Greatest promo ever !

Incredible promotion from the Clayton homes company, a promo you can't refuse ! Just for buying a single home, you get a can of pork and beans from Van Camp's. Yeah a 60cts value !! Hurry up, offer valid only thru end of 2009. The ad can be seen on the Columbia Herald site :

It would have been much more interesting to say that buying a 80 000$ can of beans you get a free home !

Interesting note on Divine Caroline site about Portion size, then and now. It reminds us that in the 1970's, about 47% of Americans were overweight when its 66% now (in comparison, 15% of French are considered obese).

See also the website of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute with the slideshows presenting how did the portions have evolved through the years. For example, the pepperoni pizza on the left was the usual size served 20 years ago : 500 calories. On the right side a common portion : 850 calories !! The difference (350 calories would be burnt within 1 hour of golf playing, walking and carrying the clubs)...

Good appetite...

In Memoriam to dear friend Hernan Diaz

Hernan Diaz was a living memory of Colombia. He just left us this week and I had the chance to meet him and we quickly became friends. A great eye that recorded one of the best pictures of his country, a very warm personality that had kept his child soul. Hernan really reinvented the city of Cartagena through his elegant and emotional pictures.

Awful Library Books site

Mary and Holly, two public librarians created this funny website Awful Library Books. They publish examples of completely outdated books that remembers us how fast does time has changed. Some titles are pretty difficult to imagine these days... !

Here is a (very) personal selection for your delight !

Paris Photo 2009

Paris Photo is getting each year better and better. Lot of people to admire the selection from worldwide galleries. Here's a sample of the 2009 edition. See you next year !

British Food Standards Agency campaign

The Food Standards Agency from UK has recently launched an ad campaign with funny anthropomorphic food characters talk between the healthy and unhealthy. These funny videos are part of the Eat well, be well program, that helps people to balance the diet and promote healthy food programs.

Interesting in the FSA website, the calorie calculator : calculate how much calories you'll burn depending on your activity (ironing, dusting, cleaning windows,...) !

Philippe Cognée at Daniel Templon

Philippe Cognée presented yesterday at the Flammarion bookstore in Beaubourg his first monography. You can have an overlook of P Cognée work at the gallery Daniel Templon till December 31th 2009. The artist is fascinated by the most banal places like the places of transit. He also realized a serie called "Supermarkets" from which the photos are a sample.

Severe Vodka Warehouse crash video

A russian fork lift driver suddenly lost control of his engine and crashed the whole warehouse. The merchandise is said to be... vodka !

A loss of 150 000 USD has been reported and happy ending, the driver got only minor injuries at his leg. The security camera got all...

Tom Fishburn cartoons

Tom Fishburne is a greaaaat cartoonist that publish on his own blog his ideas about business through cartoons. Mainly about retail, brand management and marketing, his cartoons are not only funny but also very meaningful about new trends and retail strategy. He began drawing cartoons on the back of his Harvard Business School cases. Some may be as valuable as the cases as Fishburne as a sharp and clever view on marketing stuff.

See especially his video : Everything I needed to know about innovation, I learned by drawing cartoons :

Everything I needed to know about innovation, I learned by drawing cartoons from Tom Fishburne on Vimeo.

Barcode Art

The barcode, created in 1948 by Bernard Silver has dramatically changed the way retailers do business, allowing them to increase the number of products sold and managing the inventories. The barcode is part of our modern life in which any product is identified by a scanner.

Here are a sample of interesting use of the famous barcode, mainly found in Oddee.

A Zebra Barcode photo by Tim Flach

D-Barcode is a Japanese Design Agency that creates specific barcodes (that works !) for retail products. A great packaging idea and as their slogans says "Big ideas are small"

A CD holder designed by Marián Laššák

Barcode Street Art in Northampton

Barcode Building Vitruvius & Sons Architectural Studios in St Petersburg

A visit to Patrick Roger Chocolate Factory !

We were very lucky last week end to get an invitation for a private visit to Patrick Roger Chocolate Factory. Patrick Roger is a total artist and probably creates amongst the best chocolate on earth (IMHO). I strongly recommend his Venezuela 75%, Ghana 75% or Indonesia 68% cocoa butter.

From his last creation : the Berlin wall in chocolate :

Insane wiches blog

Adrian Fiorino is the founder of the funny blog Insanewiches where you can see the most creatives sandwiches ever realized. As he wrote, " I started Insanewiches so that other foodies would have a place to waste time, especially during stressful days (...) This site is a great time-waster for fed up foodies who need a little fun injected into their routine."

So relax and admire :

Rube Goldberg Machines

Rube Goldberg machines are always fascinating. Here's one I really liked made with ketchup portions...

RAD : the top of kitsch

RADMAN selfportrait

RADMAN is a greeaaaaat blogger from the Lifelounge magazine. He daily publishes out of the world pics . Very stylish, best of the kitsch and always funny. Visit his site and beware, some pics are impressive of bad taste !

Guitar Hero Trader Joe's and other displays

Trader Joe's has developed very attractive display on its stores. Here's some samples taken in New York, NY and Phoenix, AZ

The ready to eat section in Phoenix

The sampling products section in Phoenix

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Yuken Teruya art

Yuken Teruya is a japanese artist who uses everyday objects (Mc Donald's bags, cardboard toilet paper rolls, pizza boxes...), recycling them with a nice sense of meticulosity. Nothing is added, just transformed to drastically change their meanings. The results is very poetic.

As Teruya writes :

"Pizza Boxes, a McDonald's bag, Flags, Desserts and Toilet Paper rolls... when these items become artworks, they also easily become political, maybe because they are taken from daily life. But if you find unexpected shapes and colors from the toilet rolls, they become something else. (...) I feel that my work shouldn't only have the function of conveying the artist's message. My works have a right to simply be beautiful or offer any kind of attraction."