Universal Favourite

How to incorporate story in a presentation

Ana — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:52:55 +0000

Nancy Duarte is the CEO of Duarte. Duarte is the “preeminent presentation company in the world.” They have worked with Al Gore to develop the presentation that became the Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and they support many conferences including TED.

Nancy speaks at one of the TED conferences in this video below on a presentation form that she discovered. Her idea began with Aristotle’s structure of the three acts. If you learn about one new thing today make it this. It’s a beautifully done presentation with key insights into how to tell a story and capture your audience no matter what the topic.

Snapparazzi: Jurassic Lounge.

Ashley — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:34:30 +0000

I recommend everyone checks it out. It is a heap of fun AND (!) you get to see a Coelacanth! (although, not alive).

View the photo on the Snapparazzi Map

Sonia Rentsch: still life stylist and art director

Teresa — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 05:16:57 +0000

Check out the work from the amazing art director and stylist Sonia Rentsch. Her blog I Love Hot Bread Rolls is just a wonderful collection of visual puns, eye candy and inspiration.

Snapparazzi: Surprise workload!

Ashley — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:11:23 +0000

Anh wasn’t especially happy when she saw the stack of folders on her desk. We waited to tell her they were just part of our spring (summer) cleaning.

Marco Mazzoni

Ana — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:30:47 +0000

This Italian based artist, Marco Mazzoni, creates beautiful detailed images of nymphs, or at least that’s what I’ll call them. Their faces crowned with butterflies, flowers and tiny birds.

There is something surreal about the void of white left where the eyes should be. The windows to the soul absent, instead mother nature’s creatures are giving each face a certain sad magic.

Beautiful. Melancholic. As if they’re crying but we can’t see it.

We’re looking for you!

Ashley — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:52:55 +0000

Universal Favourite is searching for a Project Facilitator. To apply, hop over to our Facebook page and comment on the image. If you have friends who would suit the role, be sure to send it along to them, or just tag them in the image.

Branding watch: Superbowl Fever

Teresa — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 06:16:58 +0000

The team at BrandWatch have created an amazing interactive dashboard to visualise the social media buzz around various brands (and their highly anticipated Superbowl ads) in the lead up to this year’s Superbowl. With almost 6.4 million tweets monitored already, could the buzz be enough to justify the dizzying amount of dollars spent on advertising during the big game?

How does it work?

The brands are represented by worms, each with their own branded helmet and accompanying statistic panel on the right. The brand leading with the most social media buzz has the ball placed right at the opening of their worm hole. It’s cute and quirky, but also very informative. (I just wish there was a zoom function!)

Why’s this cool?

It’s really refreshing to see the link between advertising spend and social media activity out in the open, and what’s great is that it’s not just showing numbers but the sentiment as well. How many people are talking about your brand online is important, but what they’re saying is perhaps even more important. Social media provides a direct connection to your customers – what they’re thinking, doing and feeling about your brand and given that it’s a two-way conversation between you and your customers – if you’re not part of that conversation about your own brand, your absence is definitely noticed. If you’re not already online, it’s worth considering the reasons why.

Check out the BrandWatch Superbowl 2012 visualisation.

Design review from a 5 year old.

Ashley — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:46:39 +0000

Adam Ladd, an American designer, thought it would be interesting to get his 5-year old daughter to give some feedback on some famous logos. This is what she said.

Oddly enough, she sounds A LOT like Marcel the Shell, which I recommend watching; Part 1 & Part 2.

A murmuration

Ana — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:40:11 +0000

A collection of starlings is called a murmuration. Beautiful.

A suspended crotheted play-stallation

Dari — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:28:20 +0000

Now this looks like fun!

It’s Ernesto Neto’s inaugural installation for the Faena Arts Center, a new arts space in Buenos Aires’. As an article by Co.Design describes “the installation is both satisfyingly whimsical for children and artistically edifying for the adults. The shape evokes memories of play areas at fast-food joints – but only in its biggest, purest, and most imaginative sense”.

We wish we had the opportunity to clamber our way through the tie-dyed crocheted nets suspended in this beautiful white space.

Watch a video on the making-of: