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A couple of epic Coca-cola ads that appeared during this year's Super Bowl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-STkFCCrus&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shvwd7VYpE0&feature=player_embedded

The Super Bowl is the largest advertising event in the world. This year, brands will pay an average of $2.8 million to $3.0 million for 30 seconds of airtime during the Big Game - a resurgence after a rare decrease in rates for Super Bowl spots in 2010. Unlike last year, where slots were still available up to the week of the game, for this year's contest, every free slot was sold out by October ... a full 4 months before the game. The estimated live audience for the Super Bowl this year is 100 million - even more impressive considering media fragmentation has led to the demise of any other television event that could even come close in terms of reach.

The Chrysler 200 spot that just ran may have made Super Bowl ad history in that it filled an entire commercial pod, or break.

Tthe Super Bowl in 2011 was bigger than ever. All the predictions for the game to break the Nielsen ratings record for an American TV show, which was set last year by Super Bowl XLIV, could well be on track given how close the game was until the end. The record was 106.5 million; some forecasters say this game could draw 110 million viewers.

However TV doesn't matter for the lasting effect of the commercials aired throughout the game. The first airing of a spot during the game is certainly the big bang that every advertiser is paying for. The effect, however, moves instantly from the TV to the web-enabled realm of social conversation. In 2011, it is the ripple effect of social media that contributes the most engagement to what would otherwise be a static 30 second piece of advertising.

When did you last watch a programme about graphic design? For a visual subject, it has surprisingly little coverage. This is probably to do with the fact that graphic design for print is 2D, static and small scale. You can’t film a book in the same way as you can a building. But then again, there are documentaries about famous painters that don't struggle with representing artwork.

Perhaps it is more to do with the cultural value we place on it. Design is often ephemeral and throwaway. We get Chris Tarrant showing funny advertisements, but serious discussion on advertising is more likely to focus on the effects of adverts on viewers rather than the design of the ads themselves.

As innumerous makeover shows testify, fashion and interior design engage with the personal, and so appeal to a wider audience. Perhaps a show about brand transformations is in order?

There’s the problem that if a design works well, you don’t notice it. Just by watching television we see the work of numerous graphic designers. Channel idents, title sequences and credits are all designed. There are regular ad breaks. But there are also the infographics and all those props that require graphic design input. And of course, more and more frequently viewers are watching TV on websites, so the very programmes are themselves framed by design. We’re all affected by graphics on a daily basis so why not more programming exploring this?

At the very least, please include some decent designers on the next series of the Apprentice. Most of the challenges require design skills and the results are usually far from impressive. Octi-kleen anyone?

There are some exceptions. BBC4 have been running a series of called ‘The Beauty of Diagrams’. It looks at six scientific diagrams from throughout history. These include Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vetruvian man, Copurnicus’ sun-centred universe, Newton’s prism, Florence Nightingale’s Rose diagram and the structure of DNA. The programme explores how each scientific idea is presented through a graphic, the stories behind it and the impact on society.


Watch them on iPlayer here.

What other programmes would you recommend to designers?

Bayerische Motoren Werke.
Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.
For your information.
In my humble opinion.

Sometimes, shortening names or phrases is a good thing. Sometimes not. BMW has a better ring to it than Bayerische Motoren Werke. Or is that because BMW is a household name. Maybe if the full version was used then we would consider that a household name. But I doubt it. The acronym emerged because the full name is long and unwieldy.

That same process has given us FYI. Emails and instant messaging have made us accustomed to instant communications, and this need for speed has led to a new world of acronyms. IMHO anybody?

Sometimes, an acronym develops overtime to reflect a change. A case in point would be BP. With a full name of British Petroleum, they may perhaps sound less of the global super company than they are in reality. BP is easy to say and remember and doesn’t pin them to any one place. It also helps, somewhat happily for BP, to avert peoples attention from the word ‘petroleum’ and all the negative associations that come with that.

So there are many reasons why we shorten names and phrases. However, acronyms should be used with care. A collection of letters could actually distance a company or group from their potential customers. All too often acronyms are used and are totally meaningless, giving no impression of who the company actually are. There is also the issue of trying to get a domain name with your chosen acronym. Short, memorable domain names are getting harder to come across.

I don’t mind admitting that the first time I saw ROI written down, I thought it was referring to the Republic of Ireland. And so I was left completely confused as to the whole article.

So acronyms can be good. They can be bad. And they can also be confusing.  Lets hope we have more BBC’s and less CSR (that’s customer service representative to you and me).

It's that time of year again, when reps deliver large heavy envelopes stuffed with press-fresh calendars to lucky studios. Which go straight in the bin because they are so ugly. Why do printers think their design customers want 'scenes of bonny Scotland' with a great big logo splashed all over them?

Here are a few more interesting of examples of what you can do with 365 days:

Calendar wallpaper by Christaan Postma

Cats Let Nothing Darken Their Roar Calendar by Noa Bembibre

ChronoShredder by Susanna Hertrich. Shreds every day in real time.

A colourful year by Jonathan Davies

A filing cabinet calendar by Ross DeMeyere

The Human Calendar. An online calendar which changes every day.

Stress release every day with the Bubblewrap Calendar.

This calendar by Oscar Diaz sucks up ink slowly colouring each day.

If you'd like a Kayak calendar, get in touch and we'll send you one.