Year of the Rabbit by Benji Davies & Jim Field | Happy Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year started 2 days ago, on February 5th. I’ve been celebrating this joyous occasion by happily by stuffing myself silly with the ridiculous amounts of food around me and saying positive words and phrases that tie into prosperity and good fortune. Lots of family time and embracing the hopes for a better year. Celebrations last for about 2 weeks and traditionally there are special customs for each day. I love Chinese New Year :]

Here’s an awesome short called “Year of the Rabbit” by Benji Davies & Jim Field:

The minimalistic black and white style is fantastic and I love how that car got owned by the fluffy rabbit.

Happy New Year everyone!

Logorama – Pulp Fiction for Brands

The world around us is dominated by products, companies and brands both figuratively and literally. Logorama, created by French animation collective H5, François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain, takes this idea one step further by building a world solely constructed by brands. This short opened the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and won a 2010 academy award under the category of animated short.

A brand is the identity of a product, service, or company. There’s  a fantastic website that I love browsing called Brand Tags. Brand Tags is a collective experiment in brand perception. The site works by flashing a brand image at the viewer and the viewer writes the first word or phrase they think of when they see the image. These tags generate a word cloud for each individual brand. In my opinion, the top words/phrases are usually pretty indicative of what the majority of people think of a brand. For instance, the most common words that are tagged of Abercrombie & Fitch are moose, clothes, preppy and gay. Apple, is most frequently tagged as apple, mac, cool, and ipod. McDonald’s on the other hand is perceived as fat, fries, food, and big (haha).  It only takes one image to trigger a bunch of words, thoughts and emotions;  it’s fascinating and powerful. This is why companies spend so much time building brand equity.

I love the personalities that the creators have attached to the brands in this short. Ronald McDonald is most definitely the best pick for the bad guy (clown, scary hair = evil) and Big Boy can totally pass as the annoying young perv. Never thought that the Michelin man would be speaking in ebonics, so unexpected and hilarious. I’m surprised it took me this long to discover the video…did it not go viral?

Edit: 1.5 million views according to Vimeo. Not that many considering how many views Justin Bieber has for any one of his music videos. Also, it is sad that I’m using Justin Bieber’s MV views as a benchmark…

The Deep – PES

幾米 Jimmy: 微笑的魚 A Fish With A Smile

I’ve been feeling pretty homesick for Taiwan recently.  In the past, I would go back every summer to get my fix but since I decided to stay in the States to look for a job, I couldn’t really leave.

One of my favorite books growing up in Taiwan was called Xei Xiao Der Yu or  “A Fish With A Smile”.  It’s written and illustrated by renowned Taiwanese illustrated Jimmy Liao. The premise is simple; a lonely man finds solace and comfort with his pet fish, who is always smiling at him. The illustrations are charming and warm and the story is heart-warming.