Creative Wave – May 26
Happy Friday everyone. This week, we of course bow our head in remembrance of the victims of Monday night’s tragic events in Manchester. Many more pertinent comments have been made by many more knowledgable people than me, so I will just say that in times like this it’s more important than ever to stick together and not be affected by the divisive, hate-filled, fear-mongering of the national press. Elsewhere, the stars turn and a time presents itself… in other words, the sun’s out and everyone’s feeling happy. Hence a shining selection of advertising, film, sport, music and ice creams.
TUNE FOR THE WEEKEND-
We go back to go forward this week with an Idris Muhammad classic that you might recognise from Jamie XX’s 2015 album. The original he sampled for Loud Places is called Could Heaven Ever Be, and it’s sublime –
HERO OF THE WEEK-
Nothing obscure about this guy anymore. Stephen Jones is a homeless man who was sleeping near Manchester Arena on Monday when he heard an explosion. He immediately ran over to treat injured children as they fled the scene. The actions of an absolute dappa. Read more here:
West Ham owner David Sullivan has given him six month’s free accommodation.
*Channel 4 has launched its annual diversity contest, offering a prize of £1million worth of airtime to the winning commercial. This year’s theme is ‘non-visible disabilities’–
* The penultimate series of Game of Thrones is nearly here. Watch the proper series 7 trailer–
* A young man called Obasi Shaw submitted a rap album as his Harvard senior thesis and earned the second-highest possible honour. Listen to Liminal Minds here-
* Struggling to get your head around this week’s Twin Peaks revival? This handy article outlines some of the mysteries you might’ve not followed in the first two parts-
* Good old’ Heinz Baked Beanz are back on TV this week with a nice new campaign that highlights some of the benefits, while also making fun of health freaks-
* One positive that came from Monday night’s horrible events in Manchester was another surge of public goodwill, as hotels, inns and local residents offered accommodation, food and even plugs to charge phones. #RoomForManchester was the hashtag-
* In a week where we lost Roger Moore, what better time to revisit Alan Partridge narrating the first three minutes of The Spy Who Loved Me–
* This book aims to chart the 500 most important graphic designs of all time, from early mechanical labels to book covers to brand logos-
* Here are the first images from the next Star Wars film, The Last Jedi–
* Get your first look at one of this year’s big computer games with the first trailer for Destiny 2. Looks impressive-
*Manchester follows Liverpool in becoming the second city in the country to ban The Sun. Good on them-
* At a time when we’re looking for positive news, Taiwan has just become the first country in Asia to rule in favour of same-sex marriages–
* This new prescription app from Webby Parker is allowing many glasses-wearers to skip the optician and take an eye-test direct on a phone–
* Here’s the shot that solidified Lebron James as the all-time highest points scorer in NBA play-off history-
* Charity Bite the Ballot and illustration agency Jelly have teamed up to encourage young people to vote next month using the hashtag #TurnUp-
* Adorable scenes at La Masia this week as Ronaldinho surprises Lionel Messi at training. This is how I imagine Ronaldinho always dresses-
* Here are the 10 best/worst film posters from the Cannes film festival… from ghost clowns to a hurricane of bees to a normal Nicolas Cage film-
* Meanwhile, in quite staggering news, more than 100 constituencies around the country have no female candidates… So 7.5 million people can’t vote for a woman-
* Amazing footage from NASA’s Juno probe showed us what Jupiter’s poles look like. Spoiler alert: electric storms the size of Earth. The photos are pretty amazing-
* Mobile network Three have dropped the muppets for a Giraffe-Flamingo hybrid in their new ad. Shame Samsung’s flying ostrich ad was so recent (and so much better)-
* New from the Chromatics, this is Shadow. It features in the new series of Twin Peaks, hence the red curtain and the (even more overt) similarity to Julee Cruise-
* This week, Facebook’s rules and regulations around what is and what is not acceptable content entered the public domain-
* New platform Yodomo aims to become the go-to platform for lifestyle tutorials… cooking, etc. They provide filming / editing tips to help averages joes and janes submit their own-
* A few months ago I shared a link to some of the Wolverhampton Wanderers match day programmes because of their awesome illustrated covers. Here’s the full set from artist Alexander Wells–
* For the first time in this country, six music festivals are offering free drug testing for revellers to protect them from dodgy substances. Great move-
* Quite a coup here for Marvel Studios as they sign up Tom Hardy to play the iconic Venom in their forthcoming standalone film-
* French sports store Intersport introduced a new promotion this week. Run a kilometre under 5 mins 30 and get 20% off. All judged via an exclusive soundcloud track–
* Unfortunately it seems that Red Dead Redemption 2 has been delayed until this time next year-
* Meet the five nominees for the BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year. The winner will be announced next Tuesday-
* After years in the weeds, it looks like the Uncharted movie is finally moving forward. Casting Tom Holland as a young Nathan Drake is an excellent move-
*Walker’s Crisps had a bit of a social media disaster as their innocent request for selfies resulted in Gary Lineker appearing alongside Harold Shipman, Rolf Harris and the like-