Aap! - Alternative Advertising Possibilities

Tomoyuki SAKAGUCHI delivers an amazing set of eerie photographs of the suburban Tokyo landscape in his coffee table book “Home.” Oddly parked cars, flowers, and overpowering vines, line small houses of mixed styles in haunting absent photos of Tokyo homes. The familiar densely arranged homes with anonymous street corners are rendered strange and almost set like by glowing overhead street lights.

Highly recommended.

Enjoy prints and photos @ the photographer’s website

Around noon on every business day, thousands stride briskly along the sidewalk of Mumbai’s (Bombay) business districts delivering lunches to 350,000 people daily, at a cost of about $3.80 a month in beautiful, simple multi-tiered lunch-boxes known as Tiffins.

These hard working individuals ensure that the businesspeople of Bombay can still have home-cooked meals personally delivered to their desks — without the inconvenience of carrying meals to work themselves on overcrowded trains — and at bargain prices.

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Aap!Global is a big fan of street art. Spencer Eakin takes great pictures of graffiti, street art and other items around the world.

Today we spoke to Spencer on Art, Street Art, Advertising, Global Differences and More… Read the interview below:

Aap: Tell us who you are
Spencer: I am married, vegetarian, a skateboarder, straight edge & part time traveler. I take photos as a hobby and do not leave home without my camera.

Aap: You stated in your email to me : “As a graffiti artist I always tried to get spots that were never done before, but get seen everyday.”
Why were you interested in being seen?
Most (but not all) youth experiment with alchohol, drugs and/or smoking. I had three vices: Skateboarding, Music & Graffiti.

Do you still tag?
No

Why did you switch to shooting pictures of tags?
Just to clearify. A tag is just quickly writing ones name. I take photos of graffiti. If somebody writes their name on a mailbox, that is a tag. If another person fills a packpack full of cans and sneaks out to the local freight train lay up, they are going to do a piece.

Where was the motivation as an artist/graffiti tagger coming from?
As a young teen I watch the film Style Wars on PBS and was hooked.

What do you think the similarities between graffiti around the world is?
Kids just want to create & express themselves thru vandalism. The street is thier canvas. There is also the thrill of not getting caught.

Is the motivation for tagging the same in the States as in Europe as in Japan as in elsewhere?
I believe it is. There is different styles, but is the same.

What made you want to track all the Space Invaders? Just for fun?
I first noticed Space Invaders in Tokyo in mid 2001 and started taking photos of them. The first one I saw and took a photo of was gone a week later. That is what hooked me on capturing them before they were gone. Then I came back to Los Angeles and started noticing them here. About two years ago, somebody started going around Los Angeles destroying them. Once I realized that was happening, I went out of my have to find as many as I could before they were gone. Since then I have been back to Japan many times to visit family and spot more of the Tokyo Space Invaders. I have also been to Paris where Space Invader is based.

Who are you favorite street artists?
How long do you have? TWIST, QP, Phil Frost, Kami, Sasu, Space Invader, Revs, Esow, JR, Banksy, Duece Seven, Daim, Colossus of Roads, Revok, The London Police, Mers, Matokie Slaughter, Delta, TheMac, Fafi, Pars Kid, Bigfoot, Zedz, Nylon, Plantrees, D*Face, Os Gemeos, Kress, Revok, Eine, Espo, Giant One, ZYS, Mode2, Jace, Broke and many others.

Do you think Street Art has evolved with the Internet?
It has in the sense that brought street art to people aren’t living in the midst of it.

With the ability for the internet and pictures to serve as a medium for critique?
This is good and bad. I find that if a person has beef with a certian artist, they will go around sites like FLICKR bashing the artist in the comment sections. The good thing, artists are able to trade info and hook each other up when traveling. It is also a safe place for people to look at street art.

What do you think about the intersection between art, graffiti and commercialism?
With art and commercialism I do not have a problem with any of it. With graffiti and other forms for street art, I do. It is because it is ours.

You told me you’re working on a book - do you have a preview to share?
Unfortunately I do not. It is too early in the process. The book will be about street art.

What do you think of the branding of taggers - like Banksy, Colossus of Roads, etc?
Do you mean calling these artists taggers? I think calling Banksy and Colossus of Roads taggers is wrong. This is there life. Banksy is thought provoking and political. Colossus of Roads is a retired railroad employee (I believe he is in his 60’s) with at least 10,000 freight trains to his credit. Each of which has different statement underneath his classic moniker.

Thanks Spencer.

I am off to see an old friend and go benching. Benching is a term used for going and watch freight trains go by while sitting on a bench and looking at the graffiti. Hard to do here is So Cal. We actually walk the line of parked freights.

See more of Spencer’s Photos

Outside of our office is a beautiful massive 40 floor wall scape that was just waiting to be covered with artwork. Using common vintage overhead projectors, a set of EVD 400V lamps, and artwork transparencies we were able to project large format graphics to create a fun, professional wall scape.

Want to see it person - visit the corner of Kearny / Pine in San Francisco on week nights.

Aap!Global Presented @ Pecha-Kucha, San Francisco August 29th!

Aap!Global’s Robert Patterson presented on the intersection between grafitti and advertising - focusing on the fun interplay between the new and the competition they hold for impression and impact.

Update
We wanted to give credit to Street Art Photographer Spencer Eaken for the following photos used in our presentation:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/true2death/246285146/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/true2death/248176548/

Many thanks Spencer.

We’re big fans of our iPhones, transportation systems and maps in general. Today you can combine all three and carry subway systems maps in your pocket.

Instructions on Usage: These maps take advantage of the natural thumbnail view present in the photo albums function of the iPhone. When seen together the tiles reassemble visually making the entire map more navigable. For a large system like Tokyo or New York this is crucial. Zoom and pan to see full details and stops along your travels.

Instructions for Installation:

Simply download the image directory and load into into your iPhone via iPhoto. For Windows or Linux users - please see http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Enjoy the following cities formatted for your iPhone by Aap!Global

Tokyo Subway System iPhone Map > Download
Greater Tokyo JR Railway iPhone System Map > Download
Santiago de Chile Railway iPhone System Map > Download
San Francisco BART iPhone Map > Download
Boston iPhone Subway Map > Download

New iPhone Maps

Madrid iPhone Subway Map > Download

Lyon iPhone Subway Map > Download

Brussles iPhone Subway Map > Download

Hong Kong iPhone Subway Map > Download

Singapore Subway iPhone Map > Download

Osaka City Subway iPhone Map > Download

Toulouse Velib Map for iPhone > Download

Dutch Railway System Map for iPhone > Download

Other world system maps formatted for your iPhone

New York City iPhone Map by Khoi Vinh

London iPhone Map by Randy Plemel

DC Metro by Jack Barse

Know other systems out there? Want Pyongyang, Mexico City, Rio or other cities?

Let us know and we’ll post them here.

“The UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Department of Special Collections has selected and digitized 5,124 of the more than three million images contained in the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Daily News photographic archives. The photographs chronicle the history and growth of Los Angeles from the 1920s to 1990.

This collection of digitized images is made available online by the UCLA Digital Library to assist a wide variety of researchers, including scholars, educators, students, writers, filmmakers, urban planners, community activists, librarians, and members of the general public.

The selected photographs depict historically and socially significant people, places, and events, as well as preserve glimpses of everyday life in Los Angeles. The images fall into broad categories that document politics, urban and economic development, arts and culture, the entertainment industry, crime and law enforcement, religion, sports, gender issues, and popular culture and trends.”

Like Flickr and all other massive media galleries prepare to lose hours of time navigating the web, but be inspired.

For us @ Aap!Global its a great way to celebrate the richness of Los Angeles - warts and all included.
Here are some of our favorites while searching:

Local Korea Town Out Door Signage

Sunset Billboards 1975 - Looks the same as 2007

Irvine Rebranded in 1965

and thousands more…

ShuffleSaver is a dynamic screensaver that grabs your favorite photos (by tags, username or interestingness) from flickr.com and shuffles them. So everytime your screensaver starts, you will see amazing new pictures. You can even create favorites of your settings or save your favorite images to your harddisk. Screensaver’s are not boring anymore…

• Loads your favorite photos from flickr.com and shuffles them
• Get new photos everytime the saver starts
• Favorites: save different settings
• Skip pictures you don’t like
• Save pictures you like by just pressing a key
• Choose from beautiful transitions

Why you need this to Get out of XXX or whatever industry you are a part of:

As Paul Arden of Saatchi & Saatchi so clearly points out in his mini essay in the collection “It’s not how good you are, Its how good you want to be.” >
“Get out of Advertising”

With “90% of advertising inspiration comes from other advertising. To be original, seek your inspiration from unexpected sources.”

Download ShuffleSaver to be greeted by random and inspiration photography from the depths of the Flickr Vault.

Onitsuka Tiger of Japan has recently launched a promotional mini-sitelet displaying a mosaic shoe made of thumbnails and image links to Japanese sites.  Clicking on tiles takes teh visitor to one of hundreds of sites craweled by flash engine.  Images and links appear to refresh to reflect different models of brand.

Definitely fun and fresh - plus a unique way to explore the web.

While a bit nationalistic for our tastes with the “Made of Japan” slogan - we commend the agency for their creativity.

Visit the site - you’ll have fun

In its efforts to foster talent among young artists from Japan and abroad, Tokyo Wonder Site has held street painting sessions and Hip Hop projects, treating graffiti and club events as familiar and important parts of our culture. For this exhibition, together with Agnès B, TWS Shibuya is exhibiting a set of collaborative works made by two internationally active artists, Shephard Fairey aka Obey Giant and WK Interact.

With both of these artists coming from a background of making works filled with visuals that transcend the already visually saturated, sign-filled urban environments they both come from, the works on show in this exhibition have been made to the theme of “propaganda”.”

So states Tokyo Art Beat on the Obey Giant vs WK Interact “East/West Propaganda Project”

We’re big fans of the Obey Giant “global” brand and other similar Banksy like outdoor graphics.

In Tokyo check out the show on some of the most successful propaganda/ guerrilla grafitti campaigns in history @

Venue: Tokyo Wonder Site, Shibuya

Schedule: From 2007-03-23 To 2007-04-22

Address: 1-19-8 Jinnan, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0041

Phone: 03-3463-0603