You certainly don’t know about that TV series, as it’s a French one (as it was very successful in France it got exported so actually you might), but even though I’m not at all in the target audience (feminine, and older than me), I love Fais pas ci, fais pas ça. It’s, in my opinion, a French TV series at its best: one which doesn’t try to take itself seriously, which enables finding original concepts, in that case the criticism of a certain part of society though two fictional families, who live in the same street, and both of which are part of the upper middle class, but very different kinds: one is bobo (that French term literally translates to Bohemian upper middle class, it means upper middle class people who try to act as if they were not, drinking sustainable coffee to show they care for people for example, but showing off with their i-phone) and the other one is a very traditional family, very religious, the husband working and the wife at home. They seem to be exact opposites, at least that’s how they see each other, yet sometimes they actually aren’t, the bobo family wants to look cool, and open minded, but more often than not the mother is actually putting a lot of stress into her children. And when they are actually doing things very differently than the other family, it is not a good thing as they are way too careless. The other family being very traditional they have all the defaults linked to that, and they hate the bobo family. But their children know each other and are friends of each other. That leads to a lot of funny situations. Anyway that article is not about the TV series but about its marketing campaign : The Denis Bouley method website (Sorry, it’s in French only). (more…)

It has been a very long time since I last posted on this blog, even though I answer comments. That’s because I am in Australia with much different things in mind. But when I stumble upon an efficient solidarity system, while booking some plane tickets through the internet I want to advertise about it. You never know, it could give ideas to some people… That’s something I’ve always been interested by : in an ultra-capitalistic society such as ours is it possible to create a viable economical system while helping out people in need. One of the Australian websites on which I booked my plane tickets, http://www.jetabroad.com.au, has a simple and efficient solution to that issue, you can if you want to add a small amount of money to your purchase, which is then used to help support the education of Cambodian children. Given that their prices are amongst the cheapest on the internet, because you can plan a trip with stopovers, which you cannot do at this time on Opodo and Expedia, the biggest companies, I didn’t hesitate even a second. If everybody decides to add that small amount of money, or even only half of the people who use this website to buy their tickets, they can end up raising up quite a big charity fund. And this system certainly has the advantage of giving them a positive advertisement…

It has been a very long time since I last wrote on this blog, being very busy with my work which had everything of a full time job, even though I was a freelancer. As now I have some time again I take that opportunity to do it again, to write about a website which, for once, doesn’t have anything to do with graphic design, but deserves being advertised. Sorry for all you English speakers, it’s a French website, as I’m French… But I leave this post in the English version of this blog hoping it will give some ideas to some people… If like me you are kind hearted, if you are the kind of person to give money to an NGO every month, in order to help people in need, you will be interested by this website. It has an original concept, quite excellent in its own way: you are used to buying over the internet, and as it happens there is something you would like to buy: why not an induction stove as a replacement to this horrible electric stove which doesn’t heat up well and gets dirty very quickly? Or a graphic tablet to replace the one you already have and which is too small? Then you think you are a victim of the consumers society, as you actually don’t need these objects.
But if evry time you bought something part of the money was given to NGO of your choice? Without even having to pay more, just because you chose so? You would still be a victim of the consumers society, but in a much less selfish way.
Well that’s possible, with a website called Soliland. A revolutionary system, even though it doesn’t look like it: it compares prices between many partner websites. When you have found the product you want, and you click to buy it on the merchant website, that website knows where you come from. You pay the product the same price everybody does, but because you have used that price comparator, a percentage is automatically given to the NGO you have selected when creating an account on Soliland, or to all the NGOs which have an agreement with them if you haven’t configured an account.
Of course it’s not perfect, the NGOs list is limited, the ones you like might not be included. But you will find in the list some famous NGOs. The search engine doesn’t seem that great though, if I search “graphic tablet” I only find 9 products, but if I search Wacom I get 55… But what is a bit of time wasted when you can help people in need unlike with a more efficient system. Sometimes it will be even faster to search for a product on a website you know and are used to, get the ref from there and then search with Soliland in order to come back to that website, only in order to give a bit of money to NGOs by doing such a thing.

I love movement, that’s what I consider to be the most interesting part in graphic design. But I was really surprised to discover that you could get movement through a single completely still image… At least that’s the way the brain interprets it. That’s the work of a certain dr. Akiyoshi Kitaoka, who even though he works with images in a domain explored by some artists, such as the very famous Escher, doesn’t consider himself as one but as a scientist. Be careful his work can make you dizzy, because it goes against all logic, epileptics especially should not visit his website. That’s what he writes on his homepage : “Should you feel dizzy, you had better leave this page immediately”
Variations on the rotating snakes thematic
His personal website, with a lot of other creations

“Au secours j’ai un blog” (Help! I’ve got a blog – sorry it’s a French blog and the English quality is not very good as it’s a Google translation) is a website about graphic design which deserves to be visited. Unlike mine its is not about the technological aspect of graphic design, but about the actual creations, in every media field. Those who like magazines such as Pixel (French graphic design magazine) should find things they like in it. It’s nice to see a graphic design blog with graphic content which is not that of its creator, especially when the selection is made, in my opinion, with taste.
Au secours j’ai un blog!!

This is a French website, but still I like the concept so it’s worth a post in English. It’s not an extraordinary websites directory, and it just looks like any other one. What I like about it is their selection type, especially for a graphic designer who has chosen a graphical identity with a predominant colour: sites are categorized by colours. Who am I speaking about? Hum I don’t know… But the worst is that my website is not even in there :

joliespages.com