has finally been launched. As well as expected features such as touring round Springfield you can also create yourself as a Simpsons character!

11 August 2007by Mark Hinxman

Rhythm of Lines

Wearegt have just launched this new microsite for the Audi A5 to compliment the "Rhythm of Lines" Ad campaign. It's a great use of Flash and 3D where you can create and download your own rhythm of lines .

10 August 2007by Mark Hinxman

Tunnel House

An amazing use of a space that was going to be demolished anyway by artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck who created a tunnel through the house using only timber from the houses themsleves

6 August 2007by Mark Hinxman

Shell V-Power advert

I couldn't help but be amazed at the incredible new advert for Shell. Directed by Antoine Bardou-Jacquet it features Ferrari F1 cars from the fifties to the current day racing around various cities all over the world.
Click here to watch it

3 August 2007by Mark Hinxman

Light Graffiti

Using timelapse photography, lights and fireworks, light artists create graffiti that goes way beyond what they could achieve with spraypaint