Stefan Sagmeisters TED-föreläsning “The power of time-off” är riktigt intressant. För att hämta inspiration och behålla glöden för sitt yrke som designer stänger han sin byrå var sjunde år och tar ett sabbatsår (eller allokerar ut fem år av sin pension i förtid). Det kräver ju att man klarar det rent ekonomiskt – han sticker t ex från New York till Bali, vilket förutom klimatet är rejält mycket billigare – men enligt honom han vunnit enormt på det. För honom grundas nästan allt han gör nästkommande jobbperiod på idéer han fått under sabbatsåret.

Bland exemplen han tar upp tar han t.ex 3M som sedan 30-talet låtit sina ingenjörer spendera 30% av sin tid till egna projekt och på det sättet fick Scotch Tape. Google låter många av sina anställda pyssla med egna saker under 20% av sin arbetstid – Stefan tar genom sina sabbatsår 15% ledigt.

Steve Jobs och hans kollegor brukar inte ha svårigheter att hitta superlativ och positiva uttryck när de beskriver sina produkter, men om du någonsin tvivlat på att din Appleprodukt är något annat än nice, nice, nice, awesome, amazingly nice, super easy, amazing och incredibly awesome så ta en titt på det här sammandraget någon klippt ihop från Apples senaste Keynote.

Schysst, typsnittsmakarna Fountain (kända bl a för den extremt välanvända gratispixelfonten Sevenet) har släppt en trailer för deras nyaste tillskott i fontfamiljen, Göran Söderströms Heroine. Spana in nedan.

Microsoft firar det förhållandevis varma mottagande Windows 7 har fått hittills. I reklamfilmen ovan visar lilla Kylie hur lätt hon sätter ihop en slideshow med alla “happy words” hon hittat på nätet (“Snappy and repunken..slee…”). Lågt grepp att låta världens sötaste unge sköta införsäljningen? Mjo, kanske, men sött ändå – och hon har ju ändå valt Europe’s “The Final Countdown” som bakgrundsmusik.

How to design a company logo; 1) Start Illustrator 2) Paste in a suitable logo and talk about it for a while 3) Done (…and profit!)

Granted there’s not many tutorial videos on graphic design I’d consider funny, this goes beyond that. It’s dumb to the point of.. well. I don’t know. Who is this guy anyway, does he get paid for this? Please tell me he doesn’t sell instructional DVD:s to people.

Here’s Microsoft’s new ad for Internet Explorer 8 featuring Dean Cain (you know, Superman from the Lois and Clark TV series back in the 90’s) performing a fumbling and obviously intentionally awkward sales pitch for the browser’s sharing abilities. Could you be suffering from S.H.Y.N.E.S.S too? As in Sharing Heavily Yet Not Enough Sharing Still? Oh well.

The ad has gotten some really bad reviews, some just automatically bashing it because it’s a) from Microsoft and b) about Internet Explorer, but I don’t know, IE used to be a seriously crappy browser but I think they’ve managed to fix most of it over at Redmond. I wouldn’t vote for it as a great ad though, just adding an actor from yesteryear and lolcats won’t make this viral, something they’ve apparently gone for. I’m just happy for anything that helps getting IE 6 users to upgrade, that percentage just has to go DOWN.

Here’s a short and enjoyable documentary on Comic Sans and its impact on the world. It’s made by Sam and Anita, two students studying television in Boston – don’t know more about them than that.

I really like the opening quote:

“If you love it, you don’t know much about typography, but if you hate it, you really don’t know much about typography either and you should get another hobby.”
– Vincent Connare, Comic Sans creator

This is Exploit Yourself, a high-paced, fictional ad for Nike by Big Lazy Robot VFX (who’s done some Transformers work for Paramount among other things). Free running / le parkour á la Mirror’s Edge robotic style. Yeah, the robot is panting every now and then, but wouldn’t you after that run?

This is Carousel, the Cannes Lions Grand Prix winner. It’s basically one, long shot of a frozen moment of clowns robbing a hospital. And by long I mean over two minutes of clowns vs cops, explosions, shattered glass and debris frozen in time.

If you wonder what it’s advertisement for it’s Philips 21:9 cinema TV, not that you’ll see one in the video, it’s just a really impressive action shot meant to be displayed on a really impressive TV I guess.

The ad is directed by Swedish Adam Berg and produced by Stink Digital and Tribal DDB. Read more on the production of this thing here.

I just thought of how Microsoft has managed to generate good buzz lately, releasing Windows 7 RC 1 free for everyone (for a year) and so on, but then someone at marketing just had to release something like the video above.

The ad features Wes, a “certified financial planner”, telling you how stupid the huge storage capacity on iPods is when it’ll cost you a whopping $30,000 to fill it with music bought from iTunes. So what’s the smarter alternative, oh unbiased financial planner? Well, it’s a Microsoft Zune with the $14.99/mo Zune Pass. $15 is way cheaper than $30,000. Even for Steve Ballmer.

Youtube via cult of mac, wired