I was reading an article this morning about housing’s share of the average household budget, which included the graph above. What struck me wasn’t the yawning gap between food and housing costs in 1945 [although it's safe to say that was something to do with the war;] what stood out is that today, we spend more on healthcare than anything else and education has remained consistently last in household spending over the decades.

That could explain a lot.

“Four years ago, the streets of São Paulo, South America’s biggest city, were strewn with advertising. Messages on the surfaces of buildings, buses, shops, taxis and even private homes competed with billboards to create a chaotic and dizzying corporate assault on the senses.

“The Clean City Law came from a necessity to combat pollution . . . pollution of water, sound, air and the visual,” he said. “We decided that we should start combating pollution with the most conspicuous sector – visual pollution.”

Read the whole story to see how digital and social marketing got a boost.

A week’s worth of inspiration. Click on the images. Enjoy.

Previously inspiring awesomeness files [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

You’ve got to eat, drink, sleep follicle extension. It barely leaves time for the day job. Namely, internet abuse. Seriously, call out the parental controls. The siren song of the marginally diverting is killing me. As an adherent to the gulag school of the creative process [stare at blank page, think, struggle, sweat, repeat] the web is a sly parasite. Lets see, today I watched YouTube covers of the Bon Iver catalog, checked useless early round results from Flushing Meadows, and watched a slide show on shipping container architecture. In other words, I hate myself. And, worse still, hate imagining some net-evangelist media guy turning virtual cartwheels on my account. Fortunately, tomorrow is tomorrow. I will focus and write till my fingers seize and blood trickles from the ear lobes. In fact, the very thought of the new me makes me want to go Bret Michael’s bandana on my increasingly outlaw mane. Tell me, search engine, do you feel lucky?

Note to clients: Not to worry, all browsing lands billing-free in that timesheet safe haven called “skill development”. That, plus, I’m never, ever going to do it again forever.

[Jim Carey is a CD at NORTH]

Remy

My experience working at NORTH this summer was unlike anything I have ever done, especially considering the fact that it was my first job. I’d say that coming into this job I really had no clue what to expect. I knew that my job would consist of doing anything that needed to be done, but I didn’t know what that meant in terms of working at an advertising/branding agency.

My first impression of NORTH and everyone that works there was that they all seemed to be smart and talented individuals with a personal strength in one area or another (design, marketing, writing, etc.). Yet when the team members of NORTH put their heads together and work as a collective, their individual strengths blend together and allow them to accomplish things that some only dream about.

Realizing that, I didn’t necessarily think I was the most qualified or experienced asset to the team but I hoped that I could somehow fit in and help out. Most of the work I did was stuff that allowed me to see how projects and plans were put together here at NORTH. Whether I was making photocopies of beer advertisements, or listening quietly during a team member meeting, I got to see bits and pieces of how the advertising world works – well, at least how it works here at NORTH.

When I was given the opportunity to work with Food Chain Films, I was excited. It was a chance for me to get an inside look at how commercials are made, and to see what part NORTH had in all of this. Throughout the two days, I got the impression that NORTH is really the brains behind the operation. Mark, Steve, Jim, Ashod and John were all involved in making sure the commercial turned out the way that PGE and NORTH wanted.

Overall, I think my experience here at NORTH has definitely been a positive one. It’s been interesting and intriguing to see how the advertising world works and more specifically, how NORTH handles their clients and projects. I’m very thankful that I was given this opportunity, and hopefully during my time here I have helped in one way or another.

Editor’s note: on being asked what NORTH could be doing better, Remy mentioned using email less in favor of in-person communications, and stacking our own dishes in the dish washer.

Our friends in the Pearl, Tenfour are throwing a party. Great art, Stickybits and Koi Fusion – what’s not to like? Read on..

“The evening will include an interactive art show, a live DJ, refreshments and delicious eats from Koi Fusion.

The interactive experience will be powered by Stickybits™ mobile apps. Stickybits allows custom barcode scanning to provide an informative and compelling way to appreciate and share the experience of these artists and their work. You can download Stickybits by pointing your iPhone or Android smartphone browser to m.stickybits.com. You’ll need to create an account, so you may want to do it ahead of time so that you can jump right into the fun!

This is your chance to participate in a one-of-a-kind social experience, learn more about tenfour the agency and have a great time on a Thursday night.”

Not every tactile item that we use everyday requires a redesign, but the US bank note may be one of them. What’s nice about this particular redesign project is that Dowling Duncan’s designers took note of how we handle bank notes – “we realized people tend to handle and deal with money vertically rather than horizontally.” So they are addressing usability too..

The folks at the London-based graphic design studio, Dowling Duncan, have submitted a design concept to a competition being run by New York designer Richard Smith. Smith says that he hopes the Dollar ReDe$ign Project will bring about change for everyone and that he ‘wants to rebrand the US Dollar, rebuild financial confidence and revive our failing economy.’

Below, Dowling Duncan’s designers share their process:

Why the size?
We have kept the width the same as the existing dollars. However we have changed the size of the note so that the one dollar is shorter and the 100 dollar is the longest. When stacked on top of each other it is easy to see how much money you have. It also makes it easier for the visually impaired to distinguish between notes.

Why a vertical format?
When we researched how notes are used we realized people tend to handle and deal with money vertically rather than horizontally. You tend to hold a wallet or purse vertically when searching for notes. The majority of people hand over notes vertically when making purchases. All machines accept notes vertically. Therefore a vertical note makes more sense.

Why different colors?
It’s one of the strongest ways graphically to distinguish one note from another.

Why these designs?
We wanted a concept behind the imagery so that the image directly relates to the value of each note. We also wanted the notes to be educational, not only for those living in America but visitors as well. Each note uses a black and white image depicting a particular aspect of American history and culture. They are then overprinted with informational graphics or a pattern relating to that particular image.

$1 – The first African American president
$5 – The five biggest native American tribes
$10 – The bill of rights, the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution
$20 – 20th Century America
$50 – The 50 States of America
$100 – The first 100 days of President Franklin Roosevelt. During this time he led the congress to pass more important legislations than most presidents pass in their entire term. This helped fight the economic crises at the time of the great depression. Ever since, every new president has been judged on how well they have done during the first 100 days of their term.

See all of the bank note redesigns here.

We are thrilled to announce our new partnership with KEEN, the company that has revolutionized footwear for active lifestyles. This new collaboration conforms absolutely to NORTH’s vision to serve clients with a triple-bottom-line sensibility, great design culture, high-performance products and a die-hard fan base.

Press release [PDF]

We live in a bubble. And by we, I mean those of us who either work in disciplines that require us to keep up with technological knowledge on behalf of our clients, or who are early adopters: and young.

I was reading a NY Times article this morning on how Google, Foursquare, Gowalla, Shopkick and most recently Facebook, all offer services that let people report their physical location online. And smelling the money, venture capitalists began pouring $115 million into location start-ups since last year.

The problem is that you need a decent smartphone or similar device to access these services and although there are millions of them in people’s hands, most of them don’t want to share their location. It’s the old ‘you can lead the horse to water…etc’ conundrum. [Update: It has been pointed out to me that you can use SMS for checking in to Foursquare on non-smartphones. Yes, I live in a bubble.]

The article points out that “just 4 percent of Americans have tried location-based services, and 1 percent use them weekly, according to Forrester Research. Eighty percent of those who have tried them are men, and 70 percent are between 19 and 35.”

Then there’s the problem of the over-hyping of these services in tech media. As Maggie Fox, the founder and CEO of Social Media Group, writes in her post – Foursquare – Shiny Object or Mainstream?:

“Over the weekend, Foursquare scored a major coup via a new partnership with American Eagle: they got their name and logo plastered all over Times Square. The first story I saw on the subject was on Mashable, where blogger Samuel Axon noted,

Foursquare has just over three million users and you need a smartphone to use it. It is far, far from “mainstream”. And the article in Mashable feels like something I’ve been seeing a lot of lately – mistaking a brand using a niche and emerging web service [the “shiny object” in the title of this post] as a way of positioning themselves as cool and hep, for some sort of validation of something as “mainstream”.

In the end, the pundits predict, the battle over who wins the location game will be between Google, Foursquare and Facebook. Unfortunately, at the moment, Foursquare doesn’t have the users nor the financial muscle to escape the Google/Facebook sandwich. And all these companies have to make location service use mainstream – somehow.

Artist and sometime punk singer Linder Stirling’s most famous artwork adorns the cover of the Buzzcocks’ 1977 single ‘Orgasm Addict’: a collage of a naked woman with eyes for nipples and an iron for a face. This lesser-known image breaks with punk tradition for a starker, more figurative approach. It was originally distributed solely through the Secret Buzzcocks Fan Club

[Actually the writer gets part of this wrong. The Orgasm Addict cover art didn't have eyes for nipples - they were grinning female mouths as you'll see when you visit this link.]