maurag.com

Ok this one messes with my head a little bit. I LOVE this simple little site. I love the music, the imagery, the vibe, the fact that a portion of profits goes back to the Chinese community for education and I even sorta like the shoes.

What I find really interesting is that there is absolutely nothing cool or cutting edge about the imagery. Traditional chinese doing traditional things. Wearing apparently traditional shoes. The shoes themselves are sorta cool..but not super cool. But you put all this in a nice slick flash site with a piece of music and some hollers and hoeing in the background and I’m ready to drop $76 on a pair of shoes I barely like.

Apparently my soul is cheap. Such a push over for effective advertising.

Always keep your mind open and your curiosity peaked.

I went to a show the other night at the Hi-Dive. Packed house for 3 out of town bands. Dawes, Other Lives & Delta Spirit. In between sets I ambled over to the merch tables, just to browse. I love looking at what kind of design the band deems their to be their image at the moment. Next to the merch table there was a table that had nothing to do (or so I thought) with the bands. Invisible Children it said, and there was a stack of DVD’s..all sorts of different ones. “Have you heard of Invisible Children?” the friendly beaming face said to me. “No.” I stated flatly. And in the next 5 minutes I was reminded of how powerful the medium of film & video can be. What an incredible undertaking and resulting accomplishment. This team started with a simple documentary of their experience in Uganda..and from that have created such a worthy foundation with an admirable cause. Not only are they collecting millions of dollars used for building schools in Uganda and donating hundreds of thousands of books for those schools but they are waking the awareness of other cultures and those cultures strife in otherwise sheltered American kids. And they are doing it with creativity and style and excitement.

Fantastic.

Please go check their site. Invisiblechildren.com

Ok..it’s confirmed. I’m an advertising junkie. I am. It’s true. Brendan forwarded this blog entry from Weiden & Kennedy that talks about their comprehensive approach to marketing the 3-D animated film Coraline. All of which spark those little synapsis in my brain..

The Blog.

The poster. 

I’m pretty sure we are looking at next years hipster ride of choice. Just as soon as Walmart starts carrying fixies emo’s across the land are going to be out bidding one another to get authentic 1970’s station wagons. 

I’m sure of it.

Me. This is about me. 100%. Not my career aspirations, promoting RedCamper or building anyone elses sites, or creating books or doing research or any of the numerous things I seem to rope myself into thinking I need to do. Just me. One place to capture all those things that inspire me and fascinate me and make me happy to be alive. My mind seems to move so quickly that those magnificent moments are forgotten, sometimes before I’ve even finished drinking in the moment. One place. One goal. And maybe..if you are reading this, and you aren’t me, maybe I’ll share it..and maybe..just maybe inspire you too.

photo by Ryan Policky