Chalk Notes

Stuff that's caught the eye. Smart, beautiful or absurd. All spotted by Ed Staples, creative strategy director. Drinking tea. Favouring fewer words. Liking my Italian football.

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Back Market have a great track record in comms and stunts. Turns out they can make half-decent ads too. Great example of the power of the absurd.

Tomas Coleman, from the ad agency Mother, “The bigger and funnier we went, the more the sincerity underneath would land. That tension between the ridiculous gesture and the real promise is the whole idea.”

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Just so refreshing to see unadulterated absurdity when it comes to World Cup sponsors. Well played Axe / Lynx.

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Interesting range of new ads from Mozilla. Some Black Mirror vibes in there. Hacktivist aesthetics courtesy of Basement Freaks, an anonymous creative collective.

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'Best Album Cover' is back at The Grammys after a hiatus of 50+ years. Hooray. Here are my favourite designs from 2025. Perfume Genius with Glory (top) makes the official shortlist. Lotus by Little Simz and Rainy Sunday Afternoon by The Divine Comedy don't. But they're ace.

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This gem spotted in a canalside Copenhagen bar. The owner's mum.

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That Lee Miller exhibition at Tate Britain. Yes the shot of her in Hitler's bath. But also the extraordinary crossover where she applies fashion magazine sensibility to reportage of a destroyed 1940s Europe. Kind of more surreal than the actual Surrealist projects she did.

My favourite here - a law student in a post liberation Paris in 1944. Lee said "the bullet holes were like jewels".

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A new trend of 'well dressed and distressed' book covers spotted by The Casual Optimist. Discontent design by Madeline Partner. The Dilemmas of Working Women design by Sarah Kellogg.

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Charles Schridde's ads for Motorola in the early 60s. The future used to be so glamorous.

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Sweet September rain (in February). A smashing new Burberry spot doing the rounds on social. Featuring South Korean actor Son Suk-ku, a London caff (not café) and most importantly the perfect heart-breaker of a track - When Love Breaks Down by Prefab Sprout. An ace way to sell a posh raincoat.

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Mubi's 'movie poster columnist' Adrian Curry has come up with his Top 10 for the year. Here's my fave - designed by Maria Pestana Teixeira 'with punkish aplomb'.

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Print magazine have put out their Top 100 book covers of the year. Here's my two faves.

Birding - design by Charlotte Stroomer, photography by Kelsey McClellan.

High Jump As Icarus Story - design by Anna Morrison.

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Paul Almasy. Bill poster. 1950s

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Last couple of days of the sensational Strizzi exhibition at the gem of exhibition space that is The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art. Beautiful shots of beautiful mid-century continental cinema stars.

And below my own snap of an exhibited photo which doesn't seem to be grabbable from the web - Anthony Perkins and Silvana Mangano. Plus the gallery's own poster wall... 👌 (Foccacia good too).

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Illustrations by La Boca for a 75th anniversary publication of Orwell's 1984. Styled on 1940s propaganda. Only 75 books being published.

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Images from a new book by British photographer Mike Abrahams. This Was Then catalogues 1970s and 1980s working-class Britain. The decision to shoot in black and white is credited to Abrahams adolescent years in Liverpool, a city he felt was “absent of colour”. Images above are shot in Liverpool, Blackburn and Camden. H/T Creative Review.

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Blimey! This is just an ace pairing. Song (Doolally) by Hak Baker. Video by Hugh Mulhern. A tumble through live action, animation, puppets and AI. What a brilliantly messy night out...

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From a wonderful dive into the archives of Life magazine. A 1972 behind-the-scenes spread of the filming of Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes. Shot at a futuristic mall in Century City, LA to convey the film's setting of 1991 (!)

#film #sci-fi