Our fellow Bulletproof team member Matt “The Tatt” Stanbury is about to embark on an epic journey…

The route has been planned, his little ginger bags have been packed. The mission? An astronomical cycle from Lands End to John o’Groats.

Matt with friends (and his Dad); Richard, James and Nige will be riding for 10 days uphill and down dale stopping at fire stations across Great Britain this Saturday, May 12th – 21st 2012.

He’s had help from pals here at Bulletproof with Mo from the Coke team donating a few cases of Powerade (keeps optimal hydration levels and improves sports performance) to pull them through and his buddies at For Goodness Shakes who’ve donated tasty recovery and energy products that have help him get up for training in the mornings and will keep him spinning his little (now much bigger) legs all the way across the largest island in Europe. 

Matt and friend’s are raising funds for two charities; Cancer Research and The Fire Fighters Charity because [Mat's Dad] Richard is a station commander and has been fighting fires for 26 years. Over a grand has been raised so far, a tremendous big thank you from the team for all that have donated.

Please help them reach their target of £2000 by sharing this post and telling your friends, family and pets. And if you haven’t done so already it would be great if you donated now.

 Their charity page is here: http://www.justgiving.com/Sir-Mattoo-Stanbury 

or here… http://www.justgiving.com/landsendjohnogroats2012

Donate to either one they’re both good causes!

In the meanwhile why not check back at  http://www.worldofpayne.co.uk/, for daily updates on ride progress, pictures and stats and more.

We Wish them luck!

With this year seeing the Diamond Jubilee, London 2012 Olympics, Wimbledon and Euro 2012 Football Championships and last year still just recovering from the Royal Wedding it seems the UK has gone mad for Jub-Olympics inspired new look packaging.

Being the interested and observant bunch we are at BP we’ve been keeping tabs on the best and worst of this years Jub-Olympic designs. We’ve noticed three clear categories emerging from the vast amount of products embracing the events.

Since we are keen special edition packaging agency ourselves we thought we’d unlock the secret to the raft of current Jub-Olympics packs about to hit our shelves over the next few weeks.

The first and most obvious approach is the Union (Hi)Jack pack where our favourite brands have gone all patriotic on us and decided to dress appropriatley in our national colours. There’s no prizes for originality in this category but it certainly makes us feel like having a nice cup of tea,a portion of Fish & Chips and a quick listen to George Formby…even if it is just on dishwasher tablets!

The second, more exciting and less explored category to emerge is the Retro-a-go-go category where brands that have an existing heritage of thier own, in line with the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II have gone all old school and sifted through their packaging archives to reboot (as they say in Hollywood) the packs of yesteryear. This has resulted in some unexpected and highly collectable designs hitting shelves. Packaging nerds (not me) will be clambering to get their hands on the new Limited edition Marmite [Ma'amite] or 60 year aged Kellogs cereal boxes for example.  We’ve noticed that neither Oxo or Bisto have taken up the gauntlet, two age old brands that we would have been certain would have followed suit. Oxo. Call us next time.

The final category we’ve seen creeping in is Crowning Glory/Crazy Diamonds. This category seems to have been embraced by premium brands lucky enough to have been granted a royal warrant and brands that probably think they should…mostly the former. This category seems to have resulted in designs that are the easiest on the eye but alas the easiest to overlook, occasionally resulting in understated but elegant designs, and most just exude sheer class, especially the inventive bottles found in the alcohol category.

 We have been lucky enough to have been involved in several Jub-Olympic packaging designs including Powerade and Cadbury for  Team GB. Cadbury happens to be the only company we found that has limited edition packs that cover two of the categories above with their Cadbury Jubilee biscuits tin, Cadbury Dairy Milk Jubilee Edition and their London 2012 Games Cadbury Dairy Milk  limited edition pack (by Bulletproof).

However, it’s not all plain sailing and flag waving. Supermarket giant; Asda warned it’s suppliers not to fly the Union Jack on all their packaging to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee and London Olympics this year, amid fears it may offend customers in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Rather than celebrating the momentous British events as a nation, the supermarket indicated that it may want undecorated packaging for its Scottish and Northern Irish stores. We think there is a lesson to be learned for all design agencies here that when designing packaging we should always be globally consious and politically sensitive. After all, national pride isn’t always viewed from the inside and there is always the risk of been seen as nationalistic and even xenophobic from the other side of the fence.

These design’s may seem easy to execute but many designers are having to reconcile brand guidelines with national and celebratory imagery without being too kitsch or jingoistic. Other hurdles include legality – no pictures of the Queen – and the fact that there are no official branded Jubilee products. Therefore the most reliable solution is to create non-specific national celebratory imagery, while avoiding muddling the statement between both national celebrations this summer, and when used ‘The’ crown has to be played with very carefully, within guidelines set by the The Lord Chamberlain’s office!

We wouldn’t say we are overly patriotic here at Bulletproof, [we're not all British] but between us we’ve bought more than our fair share of limited edition Jubilee Marmite, Absolute London Vodka and have eaten our own body weight in Team GB Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, so why not. Rule Britannia!

Gareth

If you thought the movie was clichéd, wait for the poster…

I like legs. We all do. Mine are short but perfectly formed if not a little hairy. The human leg has evolved continually over many eons, adapting from an underwater propeller to its current footy form. But on film posters, the leg has evolved very little. In fact, ‘Through-the-leg device: a cutoff-torso-spread-leg framing device, is the most frequently copied movie cliche ever

From steamy paperbacks designed in the ’40s, hardly a year has gone by without at least one ham-fisted advertisement using this perspective.

The earliest known uses were in 19th Century Westerns, where the quintessential showdown frames one duelist through the legs of the other, and mid-20th-century pulp magazine covers were known for their noir images of recoiling women seen through the legs of menacing men. Eventually, designers used the conceit to frame all manner of things…

The most cliched and famous use of the technique usually features sexy feminine legs and signifies a [bad] comedy where a strong character comes to unexpectedly change the life of a boring family, group of friends or loner guy.  These movies inevitably have an awkward cringe-worthy sex scene between the inexplicably hot girl (The legs from the poster) with at least one of the persons framed within. Leading us temptingly into our third installment of Movie Poster Cliches. Introducing…

 Cliché #3: Through-the-Legs (aka The A Frame or  The Nutmeg)

Ah yes! ‘For your eyes only’ the King of all between the legs movie posters. For us young boys born in the late 70′s/early 80′s this may well have been their first introduction to the bare legs of a woman that wasn’t their own mother. James Bond movies have always been fantastic repositories for sexy women – over the last few decades, the Bond girl has set the standard for foxiness on the silver screen. If we were to pick one poster to rule them all, it’d be this classic, although For Your Eyes… may not have kicked off the whole style but it’s certainly to blame for making family moviegoer’s a bit hot under the collar. Many controversial incidents occurred with the release of the For Your Eyes Only teaser poster artwork, which showcased a model in thong-like shorts holding a crossbow with Bond naturally framed between her long legs. This was deemed in some U.S. states as indecent exposure. A later version of the teaser was released with a superimposed pair of shorts painted over the original artwork. As ‘A-Frame’ movie posters go, this is the best of the bad bunch. Enjoy.

Copy Cat Killers (of design):

 Conclusion: What have we learned today? We have proved that almost without exception sex dosen’t always sell [Has you anybody ever actually seen any of these films?], but if you’re selling it on film then a pair of legs never hurt anyone (except maybe The Karate Kid). There’s no guarantee of quality to be found in the A-frame movie but if you like bad comedies and hot girls then you’re almost surely in luck. If your looking for plotlines and Oscar winning performances steer well clear. Personally I’d rather watch my own legs (as I said before they are short but perfectly formed). Never has a design style been more clearly an example opposed to the not judging a book (or film) by it’s cover adage.

Salvador Dalí’s Real Masterpiece: The Logo For Chupa Chups Lollipops

Salvador Dalí, the wacky surrealist known for his signature pointy mustache and painting melting clocks, was also graphic designer behind the classic Chupa Chups–an enduringly sweet, bright rendition of a daisy.

The Catalan lollipop made its first appearance in 1958, when the company founder Enric Bernat hatched the idea of placing a bonbon on a stick. He called the product “GOL,” imagining the candy as a soccer ball and the open mouth a net. It didn’t go over well. So Bernat hired an ad agency that renamed his product “Chupa Chups” (from the Spanish chupar, meaning “to suck”). All that was left was the branding. In 1969, Bernat complained about what he had while having coffee with his artist friend–none other than Salvador Dalí.

According to lore, the painter went to work immediately, doodling for an hour on newspapers that were laying around. Dalí’s version masterfully integrated the wordmark into the daisy design, and has hardly changed since. And Phaidon points us to one subtle, extremely smart feature of the design:

Acutely aware of presentation, Dalí insisted that his design be placed on top of the lolly, rather than the side, so that it could always be viewed intact. It’s proved to be one of the most enduring pieces of branding ever and one that’s still used today, four billion sales later.

What would induce the famous artist to take on such a project? Dinero. The guy rarely turned it down, causing surrealist poet André Breton to nickname him “Avida Dollars”–an anagram of Dalí’s name that roughly translates to “eager for cash.

by Gareth

VENDING MACHINE GIVES YOU A COKE FOR A HUG

As a kid, the hug was a forced, embarrassing charade that was thrust upon you when your Aunt was leaving or someone your mum works with saw you in the street.

While you’ve probably grown more tactile with age, the hug has only ever brought you slightly closer to people and not offered up any visible goods as a reward, Until now that is…

Sugary dream-makers Coca-Cola have launched a new vending machine which offers up a free can of Coke every time a thirsty stranger gives it a hug. It lives at the National University of Singapore and is part of their Open Happiness project.

Hopefully plans for a Covent Garden based Hug vending machine are in the pipeline and we certainly look forward to the banks doing a similar thing (Yes We’re talking to you Santander).

Film buyers fooled by Sony’s ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ DVD joke

Sony Pictures have designed their ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ DVD to look like a pirate copy of the film, much to the horror of DVD renters.

Is Trayvon Martin’s Mother is Smart to Apply for Trademark for Her Son’s Name?

An unusual new twist in the Trayvon Martin case has emerged , the dead boy’s mother is forced into moves to trademark her son’s name. 

According to the Associated Press,

An attorney for Martin’s mother confirmed that she filed trademark applications for two slogans containing her son’s name: “Justice for Trayvon” and “I Am Trayvon.” The applications said the trademarks could be used for such things as DVDs and CDs. The trademark attorney, Kimra Major-Morris, said in an email that Fulton wants to protect intellectual property rights for “projects that will assist other families who experience similar tragedies.” Asked if Fulton had any profit motive, the attorney replied: “None.”

Some might argue that the trademark applications have nothing to do with innocence, guilt, or the character of the grieving family; this is just how things are done in America now and those looking for ulterior motives probably understand outrage more than trademark law.

The Trayvon Martin tragedy, about an unarmed teen shot and killed by a Florida gated community watch volunteer last month, has become the rallying cry for a nation against everything from racial profiling to “stand your ground” justified shooting laws.

As a national sensation, Trayvon’s name has been co-opted by all manner of opportunist, from the social to the commercial. Already, eBay is flooded with merchandise bearing the “I am Trayvon” and “Justice for Trayvon” marks for which the dead youth’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, filed patents. A few examples:

A twist on Skittles, the brand that’s become the calling card for the protesters.

And yes, Travyonmartin.com is already registered. The domain was scooped up privately by proxy registration on March 16. JusticeForTrayvon.com was grabbed on March 21 by one Charles Wiley of Miami Gardens, FL. Oddly enough, IamTrayvon.com is an active NSFW page of strip club reviews.

Of course, for those looking to discredit the teen’s parents and frame them as cynical about their grief, the trademark filing was a windfall. Right wing blog Gateway Pundit reported on the filing, adding, “It’s part of the mourning process. (Read the comments at your own peril.) Another, Weasel Zippers posted the story along with the comment, ”I can’t get the “cha-ching” sound of a cash register out of my head.”

Such comments reflect a complete ignorance of how brands and commerce work in the modern world. The trademark applications by Travon’s mother were filed by Kimra Major-Jones, an Orlando attorney who specializes in, yes, trademark and copyright law. It is almost certain that with the attention the Martin family is getting, filing for trademark protections is just another bit of advice from counsel. In fact, one could even argue that an attorney who did not advise a trademark filing would be neglectful of his or her job.

Not long ago, Occupy Wall Street also met with derision after the movement tried to trademark its name to protect the mark. In fact, if there is a recent case of attempted trademarking that deserves scorn, it is Disney’s attempt to trademark ”Seal Team 6″ after the Navy commandoes killed Osama Bin Laden.

By the way, for those interested in why Martin’s mother filed to trademark “I am Trayvon” and “Justice for Trayvon” but not “Trayvon Martin,” it’s because trademark law does not allow for trademarking of personal names unless that name is proved to have acquired an additional meaning.

What Trayvon Martin’s family is doing is just sound name protection, and an anguished mother’s move to protect her son … at least his memory and reputation.

By Catriona Crombie

We found this on Design Taxi. Another website We love.

Thanking you in advance
Team Waterproof