Selfless Portrait

Selfless Portraits is a web app thing where you're matched up with a stranger from anywhere in the world. You draw their Facebook profile pic and you're given another stranger to draw yours. It's so easy!

The final results can range from the super good...

To the super bad..ish?

I participated in Selfess Portraits and got this 19 year old girl from Brazil with an overexposed, bad-angled snap.

Kind of half-assed my contribution to her but ain't nobody got time for dat.

She looks like the kind of girl that would be into Andy Warhol...

After waiting for like a month I finally got mine back. Derek from Illinois really captured my spirit and chin.

It's probably the best I've ever looked.

I highly recommend checking out the website or participating if you've got the time. Derek proved to us all that you really don't need to spend very long on your final result.

Hope yours turns out better than mine.

Game of Thrones Season 3 Mash Up

OMG according to their website, Season 3 of everyone's favorite Game will be premiering tomorrow!
As Kermit the Frog once said, "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy".
Who's your favorite character?

(Fake) Nike Ads for 2013

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These are some great new (fake) Nike ads featuring sports greats like Lance Armstrong, Michael Vick, OJ Simpson and Oscar Pistorius.

They point out the high value that our society places on sports legends, and we tend to collectively forgive their many transgressions because of the many contributions(?) they give to us. 

I think it's high time we start lessening up the huge value of sport that we celebrate in North America. In Ancient Greece athletes were unpaid amateurs, and played only for pride, glory and possibly bragging rights.

Being the best of anything in the world probably comes with a lot of pressure, and there are people all over the world that commit crimes like these, but don't get such worldwide attention. The problem comes in when other athletes of all ages look up to these personalities as role models. If you are great at playing football and you see that OJ can get away with murder because he's great at football, what stops you from doing the same?

Obviously not all football players are murderers, but at least one of them (probably) is. I mean, he wrote a book called If I Did It. Come on.

Nike pays athletes a lot of money to use athletes as examples, and some of those athletes are even featured in this list. Some are not, like Tiger Woods. 

Many sports involve the player getting a ball in a hole by one means or another, why do we make them out to be way more than that?

Ore-Oh My!

Whoever is on Oreo's creative team is a genius and deserves Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize. And Oscar. 

Don't be "That Guy": Anti-Rape Campaign

Here's a great print ad from the Vancouver Police Department, and really timely considering all of the news coming out of the Stubenville trial.

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Too often the message is focused towards the women with warnings like "watch your drink!" and "always have a friend watching you". We should move to collectively shifting the message to "if you drug someone, these are the consequences". I have never been aware of such a rampant and clear message of victim blaming than in the Stubenville case these past few weeks. 

I sympathise with men in that they often have to "prove" their masculinity, especially when they're younger and insecure, and within a group of their friends. For younger males, sex is sometimes treated as a contest to see who can get the most girls in bed. The man with the lowest score is threatened with labels like "gay" or "pussy", especially when confronted by his team-mates in the sport that he identifies himself with. 

Females are not exempt from all blame either, two of the victim's friends have been arrested for issuing threats over social media. Despite what some (usually younger) people think, it's not anonymous and you can be held accountable for what you say on Facebook and over text.

It's within ultra rigid gender binaries that dominant masculinity and submissive femininity provide a backdrop for the horrible events in Stubenville can occur. As a society we need to re-evaluate not only the objectification of women but the hyper masculinization of man, which are never as prevalent as in high schools. It also seems as though rape is still a common occurrence worldwide, no matter the geographical location. 

As a 24 year old woman, I still don't understand why the threat of rape still has to be a worry that hums in the back of my mind whenever I go out at night, or when I'm walking alone during the day. I don't think it's fair that I should always have to watch my drink and keep my guard up, but I don't feel as though there's anything that I can do to change this. 

Now, news outlets and bloggers are frantically posting updates highlighting different places to point blame for the events of that horrible night in Stubenville. It's the boys fault, the girls fault, her friends for not stepping in, the coaches fault because he knew about it and did nothing, society's fault, football's fault, the parent's faults, you could go on all day. 

It was a huge combination of factors that lead to this story which has captured the attention of an international audience. Perhaps it will dissuade future rapists by the harsh example set from the verdict of Judge Thomas Lipps. Maybe it will prevent girls from pursuing a court case against their rapist(s) because of its potential to turn into a worldwide spectacle, blasted on every news outlet and social media platform, and she is demonized further by complete strangers.

Whatever happens, I hope that some good comes of this, and that we are shaken out of our dream-state in which equality amongst the sexes has been attained and women don't live in near-constant fear. I hope that this viral YouTube report make other news stations think carefully about how they report future cases like this one, and they acknowledge their position of power as the primary source for the general public to receive these messages. I hope that moms and dads are not only warning their daughters about how they should behave in social situations, but that moms and dads are warning their sons too. 

I really hope that some good comes of this, so let's not let this international focus go to waste. 

#endrapeculture

My Grandpa has a First Name

It's O-S-C-A-R.

Bad to the Block

When it comes to ideas, usually the simpler, the better.

Exemplified here by Pilot Extrafine pens. Are Lego guys not subject to copyright though? 

Mad Mentality

The new Mad Men poster is out! Is it full of spoilers or isn't it?
Is that Dick Whitman over Don's shoulder? Whose hand is that that he's holding? Why are the police there?

Love the illustrated feel! I think we need more illustrations in advertising, they really stick out form all the digital stuff out there.

Louis C.K. Prom-oh My God

How awesome is he?

Great angle.

This outdoor ad for the Vancouver Aquarium is super smart. Outdoor ads compliment the internet really well, because a well-placed, smart outdoor ad can go viral very easily. 

All you need to do is make one mock-up (this one looks like it's all Photoshop) and let the Likes, Pins and Retweets roll in.

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Sports + Moms = Tears

In honour of International Women's day, here is a commercial about moms that will make you cry.

I dare you not to cry after this one.

It's still tough being a woman in this world.

The Days Before Photoshop

Check out these disgusting looking ads for food from back in the day. 

I can't tell if they are taken from photos or if they're illustrations, either way, they make me want to vomit. 

 Who doesn't love a good lime cheese salad? Is that meat in the middle? Human?

The classic Meal-in-a-Mould. I wouldn't necessarily say that's it's exciting, but it is obviously made from cans. What's the gelatinous stuff that the peas are floating in? What's the wavey stuff in the middle? 

I honestly can't even look at this one.

Who is fast frosting tuna salad? What does that even mean?

This looks like a wound.

This looks like a festering wound.

Yum, speef and spork!

Thankfully we have fake food and lighting and tons of Photoshop now. 

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Pretty sure that steam isn't real.

via Buzzfeed

Biceps not Bones

When you read a fashion magazine, there's page after page of pretty, generic girls looking bored. 

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Her face says "I'd rather be sleeping". I feel 10x bored-er just looking at her.

And when you look at a fitness magazine, you see girls that look like Jelena Abbou. 

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BUT what happens when worlds collide and Jelena poses for a fashion editorial?
Amazingness. 

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She's (FITtingly) the new face of MAC's "strength" campaign. Good for her, ladies and gentlemen! This image would really catch your eye in the pages of Vogue. MAC has been known to take risks with their campaigns, pairing up with faces like Debbie Harry

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Pamela Anderson in the past-her-prime years. 

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And (a personal her of mine) Missy Elliott.

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Ugh. Love her.

Keep taking risks MAC! At 20$ per eye-shadow, you can afford it.