ICM - Leeds Design Agency

Monday, December 1st 2008

World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day.

The statistics are still shocking.

In the UK alone
• More than 80,000 people living with HIV
• One in three people with HIV are undiagnosed
• One in every 360 pregnant women in the UK is HIV positive

Worldwide, 2 million people died from HIV-related causes last year. That’s more than the entire population of Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham put together. It’s more than the entire popluation of several African countries.

This weekend I went to see the Annie Leibovitz exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It was fantastic, and worthy of it’s own blog, which it will get in a bit. The icing on the cake was the bonus exhibition showing for this week only – a little room at the bottom of the gallery, showcasing the covers she took for Vanity Fair, about “the challenge, the promise, and the future of Africa”. They’re well worth a look…

The exhibition was hosted by (RED), who so far have helped purchase antiretroviral treatments for nearly 80,000 people in Rwansa, Swaziland, Ghana and Lesotho.

Do what you can. Get involved. Buy RED. Save lives.

Thursday, November 27th 2008

Should an advertising claim come with small print?

I was struck by the simplicity of Apple’s latest television advert showing how quickly and easily it is to install software on your iPhone from the internet.

The advert boasted the new 3G model was ‘really fast’ and showed it loading internet pages in under a second.

Keen-eyed viewers would have noticed various ‘small-print’ captions at the bottom of the screen with phrases such as ‘not an actual representation of timescale’ and ‘network performance will vary by location’.

The ASA upheld a number of complaints and has said the advert should not appear again in it’s current form. Apple’s comeback was to say the demonstration was to show the speed as relative, not absolute.

It’s a shame Apple has done this, they could have played on the iPhone’s simplicity, cool-ness and any number of great features without having to over-claim and then add small-print.

‘For a limited period only’ and ‘batteries not included’ I can deal with. Amazingly, last night I saw a supermarket offer for 2-for1 mince-pies. The small print says the offer ends on the 17th December! Merry Christmas!

Remember kids, keep your eyes-peeled for the small print!

Wednesday, November 26th 2008

Underground art

As if the fact that the Swedish invented Ikea isn’t enough, they have to show off their amazing talents and prove that Swedish design is about more than just function.

This is the main underground station in Stockholm, T Centralen.

And this is just a couple of examples of the incredible art that lines each station. It beats the hell out of the advertising hoardings on the London Underground.