2013-05-03
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Two pamphlets for the Ocean Shore Railroad, a short-lived railway from San Francisco south along the Pacific coast, published by the Western Railroader, as posted at Half Moon Bay Memories.
2013-03-25
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Drones form giant, glowing ‘Star Trek’ logo over London to promote Star Trek Into Darkness. The Verge:
a giant, glowing Starfleet insignia in the London night sky comprised of 30 LED-illuminated quadrotors, the 308-foot-tall logo rotated in place 118 feet above ground before dimming its lights alongside those of Tower Bridge and Big Ben in recognition of the WWF’s Earth Hour conservation effort.
They also include a link to a video of the logo.
2013-03-20
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2013-02-17
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Four photos from Ryan Lewis, who posts to Instagram under the account name urbanglitch. From his submission to Year of the Glitch:
I have been using the panoramic feature on my iPhone as a tool to create stretched images for a few months.
I wanted my process to be something that I physically had to work at and not just pressing buttons.
Each time I do a panoramic, I have to decide the optimal distance for the shot and path that the subject (in this case, a muni bus) is turning the corner but not coming towards you. The iPhone panoramic feature draws sliver by sliver as you move the camera across the area. As I experimented with the pictures, I was able to find the sweet spot of how to make the buses look stretched.
2013-01-09
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In addition to the six stamps commemorating the London Underground itself, there’s a series of four reproducing three classic posters each. As Creative Review quotes:
“There’s a wealth of beautiful posters to choose from [in the TFL archive] so it was difficult to choose just four in total,” says NB’s Nick Finney. “So, we played with multiple posters in a row across a longer format horizontal stamp. We wanted to evoke posters being displayed in the tunnel of the underground station (the modern train speeding past) and the windows of a carriage.”
2012-04-19
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Blurred billboards by Ben Long, via It’s Nice That, submitted by Joe C.
Specifically, variations on Dedham Lock and Mill & Stour Valley and Dedham Church by John Constable.
(I wonder whether Turner’s work would have been more appropriate?)
On Tumblr, Radar, and advertising
Ars Technica: Tumblr to launch ads starting May 2:
On Wednesday, Tumblr announced in an apparent about-face that it would be allowing paid advertisement on the popular blogging platform. David Kamp, Tumblr CEO and founder, made the announcement at Ad Age’s Digital Conference today in New York.
As recently as April 12, Kamp toldAd Age that advertising was “a complete last resort.” In 2010, the CEO famously said, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times,that the company was “pretty opposed to advertising. It really turns our stomachs.”
Yesterday, however, 25-year-old CEO added that putting ads on Tumblr Radar would get an advertiser 120 million impressions per day and will be available as of May 2.
I can’t say I’m surprised or overly disappointed by the announcement - for a free service it is more of an inevitability.
I’ve noticed a few posts recently in Tumblr Radar that, if not paid, felt as if they weren’t quite arising from sheer popularity- there were some related to the Hunger Games film, and another for the new John Cusack Edgar Allan Poe movie. Perhaps these weren’t actually paid for, but were testing the waters.
The fact that I wasn’t sure if they were paid or not seems to show that the Radar slot feels ripe for advertiisng. It’s small, but well-seen (I’m sure plenty of people check their dashboard multiple times a day, if not hour) but it’s also not too large or garish. If the paid ads aren’t too jarring or obtrusive, I can see it working fairly well for everyone.
I also suspect that any Radar items have to be on Tumblr itself, so that you can like or reblog them. That’s also smart for getting brands on the site, much as I prefer my social networks filled with people, not businesses. (I’ve been musing a post about why I like Flickr for this reason: there are unusually popular accounts around, but if they’re not photographers, they tend to either be states or government departments, like the various NASA institutions, the President, or Downing Street.)
