don't fight it
Busy busy busy lately. My second round encounter with flickr these past few days has sparked a river of inspiration in me. It started with just random picture creation and turned into paradoy ad campaigns and creating false marketing and promo pieces. I couldn't stop. I kept getting more and more ideas the more I thought about flickr. What is it about this obscure little company crafting unique experiences that has me hearing Snagglepuss's voice in my head at 3am. Litterly the other night I woke up and heard "hey get flicki'n will ya.. we got stuff to do.." in Snagglepuss's voice. I loved that voice. That whimiscal sarcastic lounge cat, it was in my head, speaking to me.
I'm really a graphics hack, ok... maybe the most talented graphics hack in my collective of friends. Still I dunno what made me do it, I blame George and all the friends i've met at flickr reccently. I keep creating and that is a blast. Funny thing is the more out there i get the more likely these items would actually sell I think. I mean I'd buy that lunchbox. Ok sure Snagglepuss was here long before flickr or I ever discovered him but.... still I could see a marketing folks talking about bringing back his character licensing it from whoever and kicking off some whacked out buzz campaign. Happens all the time, why not Snagglepuss, he's perfect!
So after I got Snagglepuss outa my head (and theres more images out there btw, you'll have to come to flickr to see them all) I went back to chatting and like all chats you start stumbling on even more ideas. I started thinking about Shibuya 109, what would flickr do there. Google is my partner on all this, i search for some images find and start the magic. I was looking for the classic neon signs galore shot, ya know the in heart of tokyo type shot where all you see are people all over the frickin place and every building is an advert. I found a few with old 109 in it and then I found this pic. Not sure what the location is but that one asian guy I thought.. he's got to be wearing a flickr shirt! And its always what you don't show that sells something.
Soon more ideas come to mind...
After watching Futurama's Why of Fry episode where nibbler speaks "NEGATIVE" it got me thinking, flickr.. mascot.. nibbler perfect! But nibbler would't say anything of course, but his image is imposing, its powerful yet highly comical, what works here.. lets see. Don't Fight It! Its like reistance is futile.
Then of course we have the protoypes...
Thinking about flickr some more I thought about all the early concepts or protoypes people first start with before they get to their new refined product. What concepts did the flickr team come up with? How many failures led to the rise of the great flickr? Like all concepts ya gotta go way back, start really basic, get something that attaches the idea or emotion of a product and infuse it with some heartless souless box and keep it all under budget. I dunno where I found the picture, I was looking for vintage slider viewers, I wanted a 60's contraption, some big bulky .00004 beta of what flickr could of represented. I found this picture along the way. It's hilarious, I love it.
Making the image wasn't enough, i had a voice in me, that false franky the shark press engine that wanted to speak. I had to create back history, the images needed certification...it was even more fun then creating the images.
"Taken off the market in late '73, the Woody Woodpecker FrickinFlickr was labeled a disaster by company's internal marketing department.
Early tests with the frickinflickr revealed flaws in the projection system to irradiate what scientists believe are now called "geekyviibe"'doms.
Parents in fear of their offspring becoming increasingly geeky caused an alarming outbreak of would be woody bashers. As the mobs took the streets, the frickinflickr was quickily taken off the market."
I think part of me wanted to see how far you could go, what combination of elements both visual and text could make ya believe that it was real. Hokey sure.. but could of been real.
I think I'll turn the lens of dan to focus on flickr and its overseas cross promotional products and fast food maybe. flickr sponsored x-games or maybe flickr sponsorsed noodle nutgrams from the Shinkoyooajka corp, WE BRING NOODLES TO LIFE! Anyways its been alot of fun.