Yes, I do think momma would be proud.  At least they didn’t use the nose picker stock photo of me, this time.  I can add yet another feature to my jack of all trades resume: “Todd, Professional Gag Gift Model.”

– Abraham Lincoln

Someone was either really clever, or really bored.  They turned a regular blue public city waste receptacle into our favorite blue cookie eating monster from Sesame Street!  Either way, a very creative use of converting something normal or everyday into something funny.

How true is this?  We need to choose our words very wisely when speaking to children; especially our own kids.  Sticks and stones break bones, but you can stifle a child with harsh words.

Got fish breath?  Then you need some Clorets!  This is such a great ad, with lots of copy space.

Get back into the plasma TV you naughty dinosaur!  This 3D Panasonic advertisement hits the nail right on the head.  The 3D is so real, it’s almost like the subjects you watch on it are invading your home.

Ever walk through an apartment building and smell everyone’s cooking mixed together?  It’s pretty nasty when too many aromas mix.  This fan company came up with a funny concept, to illustrate how well their exhaust fans work.

FedEx, Federal Express, a company that does logistics and shipping worldwide created a great ad illustrating how easy it is to ship packages to other countries.  It’s just as easy as handing a package to another person, through a window.  I love how they melded the scene together with the world map.  It’s clean, simple, and easy to understand at first glance.

Don’t drink and drive – if you do, it will feel like this.  Note the end of the road – disastrous consequences.  A greatly executed ad.

Recently we’ve read about and maybe heard the recent freeing of beagles in Spain that were being used for testing all their lives.  It’s really sad that they test cosmetics on these cute little guys.  I have two beagles myself, so I definitely feel for them.  They are the sweetest dogs.  If you find yourself in a position to rescue a beagle that needs a home, please do so.  Don’t even think about buying cosmetics from companies that practice animal testing – period!

A simple concept of clearing polution and smog with something as simple as the windshield wipers on your car.

A Faber Castell ad for true colours so well illustrates the fact that the color you’re using is so accurate, that it’s the same as the real thing.  Clever, and fun!

This is a really cool one, where a woman is actually hugging the page of a letter.  Talk about illustrating the point home about how much more thought and care goes into snail mail letters, than emails.  A great attempt by the post office to remind folks of this, in the digital age of smartphones and tablet pc’s we are living in.

Get so close and have so much control over your favorite sports, that your smartphone finger will actually have control over the games!  This is a funny one.

We all know evian water has used babies to advertise for years now – here is a funny continuation of that series.

We hope you have enjoyed these – please share this post, and be sure to bookmark us to come back regularly for more creative goodness.

That’s definitely a realistic reenactment of what happens after blowing tabacco smoke into a pretty woman’s face.  About 5 Tipalets for 25 cents.  Not 5, but about 5.  Just in case we throw in an extra half, or 4, or 6, or 3. 

Cocaine.  Instantaneous cure for everything.  Right.  For sale by all druggists.  Coke heads rejoice!  Nowadays they call them “street pharmacists”.

Oh look!  There’s actually a Soda Pop Board of America, and what do they recommend?  Starting babies on Cola EARLY ON!  Sure, that makes a lot of sense.  No wonder why most Americans are overweight, and why many school systems have removed their soda machines.

There’s nothing like a fresh and crispy gat on Christmas morning LOL!  Put a heater in your pocket on those cold winter days.

I’m not a real doctor, but the big tobacco company has paid me to act like one endorsing how healthy it is to smoke in this ad.  Smoking cigarettes is actually healthy?  What a joke.  Decades of health research has proven otherwise.  I actually just recently saw a 20/20 special on the smoking and smoking kids / babies epidemic going on over in Indonesia.  Check it out, it was pretty interesting. The full 20/20 episode is here.

I’m giving my wife a Kenwood Chef, because it does everything but cooks.  But hey; that’s what wives are for! (Well, they used to be. Things done changed somewhere along the lines but let’s not get into that history lesson.)  I wonder if this ad pissed women off back when it was released?  Probably not.  Today, they would receive about 150,000 hate letters on the first day public.

Who wouldn’t want to go on a gay cruise with their wives and family members, while playing with puppets!?  Every voyage a gay cruise.

Yeah, we’re all going to die somehow.  Who cares, just smoke our cancer sticks!  Take it from this dude in the bowtie.  He looks like a wise fella.

There’s definitely nothing wrong with a hard working woman.  I can hear the ad slogan now, “Put some PEP in your step, with Kelloggs PEP cereal! Vitamin enriched so you can get all of your chores done on time!”

Lane Bryant today refers to clothes for heavier women as “plus size” or “plus sized”.  Back in the day? Chubbies.  LOL!

Wow, a softtop Schlitz beer can!  I wonder how long we’ll need to wait to have something similar!?  Ever heard of the on-can flip top aluminum tab?  What about the vented wide mouth opening?  Yes, things have come a long way.

DJ Paulie D would say: “Oh yeah, beer for babies yeah.”  Please don’t give beer to your children, people.  You know what?  I “pick up” a little every time I have a beer in my hand too, so I can see why mother and baby would also.

Wives: cry to your husbands for what you want, and then they’ll buy it for you.  Very realistic!

Wow, Motorola actually used to make TV sets.  This study showed that a television set meant better behavior in kids.  HA!

Tape worms.  They do a body good.  Eat all you want, and then let the tapeworms steal all of the calories, and grow inside of your stomach until they come out of your throat.  Mmm tapeworms!  Beats throwing up.

It’s funny – there’s another way you can easily make a setup like this, on the cheap.  I used to use our ironing board as a laptop table, and it fit just across my legs on my recumbent cycle.  Those are the types of exercise bikes where you are seated in a chair, and the pedals are just in front of you.  I had picked the exercise bike up for $100 second hand on craigslist, so I’d have something that would work for when I didn’t feel like going to the gym (I feel that way a lot).  It looks ridiculous, but don’t knock it until you try it!

If you ever saw the movie The Goonies where Chunk has to do the truffle shuffle in order to gain entrance into Mikey’s house, or if you’ve seen the OK Go “This Too Shall Pass” music video, you’ve probably seen a Rube Goldberg style machine before.  Even this Honda commercial used the Rube Goldberg method in one of their ad spots.  They are those really cool obstacle course type booby trap machines that people make, with tons of moving parts like marbles, dominoes, fans, balloons; anything really that can move or create motion.

Here is the “making of” interview from the creator.  Thankfully they were able to get sponsors for this project, because the amount of photography gear they were going to have to buy in order to execute this was going to get a bit pricey.

We hope you enjoy these.  Please leave us some comments below, letting us know what you think!  A special thanks to RedDotStudio for sharing these with us.

I got a huge kick out of this funny photoshopped image of a large telephoto Canon L lens mounted to what looks like an M-16 military issue machine gun – it was recently posted by Adorama on their company facebook page wall.  In photography, we know that sometimes the machine gun method (automatic bursting) will pan out for you, especially when shooting moving subjects.  Also a lot of times as photographers, talking to our friends, might say, “Yeah, I actually am shooting a baby later today” or “I’m planning on shooting some engaged couple later”, only to get a confused reaction from them.  Then you have to explain yourself, “Not with a gun, silly… I’m photographing them”.  Talking amongst fellow photographers, you don’t get that reaction.  It still sounds funny sometimes.  I think later I’m going to go shoot my two dogs.  LOL with a camera!

This simple image got me thinking once again about photo hunting.  Traditional game Hunting and photography can sometimes cross paths, and inter-mingle with one another.  There are a lot of really kind hearted people that will get all suited up to go hunting for deer, go out in the woods, wait patiently with their super-telephoto lenses and DSLRs, and hunt their prey my photographing them, instead of killing them with guns or bows.  Venison is delicious, but I don’t think I could ever kill a deer unless it was a last resort, and my survival depended on it.  They remind me so much of a cross between big cute dogs and little horses.  I’m not knocking hunting, but I’m definitely no country boy.  I’ve lived on a farm for a few weeks in Northern West Virginia with relatives, and I saw how country living was definitely am amazing way of life.  There is no noise, no stress, everyone is friend; but there is definitely a lot of hard work  to be done when you have a farm with any sort of livestock or crops to maintain.  When it comes to hunting, I would definitely prefer the photography method.  Photography hunters say it is just as gratifying to them.  Sure, they don’t get to eat the meat, but they also don’t have to go through the trouble of lugging a bloody animal carcass back home on the roof of their car or in the back of their pickup truck, hanging it to bleed it out, and then butchering the meat.  We live in a part of the world where food is widely available at most supermarkets, even venison or rabbit when it’s in season.  If you’re a hunter, definitely consider trading a couple of your rifles for some higher end camera gear – you might be pleasantly surprised in the similarity of the experience.   Bullets and ammo are not exactly cheap, either.  You digital camera costs nothing more than the electricity it takes to charge up the batteries.  Here is a short youtube clip demonstrating hunting with a camera instead of a gun.  This man in the video below calls the elk using a technique referred to as bugling, and he then captures the animal with his digital camera.  With photo hunting, instead of hanging a taxidermied animal head on your wall, you can hang up a variety of nice prints instead.

1. Gun Target Alarm Clock

It’s cool because you have to shoot the target in order to turn it off.  Will you be able to do this from across the room, half asleep?  I don’t know.  It might not get you out of bed that easily, if you’re within shooting range.

2. Clocky Alarm Clock On Wheels

Okay, so you wake up – and there’s an alarm clock going off really loud, and rolling around the room.  This alarm clock might get me up really quickly if I had a bunch of priceless antique glass artwork all around the room or something.  Other than that, it would probably just freak your dog or cat out.  Still pretty cool.

3. Emerson Radio Hot Wheels HW800 Snore Slammer Alarm Clock Radio

This Hot Wheels alarm clock doesn’t roll around like the one above, but it sure does look pretty sweet.  There are dial controls on the wheels.

4. iHome iD85 App-Enhanced Dual Alarm Clock Radio for your iPad / iPhone / iPod with AM/FM Presets

Here is a much more advanced alarm clock with a bunch of features, sound settings, and much more – a perfect pair to your iphone/ipad/ipod.  I really like the clean and simple design of it.

5. Surveillance Video Camera/Camcorder Clock – 4GB MicroSD Memory Card Included

For the spy in you, this alarm clock can be placed anywhere inconspicuously, and record video with audio to a microSD card.  Talk about a cool looking nanny cam slash spy / surveillance camera!

6. Flying Helicopter Digital Alarm Clock

This flying alarm clock looks like a little bit of a hazard, depending on where it lands – but still very cool!

7. Black Projection Alarm Clock with LED Display

Simple, clean, modern design.  There are multiple alarms and alarm sound options, and the red letter ceiling projection is a really sweet feature. This one’s very cheap, only around $11.

8. Electronic Wind Chime Alarm Clock

…because who WOULDN’T want to be woken up by the peaceful and serene sounds of wind chimes?  I might sleep through this one, depending on the volume level of the chimes.  Hopefully it’s amplified.

9. Electronic Asian Man Hitting a Gong Alarm Clock

This one is hilarious.  Who wouldn’t want to be woken up by tiny a little Asian man hitting banging on a gong?

10.  Infinity Instruments Ltd. Retro Spot Light Alarm Clock

Really cool design and love the retro feel of this one.

Sweet dreams, and happy Monday!

Following up on this previous post (a discovery of how the company Gigabyte computers used my stock image of me with my finger up my nose in an ad campaign for dockable laptop PCs) here are a few more discoveries from that ad campaign that I wanted to share.

Should I Be Proud of This
Am I embarassed by all of this?  Would you be?  I know some people might, but those probably wouldn’t have shot a photo like this in the first place, and then sold it on the internet through a horde of microstock agencies.  I’ve personally don’t have any shame about this.  Don’t get me wrong, I think the whole ad series hilarious!  It’s good I’m a goofball by nature, and have a reallygood sense of humor.  Let this be a lesson to all of you who have at one time modeled or have sold stock images – you never know where these might end up!  This ad campaign hit youtube, international techie trade shows, was plastered in busy marketplaces, and on the side of buildings in Tapiei, Taiwan, and probably was marketed in print and other web campaigns.   I had no clue it would be used like this, because in this business we are rarely told if, when, and where the photos that are sold end up getting used.  Most of them might even end up on someone’s hard drive collecting dust for years before use.  I know back when I bought a lot of stock imagery, I would stock pile images that I knew might be useful in my future upcoming graphic design projects. Because I thought a photo of a person picking their nose might be a niche stock photo subject, I did it anyway.  It turns out that it was, and someone somewhere found a use for it.

Why It Works
Do I think that it was an effective ad campaign?  Honestly, I don’t see the act of nose picking as something that’s oh so enjoyable, where you can compare it to a dockable laptop. I think that there might have been other more tasteful comparisons made, but if they were going simply for shock factor – they got it.  This ad series definitely gets your attention and then draws you in to figure out what the heck they’re advertising.  I’ll admit, the photo quality isn’t great.  This was an image I originally captured about 5 years ago, when I was still learning.  I had mounted my camera on a tripod in my office, with a white shower curtain on the wall behind me.  The lighting actually is pretty bad, but it was good enough to have enough value in the eyes of the buyer.  This was a photo where I had tungsten lighting mixed with natural window light, and so there were way too many color temps going on in the image.  I guess sometimes a buyer just needs a photo of a dude digging for gold, even though this photo might just land itself on awkwardstockphotos.com

Special thanks for the above gigabyte nose picker ad images were courtesy of micgadget.com and onecuckoosnest.com – click to view their take on the ad campaign, and how they felt about it.

What are some other touchy subjects you might want to stay away from, if you model in stock images?  Things like spousal abuse might make for some interesting dinner conversation, if they happened to end up in a major magazine or newspaper article.  What about topics like sexual incompetency or impotence?  Hemroids?  Drug and alcohol abuse?  Criminal themes?  Some people might not be bothered to “act out” touchy themes like this, but if you’re working with models you need to always be upfront and clear about potential image use.  I would also assume that reputable pharmaceutical companies that advertise sensitive topics would also do the same, and that they wouldn’t be using stock images grabbed from an online stock photo agency to use in that field of marketing.

I for one, am a little tired of being paranoid every time I’m traveling or out shooting in public areas.  That’s just the way things are now.  Sometimes even if you are minding your own business and committing no wrongs you can still catch heat for aiming that digital camera in certain directions.  Photographers professional and amateur alike are being effected by this.  Here is a funny story about how the Amtrak railroad line held a photography contest / competition, and then forgot about it – and they forgot to pass along the memo to security, evidently.  This hilarious video from The Colbert Report jeers at this funny happenstance in the wonderful world of photography.

I got a good chuckle out of this one.  Typography jokes are the best, especially when matched with cartoon characters.  “don’t call me ariel … my name is helvetica!”  Typography / design geek humor.

A simple Venn diagram created by Colin Harman (follow @colinharman on twitter) that sums it all up. It’s perfect.  This flow chart is pretty accurate when it comes to graphic design work.  It can probably even be applied closely to any other form of creative work, media production, or custom manufacturing (home decorating, hairdressing, photography, etc).  This is probably one of the best infographics I’ve ever seen relating to graphic design.  It’s one of my all time favorites!

Recently, I stopped at the local town library to borrow one of the seasons of LOST dvds that I hadn’t watched in a while.  I usually just use the local RedBox, but seeing I was passing by, I figured I’d run in and get all the disks in one shot.  We pay taxes, and that’s what these places are supported by anyway.  Plus, if you return the videos late they get $1 per day per dvd out of you anyways.  Anyway, I was treated pretty rudely by a middle aged woman working there.  I’m a happy go lucky type of guy, waiting patiently at the counter for assistance for a good 2 minutes or so.  The lady was sitting way off to the side, and I presumed she was not working that same area.  She was over at the reference desk, or something.  The fact I was just standing there quietly made her wise-alecky off the bat, when she finally noticed me standing there.

She remarked, “You know… I’m not going to know you’re standing there unless you say something.”

“Oh, that’s okay – I’m not in a rush, no problem”, I replied. It wasn’t a big deal, I mean – I was standing there for only 2 minutes, not 20.  Gosh.  She then proceeded to check out my items, only to notice that I had six dvd’s, and I guess five is the limit per person.  Do you think she was going to let that one slide?  No way, she went to town on me.

“You know, you are only allowed five videos per visit,” in a pretty snotty voice.  I can imagine her getting even hotter with annoyed anger towards me, inside.  I’m thinking, “Oh crap, now look what I went and did.  I poked the sleeping lion with a stick, and I’m the one wearing T-Bone steak underwear.”

“Oh, no problem – my mistake.  Here, I’ll take this one out – I’ll be right back, let me return it back to the shelf so you guys don’t have to later.” I know how much of a pain it is to return library items to their places.  I used to do it when I volunteered there.  So I ran it back, and then returned to the desk.  Ding round three.

“You know you have a late fee due on the following items…” I’m pretty sure they didn’t have my face up on a wanted poster in the back room for this violation.  I didn’t have the cash on me, so I asked if I could pay it next time.

“Yes, you can pay it whenever you’d like.”

In the meantime an older woman that looked like she was around 85 butts in, “Are those DEE VEE DEE’s?”

“Yes, they are,” I responded.  By this point I’m thinking to myself, “Good lord… what am I in the twilight zone or something?”  Little old lady goes, “I have one of those machines and I don’t even know how it works!”  I just smiled.  I’m usually a conversationalist but seeing that I was just trying to get in and out of my encounter with miss thang, I didn’t engage.

The librarian checked my items out, and then proceeded to explain the expiration date and late fee arrangement on the items, yada yada, talking down to me like it was the first time I had ever visited a library.  I killed her with kindness at that point, even more – “thank you very much.  You take care now.”  The look on her face was so funny.  It’s like she was thinking, “Why is this guy being so friendly to me, after I just treated him like a piece of crap?”  Kill people with kindness the next time they are rude to you.  It will either A: piss them off more, B: confuse the heck out of them, or C: change their attitude around entirely.

The whole time I was standing at the counter, not being attended to, I was actually waiting patiently for another librarian I was friendly with, who was in the back room talking on the phone.  I used to work at this same library as a volunteer, back when I was younger.  The library director even knows me, and we always chat it up when I bump into him.  I wonder if this new grumpy lady would have treated me differently if I had started name dropping?  I just got a kick out of how irritated she seemed.  It was like straight up DMV employee or postal worker syndrome.  You have to give people the benefit of the doubt, because they could be going through some really tough time in their life.  You never know what you’re about to experience when you’re dealing with the general public.  I’ve worked those customer service retail positions for years, and believe you me, I could probably write a behavioral psychology book just on the people I’ve met.

Dear miserable employees of the world… please just try to smile.  It goes a long way.  Cheese up from the feet up! Please lay off drinking your daily six pack of haterade.  I’m not the reason your baby daddy left you, and isn’t paying his child support.  I also wasn’t the one that hit your cat with my Pontiac.  I’m sorry life has dished you such a terrible job, with crappy pay, but that doesn’t make it my fault, is it?  Take a deep breath, remember to be thankful that you still have a job in this tough economy, and try and be at least a little courteous.  You don’t have to bubble forth or even make small talk with me, but that would be fine too.  If you really hate your job so much, try and start taking the steps to find something better.  If you can’t afford to go to school, keep on looking until you find something else.  Let your hatred for your existing position motivate you!  I know that’s what I did – back when I was working my college job.  You are actually in control of your own life, as dreamy and amazing as that might sound.

Remember, kids – if you enjoy your job, be thankful.  If you don’t, you should still try be nice to people.  Turn that frown upside down! The golden rule, and whatnot – it’s pretty legit.  Stick to it, and live a happier life.  Cheerfulness is contagious.  Generally, most people around you will even be easier to deal with, if you just smile.

That’s my public service message for 2010 – maybe for 2011 I’ll talk about the importance of spaying and neutering your pets.  Nah, we’ll leave that one to Bob Barker and Drew Carey.  And watch out for the angry rabid geese.

At the end of each and every year, we always have some fun recaps to look forward to.  Especially cool are the lists of top viral videos we’ve sent around to each other on the internet, when we probably should have been working.  The following were named the top 10 youtube videos of 2010:

10. Rally Driver Ken Block’s Gymkhana Three, Part 2

9. Kimmel Surprises Bieber Fan

8. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Trailer

7. OK Go — “This Too Shall Pass”

6. Giant Double Rainbow

5. Old Spice — The Man Your Man Can Smell Live

4. Annoying Orange Wazzup

3. Greyson Chance Singing “Paparazzi”

2. “Tik Tok” Ke$ha Parody: Glitter Puke

1. “Bed Intruder” Song

Source: December 13, 2010 | TVGuide

I thought this was great. As designers we’ve all probably seen (or maybe even had to use) lame B-Roll stock imagery or footage at one point or another.  This is a pretty hilarious spoof on stock footage, or B Roll material as some might call it. Stock can get really corny sometimes, especially when the actors aren’t as talented as they could be.  The late night infomercials seem to always have the cream of the crop, and this clip here is definitely highlighting the exact types of clips you would find in those types of advertisements.  Videographers, graphic designers, and anyone else producing stock will have a laugh at this clever skit. Embedding was disabled, so click the photo to view it on youtube.

WE GOT THAT B-ROLL!!!

Yup, this is pretty much what you have to deal with if you’re a graphic designer.  Everyone fights over you and your time, the deadlines, and everyone is an expert… except for you, of course.  The individual with the actual design degree.  Despite the crappy acting, this video is worth a couple of chuckles.

And yeah… if you use Comic Sans or Papyrus fonts, you need a serious reality check.