I enjoyed reading the Guardian article this week on the significance of the letter ‘O’ to designers, but having seen this in New York, it’s certainly a double edged sword…

…more from New York soon.

AKA Selling Twitter to twits. Twitter might not have worked out how to make money out of its free services yet, but other people have. It reminded me of those machines you get on garage forecourts where they proudly declare they offer free air and water.

Then I went round the corner and saw this:

Made me smile.

As the year draws to a close, the nights get longer and the rain soaks into your shoes as you walk down the street, it’s a good job these guys are around to cheer us all up.

Here’s something I came across while doing some research for a project this week.

Genius.

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…

A new niche market for beach towels…

…results in an unsophisticated honeytrap operation by the local constabulary.