An interpreter's interpretation » advertising

But wait– there’s more! Ads cover even more of buildings.

Daniel Greene — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:39:11 +0000

But wait– there’s more!
Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene

I posted a photo of this T-Mobile ad wrap on the Bank of America building the other day. Today, there’s even more to it– in fact it covers two sides of the building now. It looks like there’s a piece missing on the right side of the south wall of the building, so maybe I’ll see it completed tomorrow or even later today. It is interesting to me to see where advertising is headed. What is an exciting curosity might be an ugly invasion of public space if all the buildings downtown were wrapped. And I saw on The Science Channel that the buildings of the future might actually be covered with LCDs as ever-changing "skins." We’re already seeing more and more of our city’s billboards going LCD, so the idea of whole buildings wrapped in LCDs is not too farfetched. I just don’t know that I like the idea of it.

P.S. I sent this to my blog-via-Flickr e-mail address earlier this morning, but for some reason it didn’t show up on either Flickr or my blog. Odd!

What is Septopus?

Daniel Greene — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 12:14:12 +0000

Septopus came into my awareness as a weird word a coworker would use whenever he got bored at work. If a call came in and he was saying, “one moment while I connect you to…” and the caller hung up, he would say, “Septopus.” The more bored I got at work, the more I began to imagine who this Septopus was. Another coworker and I started making up things about Septopus with the coworker who started talking about him. With my love for advertising, I started creating mock ad campaign spots such as, “When you’ve got your hands full, an eighth tentacle is just one more thing to worry about. Simplify your life– with Septopus!” My friends and I would laugh hysterically, which is just what we needed to lift our spirits.

It was at this same time that I joined the social short messaging website Twitter. So I figured, “Why just send silly Septopus IMs to my friends at work when I could intrigue Earthlings everywhere?” So I started putting my IMs to coworkers into my Twitter “tweets” as well.

Little did I know until I Googled it that there actually was an episode of Home Movies called “The Septopus!” When I pointed this out to my coworker who had started the whole thing, he confessed that he loved that episode and hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Septopus since he first watched it.

So, if you see me tweeting about Septopus (with the hashtag #Septopus), you’ll know what I’m doing– just having fun, breaking up monotony, and honing my copywriting skills. If you like Septopus, feel free to tweet about him with the hashtag #Septopus. Who knows? Maybe a worldwide chorus will sing his praises!

My greyhound photo licensed by Blur

Daniel Greene — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 04:46:40 +0000

My greyhound photo on LiveNation
Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene

I’m happy to say I got a call from London last month from an ad agency called Stylo Rouge that wanted to license my greyhound photo that hit Explore a couple of years ago. It seems that a band called Blur is coming out of retirement and the agency found my photo to be a good stock "metaphor" for retirement (and a foil for coming out thereof).

This is not the first time I’ve published photos on Flickr and licensed them Creative Commons and been approached online by interested buyers. I’m not deluded enough to imagine that none of my work is being used improperly, but I can say that I’ve never seen nor heard of it. Yet I can say, happily, that I’ve been paid by honest people, and that I’ve also been apprised by other equally honest people who have thanked me for the creative license and told me how they were using my photos for noncommercial purposes. Either way, I’m flattered and I’m happy that my photos are meaningful to people.

Where was ASL, Deaf Presence in Super Bowl XLII?

Daniel Greene — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:04:58 +0000

I was hoping that my colleague A Dreamer (yes, that’s his name) would be televised as he interpreted the National Anthem into ASL at the beginning of the big game. Unfortunately, this year’s coverage of the signing of the Star Spangled Banner was even less satisfying than last year’s. Last year, we at least got to watch Marlee Matlin signing “bombs bursting in air” on the big screen. This year, I was only able to see — by watching very carefully — the interpreter signing “flag was still there” (all in one nicely inflected ASL sign, by the way) on the Jumbo Tron behind Jordin Sparks’ head.

And what about that Deaf Pepsi ad that was supposed to air? I never saw it. Did you?