Creative Wave – April 7

Happy Friday everyone, normal service is resumed! Special shout-out has to go to Phil this week for providing a good third of my content I think! Cheers mate! Big up to everyone else who submits other content every week by the way, much appreciated. We’ve got tech, advertising, sport, music, film and robots on the menu for your delectation. Enjoy.

 

TUNE FOR THE WEEKEND-

I was really torn this week. I wanted to use Radiohead’s Climbing Up The Walls, but then I realised I really liked three different versions of it. In the end I went with the East Star All Stars’ reggae mix 

 

OBSCURE HERO OF THE WEEK-

You probably don’t know the name Gilbert Baker but I guarantee you know some of his work. He was a San Francisco-based artists who in 1978 designed a certain eight-colour flag to celebrate the city’s gay freedom day. He died this week, and in his honour, the city have raised a giant rainbow flag in Harvey Milk Plaza – so-called after the country’s first openly gay politician, who was a close friend of Baker’s. You can read a bit more about his life here and discover what each of the eight colours in the rainbow flag actually stand for: 

 

* I really like this new Samsung spot which uses an ostrich as a champion for doing the impossible. Good choice for the soundtrack too-

 

* Something amazing for zebra fans. Over the last few weeks John Oliver has been talking a lot about zebras, as they’re being used in Bolivia as community support officers. He then invited everyone to use 23 minutes of green screen zebra footage his show produced to help liven up even the most bleak of news stories. Part one is below (links to part two and three are in the related vids bit):

 

* I really like this new billboard from Cancer Research UK which challenges viewers to blow into a hole to test their lung capacity. The longer they blow, the more text is shown-

 

* Across the Netherlands, lots of men – including prominent politicians – are holding hands as a show of solidarity with the two gay men who were apparently assaulted for doing do-

 

* Everyone thought it was an April Fool’s prank but the first new Rick n Morty episode really did premiere on April 1st. Here are a range of amazing promos for the rest of the series-

 

* Terrifying stat here that 1 in 20 kids have never read a book. A company called Ebookadabara is aiming to combat that by offering kids a huge library of eBooks-

 

* Last week Oxford University made headlines by pledging to remove a lot of the ‘dead white guys’ on their walls and replace them with more diverse, female inspirational portraits–

 

* Another new promo for series 7 of Game of Thrones. Still a long way off, so no real new footage-

 

* This is excellent foolery from BBC Three. They promoted a new David Attenborough documentary on Grime music, and Stormy fell for it. What a burk-

 

* New track and video from Kendrick Lamar. This is Humble. Or rather, it’s called Humble. It’s not really that humble-

 

* Something cool from the world of Formula 1. This season McLaren plan to have the ability to 3D print car parts in the garage, track-side. Amazing-

 

* Here’s a scene-by-scene breakdown of the new Pepsi advert, which the Independent charitably called ‘possibly the worst commercial of all time’-

 

* And interesting that 18 years ago the Chemical Brothers seemed to predict this faux purpose bandwagon with their video for Out of Control–

 

* Got to respect MTV for this. From now on their Music and Film Awards will be gender-neutral, with men and women competing against one another for gongs-

 

* Ahead of this week’s Masters, the Economist created a prediction model which aims to find value in the betting markets for various golfers-

 

* New from Goldie, this is Prism. The album is out in June I believe-

 

* Interesting read about why Brentford have closed their youth academy in favour of building a competitive B-team of Premier League outcasts-

 

* A round-up of a few more not-exactly-hilarious April Fools Day antics from various brands around the country-

 

* In the face of Brexit, is it time we finally returned the Elgin Marbles to Greece?

 

* Fun idea from BT Sport. It’s called Goals Recreated and asks current pros to recreate famous goals from PL history. Here Liverpool have a go at Papiss Cisse’s 2012 curling classic–

 

* Can you believe it that Channel 5 has just turned 20 years old as well this week?

 

* Logic is one of the best rappers around. Here’s the awesome cover art for his new album by Sam Spratt. It’s inspired by Veronese’s _Wedding at Cana _in case you were wondering-

 

* After a new deal with record companies, Spotify Premium users will now get albums two weeks earlier than free users-

 

* Designer Paul Nicholson talks about the creation of the Aphex Twin logo, and shares some alternatives-

 

* Have you met Harry yet? He’s an autonomous shuttle bus being trialled down by the O2. He’ll be working for the next three weeks before then presumably going on strike-

 

* New research conducted through Grindr reveals that LGBTI people feel ‘invisible’ in advertising. More than two-thirds said brands have a part to play in challenging society’s views-

 

* To try and save the fledgling postal service, KFC in New Zealand are trialling a service that will post fried chicken to customers-

 

* The host of the Antiques Roadshow was left ‘trembling’ last week after discovering a notebook written by an unknown 17th century Shakespeare scholar–

 

* Love this. A compilation of all of Chris Pratt’s outtakes from his years on Parks and Rec. Very, very funny-

 

* In the face of Brexit, Virgin Atlantic ask Americans (and everyone else) to look on the bright side. They also built a ‘Brexit calculator’ which you can find by googling-