As regular readers to this blog might remember, I do like the patterns on public transport seats, specifically those on the tube. I even tried to do some design with them once and had my fascination outed by Design Week.

Anyway, Transport for London have this quirky tube campaign running at the moment, which invites you to guess whether the statements lovingly recreated from vintage patterns are true or false:

If you can’t bear not knowing the answers, check out the TfL site, where a little story sheds light on each one.

Also, feel free to join my neglected Flickr group to collect new patterns. And if you’ve taken a picture of a seat pattern, it probably qualifies for this group too…

I feel bad about being negative in the previous post. Here are some ads I saw on the tube this week which I really liked. The whole idea of MI6 advertising for recruitment is a bit weird, but the ads are great; involving, clear and fun.

I failed in both my missions so I won’t be applying, although it looks like I’m already on their books…

As those who know me will attest, I’m a glass half empty kind of guy, although I like to label it realism rather than pessimism. Anyway, it means that I have a soft spot for self deprecating humour, you know that very English under the radar sort of stuff.

I saw this on the tube the other day…

…and it made me think that negativity is underused in advertising. Ads always focus on positivity, sometimes to the point of arrogance or desperation, so it’s nice when they go the other way. Somehow it seems more sincere, even though it’s more contrived than ever. Maybe it’s a sign of the times. Bleak austerity Britain has had enough of Barry Scott shouting at them about how clean his pennies are.

Let’s think a little bit about Dixons for a minute. I can’t remember the last time I bought anything there, as everyone who knows their stuff buys the things they sell online instead. If you were the bosses of Dixons you must have been getting pretty worried recently as the whole retail experience moves into the ether, people flock to electricalbargainzRus.com and your stores sit there ironically eating up their own electricity.

I love the fact that someone really got under the skin of how people perceive stores like Dixons now and subverted it into a nice little well judged piece of despair.

And let’s not forget the past masters of the art, Marmite, who deserve some sort of advertising valour medal pinned to their chest for displaying adverts of someone actually vomiting their product.

Maybe it’s because I involuntarily dislike being sold to, or because I move in marketing circles, I can hear the squeal of the truth being stretched a mile off, but it feels like this sort of attitude gets through my defences much less opposed. I might not buy my next TV from Dixons but they made me smile. Perhaps I’ll buy a memory card or some blank CDs…

I came across this ad campaign for Atari on Ffffound! – liked it and investigated a little further. It looks like work from UK agency The Republik and references Atari’s sporting past. If anyone knows more about this then I’d love to hear about it.

You’ve got to love some nice pixels. This isn’t exactly a new idea, but the execution of this is really lovely…

Check out this lovely video from Miami based production company Peliculas Ponder. It looks like an advertisement for the Madrid Metro, based around the idea of the view from below.

Lovely, and comes via Graham Linehan over at the illuminating Why That’s Delightful! I’d have embedded it on this page, but that’s bad internet manners.

Incidentally I travelled to work above ground today and largely on foot, as the tube was suspended and the sun was shining..

OK, so this one turns out to be an oldie (well, it’s an oldie where I come from) from back in 2005, but I only just ffffound it, so it’s new to me.

It’s an ad campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi which looks like it was for a printer or paper company. There are some more details about the campaign here. It’s obviously a bit of a graphic design in-joke, but it does remind me of the numerous times I’ve found myself explaining the CMYK colour system to non-designers and clients. It can sound a bit odd to other people, the fact that everything they see is mostly printed just from 4 colours, and of course, the big issue of the fact that their own corporate colour can’t always be printed exactly the same with CMYK as they saw it in spot on their business card. Comments like ‘can we just make it a darker tint? What about 150%?’ or ‘can we print it in white’ sound funny at first but they’re perfectly valid thoughts if you don’t know how CMYK works. Colour really is a minefield…

Here are some more…

I bet they get the joke at Shillington College…

Another treat originally ffffound here. Also tracked back to here…

Thanks to Ryan for this one, a great Flickr set showing how some guy is going round London chopping the heads off the people in adverts. Great idea and nicely done…

Here’s the Irn Bru Christmas advert, a Snowman pastiche and quite funny…

…personally I like the bit where he throws his nose away. (A carrot rather than an orange for contractual copyright reasons…)

I’m pretty fed up of hearing how amazing the Cadbury’s Phil Collins advert is by now. In fact I was fed up of hearing about it even before I’d seen it properly and had a chance to make up my own mind. It IS great but enough already. Having said that, you’ve got to admit that the Wonderbra pastiche is pretty inspired. Calm down, it’s only a bit of fun…

Yes, they certainly will. If you have forgotten to bring the latest Harry Potter book with you this morning, didn’t have time to buy a newspaper and came off second best in the mad scrabble for a copy of Metro, then you’re left stood in the packed carriage, nestled under an armpit, reading the horoscopes over someone else’s shoulder or comitting all the stops on the current line to memory. Someone else is reading a novel, although they keep turning the pages before you’ve finished them – It won’t be long before you turn to the adverts throughout the carriage, travel insurance, property investments, Paul McKenna can make you rich, something on at the O2 etc etc, then this one which I saw the other morning: Even posters this dull get read. It’s funny ’cause it’s true.

Leaves you wondering why they need graphic designers to make them look nice as well…