It only happens once a year...

‘Foiled’ again!

Nudity on the Hutt Motorway - and other places

OK, perhaps calling it a ‘motorway’ is a bit of a misnomer seeing as it’s got traffic light-controlled intersections and you can ride a bicycle on it... but I must admit to some involvement with the recent appearance of six ‘nude’ males (OK, they were wearing body paint), on the side of State Highway 2 (Lower Hutt) – and various other places around the country (including Auckland – nice to give those JAFAs something to look at as they sit in their traffic jams).

Some years ago, British Progressive Rock group Pink Floyd printed a poster to promote their back catalogue. The poster featured six naked female models, each body-painted with a different Floyd album design. When Daz, lead guitarist with New Zealand’s Pink Floyd Experience, asked me if I could do something similar featuring the band, I accepted the challenge. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

P.S. Went to the Wellington concert last Saturday night and it was just amazing! These guys are really talented musicians with a real passion for the music of Pink Floyd. And the light show is incredible too! Floyd fans take note – if you get a chance you should see these guys!

Back to the Future... again!

OK. I’ll ’fess up now and admit I watched Back to the Future – again – this weekend.

What a nostalgia trip back to the ’80s! Seeing Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd as in character as Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett ‘Doc’ Brown. And then there was the car! Doc’s “if you’re gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?” DeLorean DMC-12 managed to be both awesome and kitsch at the same time. The time-travelling DeLorean is, putting it simply, incredible. Flashing LEDs, digital readouts and lots and lots of buttons – real 1980s technology hardware at work! Sure, there are the reliability problems that I believe were part and parcel of 1980s DeLorean ownership (in fact one or two cars that I have owned that were definitely not DeLoreans suffered from similar problems)! But then the car hits 88mph, the Flux Capacitor kicks in and all that remains are burning tyre tracks scorched across the asphalt! After the movie, still feeling nostalgic, I looked up ‘DeLorean’ and guess what I found?

This press ad for carsguide.com.au is one of a series of three (the other two being the original Knight Rider and The A-Team). The set is totally in keeping with Doc Brown’s workshop from Back to the Future. And what I like best of all is that the image tells the whole story. The only words on the ad are in the tagline ‘Choice is Everything’ and the address for the carsguide website. How often can a designer persuade the client to forgo the headline in an advertisement completely?

Brilliant!