My brother Ryan in Chicago had recently posted some photos of the city he took. I love the depth of field and unique look to them. It’s like a miniature model that you could reach down into and pluck up one of the buildings or cars.

Apparently it’s a fun effect called the Tilt Shift. After he told me about it, I started finding all kinds of great examples. Very fun to mess with for photographers.

-J

Even though years ago I left Sprint and swore I would never go back, I will admit I’m thoroughly impressed by the Now campaign.

The commercials are really well done and clever. Good animation and film combos are always fun. The stats are fun too, though I wonder how they did their research on some of the topics (ie. leaving phones in cabs)

The Now widgets at now.sprint.com are great too. The page takes a little bit of loading time, but it’s worth it. They pretty well follow the theme of the commercials. Lots of random facts and interaction. My favorites include the number of people trapped in an elevator, habitable planets counter, and push now.

I’d love to see the math on how this campaign stacks up against the tired “can you hear me now” guy.

-j

I just landed in Charlotte after bringing the red eye in from Seattle. I went out for a creative brief on a new project and am headed back to O-town. As per the usual, I wasn’t able to sleep on the flight for more than about a 15 minute doze off. However, wrapping up in a sweatshirt and loading all 3 Mazzy Star albums to play through on the iPod was almost as good as 5 hours of sleep. Though they’re from the 90’s I think they’ll be one of the most timeless and gratifying tunes I’ll ever collect. Thank you Hope Sandoval for a good flight.

-j

Ever wonder who was behind that total bizaarity that is Pepsi’s new trademark? Meet Peter Arnell. A couple weeks ago I read the Newsweek article on him, the brand mastermind behind products such as Pepsi, Tropicana, Reebok, Banana Republic, DKNY, and plenty more. It was an entertaining read and was honestly my first introduction to him.

I like his work a lot. Everything he’s done is very “crispy”. I was also pleased to see that he was the one behind the Terry Tate – Office Motivator commercial from a few Super Bowls ago. Not to mention the PepSuber sketch playing off of SNL’s McGruber.

It will be interesting to see how his PeaPod is received come Earth Day.