Sunsilk’s new clothes.

Here’s the new redesigned Sunsilk bottle, in line with their new campaign.

Unilever recently launched the Sunsilk “Life Can’t Wait” campaign, which presumably aims to revitalize the Sunsilk brand and conquer new markets. Quoting Wikipedia:

The Life Can’t Wait campaign features three of the world’s most iconic women; Madonna, Shakira and Marilyn Monroe, who all symbolise the power of expression and making life happen. (…) the campaign showcases these universal icons and reveals significant and life-defining moments in their lives. (…)

Sunsilk is targeting 20 something girls across the world, giving them the opportunity to share with each other their own life stories fitting the Life Can’t Wait theme – of how they have thrown caution to the wind and taken a chance which resulted in a life changing experience!

Now, let’s distill this to a cliff-notes of the creative direction for this campaign. From the snippet above, we can say that the “Life Can’t Wait” campaign is about:

1. targeting young 20-something girls;
2. screaming out a bold message about “power of expression” and “making life happen;”
3. taking a personal approach with focus on an emotional marketing message.

Whoa, what a modern and energetic direction to take! Their new bottle, though, seems to steer off-course.

The good (sort of): the patterns

If there’s something in the packaging for me to say something positive about, it’s the use of trendy patterns clipped on the “S” shape. It helps in bringing the brand some character. One of the aspects that the campaign promotes is power of expression, and this is their answer to that.

However, these patterns today are cliche and dated at best. Good (enough) idea, but lackluster execution.

The bad: the typography

Have a look at the old logotype for comparison. That old “S” definitely brings a good feminine touch to the style, while the contrast in stroke widths bring out a nice overall elegance. These traits are perfect for a brand that positions itself to a market of young, hip women.

Now, have look at the new logo. This is definitely a step backwards: from slender and elegant, to stark and lifeless. On top of that, it also has absolutely no character, completely going against the creative direction to be expressive and vibrant.

The ugly: the what?

Oh, you know I’m going to say it. What on earth is that thing in the middle? It looks like a punctuation mark with an identity crisis–as if it can’t decide if it’s a question mark or an exclamation point. It’s an abstract shape masquerading as faux typography, the result is that it screams out to the eyes in a bad way,

Going down one more level of nit-picking, this is a horrible contrast between a sharp shape and a round circle. The “S” curve seems to be aiming to bring in an graceful, refined rhythm, but it’s too thick to do so.

Bonus: the lack of coherence

To top this failure off: this bottle, their TV commercial, and their campaign website (lifecantwait.com) have no coherence at all. The font styles used all jarringly differ. Their TVC aims for retro, the site aims for modern, and the bottle is lost somewhere in the middle. Even the campaign taglines aren’t used consistently.

New Photoshop logo.

Adobe™ Photoshop® has a new logo.

Now, it’s a nice approach, marketing-wise, that they’re expanding Photoshop from the single piece of software it used to be, to be a range of products that would cater to different markets. (For those who don’t realize it yet, so far there’s Photoshop CS3, Photoshop Extended, Photoshop Elements, and Photoshop Lightroom).

But from a technological perspective, I don’t like where Photoshop is headed. Photoshop online edition? The inevitable bloat per version iteration? Now, a new cliché-rific logo? Photoshop needs some serious competition.

Just about most professional software out there has at least two key players out there. 3D modeling/rendering? Max, Lightwave, Maya, XSI. Digital audio workstation? Pro Tools, Live, Cubase, Cakewalk. Now… 2D image editing? Paint Shop Pro’s nowhere close, GIMP is a joke and so are Pixel and Krita. Someone needs to step up, make the image editing software market a free market, so Adobe won’t have a monopoly-like control to come up with junk like this—including their lifeless, generic, glossy logo.

(Salut to AJ of ajb{log} for the heads up.)

Excuse moi, j’ai ejaculé dans tes cheuveux

I used to doodle this sort of silly hand-drawn lettering on my 3rd grade notes without thinking it’ll be the hotshit design trend 12 years after. I call “WTF” on the juvenile-lettering trend (and on this track’s message).

(O, good song and video by the way)

May potpourri

(The image above is by me—the rest of the images below are lifted from here and there. Oh and try doing a right click → Save target as, it’s a widescreen wallpaper.)

Hay, guise. Long time no post. Anyway, enough about me for awhile: here’s a potpourri of things that I found and like recently.

Absolut Metropolis

Absolut (not-so-)recently had a campaign where they took 11 random designers from the “urban youth” of Tokyo and had each of them do an Absolut ad. I couldn’t care less about Absolut’s involvement in it. But the project just overflows with foreign style and personality — I think that makes it look-worthy, forget about Absolut’s reputation for genius marketing!

Here’s what I think is the star of the series. Such a shame that the integration of the compulsory Absolut bottle seemed like a slapped-on afterthought (as with rest of the series), instead of being the centerpiece (as with Absolut’s tradition). I like the whole doll doppelgänger thing, though, I guess that makes up for it a little.

Image at fashion.at/foto, Absolut campaign site at absolut.com/metropolis.

Shelly Poole

She’s half of the now-defunct duo Alisha’s Attic, the voice behind Michael Gray’s “Borderline,” and now a solo artist with a great style.

Check out the video for her song “Totally Underwater” on YouTube. Seriously, with a logotype as gorgeous as that, how can you resist giving her a listen?

Satoshi Tomiie

Renaissance just released a new double-disc mix (okay, 2 months old now) — and this time from Satoshi Tomiie! Now, Tomiie has always been on my “to watch for” list since his progressive house days, and even now that he’s gotten into the whole electro-house trend he still ain’t half bad.

His new mix Renaissance The Masters Series Part 9 sways from electro-inspired progressive house (most of disc 1) to influences of minimal techno (on disc 2), keeping mostly a warmup-style atmosphere throughout — no smashing floor-fillers here. Disc 2 is my favorite: it kicks off with some trippy minimal beats which just get better and better as the mix goes.

Read more about it on ResidentAdvisor, or check out one of it’s standout tracks:

Planet Funk: “It’s Your Time” (Different Gear Mix) [mp3]

Open/closed

This would be, uh, Schrodinger’s Restaurant: neither open nor closed. (Or, the restaurant is <blink>not</blink> open.)

Of course I’m just playing smartass here: it probably means that they accept Equitable cards, but they’re closed for the night, but it’s amusing to laugh at the confusion it creates.