www.leoburnett.com

Listed as one of the most important people of the 20th Century, Leo Burnett is said to have "launched today's visual assault on the senses by proving that images, not words, were the nuclear power of advertising".

This site that bears his corporations image is an icon to his creative thinking. Its very inspiring and reminds you that image is everything.

"big ideas come out of big pencils"

The Pianist

This film is the true account of Vladyslaw Szpilman's experience as a Polish Jew living in the Warsaw ghetto during the Second World War. His love for playing the piano is a constant theme in the film and shows how things have changed for him, from playing in the ghetto, imagining to play, and performing in front of a German soldier who saves his life.

The Pianist combines easy emotional connections and refuses to oversimplify, and I think it is one of the most powerful Holocaust films ever made.

I like the restrained, unsentimental way the Director, Polanski tells the story and I believe Polanski wants us to think more than he wants us to emote. It doesn't oversimplify the situation as there are good and bad Jews, Poles and Germans. As a result, there is a certain amount of randomness to the events that is not comforting, but I think that is realistic.

Unlike Schlinders List, the concentration camps are not shown in the film, making it less shocking in comparison and easier to watch. 

The underlying theme here is one of optimism and hope- Wladyslaw and his family never gave up the belief and against all odds civilisation does triumph.

Kill Bill Animation Sequence

The animation sequence seen in the film Kill Bill was produced by Production I.G and is technically known as an "anime".

The Director of film, Quentin Tarantino personally asked them to create an animation sequence that was a homage of the genre films that he loved so much.

One of the notable things here is the extremely violent edge to the film, which are so excessive they actually detract from the "reality" of the situation. Also I feel there was no real reason to make this animated, apart from Tarantino's thought "Wouldn't it be cool to have an anime segment in this film?" There is no doubt that it's good but is it really necessary?

Overall, the segment is executed very well and for the very least, Tarantino deserves credit for exposing mainstream audiences to anime.

Bearskinrug.co.uk

An Illustrator's site, Kevin Cornell, embodies the essence of his style and if you take a look, it does an excellent job of filling the space with content. Count how many things on the page are both navigation and content. Everything has a touch of the illustrator's brush, so the site is saturated with his talent.

As seen in Sex and the City

by Ursula Doyle

If you have seen the 'Sex and the City' film, then you will have heard about this book. It is the book Carrie reads to get romantic inspiration from the greats through history. From the private papers of Mark Twain and Mozart to those of Robert and Oscar Wilde. Taken together, these "Love Letters of Great Men" show that perhaps men haven't changed so very much over the last 2,000 years; passion, jealously, hope and longing are all represented here. 

The $12 Million Stuffed Shark

This book is great for anyone who wants a quick overview of how the business of art works. Don Thompson, an economist and branding expert undertook a years research to write this entertaining study of the economies and psychology of art, dealers and auctions.

Thompson admits that material and some numbers in the book are single-source stories and facts, which are embellished in the retelling. Also the glossary of facts does not have any references or footnotes, as a result makes you question the accuracy.

The author is quite biased on the side of everything in contemporary art is a game of branding and marketing, which is probably true since the majority of "art" these days are meaningless to the general public without the fancy gallery/museum.

I found this book quite humorous in the attempt to answer important questions such as 'yes, but is it really art?' and  'why would a very smart New York investment banker pay twelve million dollars for the decaying, stuffed carcase of a shark?'.

Shynola

The video for the song was created by Shynola. It is set in a computer-animated environment, where Beck rises from a grave, digs up a dog, and climbs buildings, among other things. It was nominated for "Best Music Video" in the 2005 Arias Awards.

Shynola is the collective name of a group of four visual artists based in London who have collaborated on a variety of projects, most notably a number of acclaimed music videos for several pioneering artists, such as 'Go With The Flow' by QOTSA

The name Shynola is a reference to a line in the Steve Martin movie The Jerk which implies that all you need to know in life is the difference between shit and Shinola.