A few days ago, there was a heated discussion over at copyranter about some new ads which recycle funny student exam answers of the “They Didn’t Study” variety. Meme-tastic scans of such exam answers (“Find X.” “Here it is.”), immortalized by benevolent teachers in public service to the entire Internet long ago, have floated around the web since the Usenet days. In the copyranter thread, some came down on the ad school for “recycling 8-year-old internet jpegs,” while others maintained that all ads repackage old ideas, and that the ads in question did so well.

Stealing old internet memes, that I can forgive. It’s not worth the effort to get all indignant – not when it can be much worse. How bad can it get? Behold! Compare BBDO Athens’ ad for Dexim at the top of this post to an early photo by Jamie Nelson below.

…really? Really?

First of all: BBDO Athens, this is Photoshop Disasters calling. If you’re going to photoshop a model onto a background, at least make sure you get the shadows right. At least Jamie actually put the model on the that background. If you’re going to copy something, at least improve it. The agency lists the photographer, creative director, art director, art buyer, stylist, hair and makeup artist, and photo producer for this shoot. Clayton Cubitt asks, “it takes that many people to rip-off a young photographer’s little editorial shoot?” Why didn’t they just hire Jamie? This is from the same guys who produced that sexist BMW ad, by the way.

It all comes to a full circle so easily on the web. There’s a whole blog devoted to it. How can people think that they won’t get caught, in this day and age?

[via Siege]

First, about the website: click here to go to the site of designers Lucy and Bart. Maximize the window. Move your mouse around. Get your face really close to the screen and stare into their eyes. It’s uncanny! Morphing nothing new; we all remember it from a steady stream of ’90s music videos and more recently from the hypnotic Women in Art YouTube spectacle, but this interface manages to make it novel again. Maybe it’s the fact that you can see every pore in the high-res images, the fact that you scan stare into their eyes and manipulate their faces at will, coupled with a flawless, uncomplicated execution. Either way, the simple navigation feels immersive in an unexpected way.

The designers use cheap materials such as cardboard and pantyhose nylon to produce extravagant shapes. While most art clothing made out of bubble wrap, toilet paper and tinsel tends to resemble failed Project Runway challenges, the constructions here contain volume, depth, texture and, importantly, storytelling. The motivations for the designs are explained on the site as “an instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body.” It is stated that designers Lucy McRae and Bart Hess share a fascination with genetic manipulation and beauty expression, and that unconsciously their collaborations touch on these themes, though it was not their intention to communicate this. Their process searches for “low–tech prosthetic ways for human enhancement,” stumbling on new constructions during a creative process that they describe as a primitive, blind search.

[Thank you, Nicola!]

Take a look at Cheval Noir [Black Horse] – artist Aya Kato’s portfolio site, especially if you’re familiar with her work. I was just reminded of her by Ashbet and noticed a significant change in her work’s direction. Aya Kato made herself a name with eye-drowning elaborate technicolor illustrations, influenced in equal parts by Ukiyo-e and Art Nouveau. More than half of her 2008 work borders on minimal, with subdued colors and more negative space. After years of churning out ornate psychedelic panels it’s an understandable step for the young artist. It’ll be curious to see whether she’ll push herself even further in this direction.

Spider, 2008

Aya Kato has been featured in countless magazines and her designs adorn everything from chocolate boxes to T-shirts to Hitachi adverts. At such a young age she’s had international success, and I’m eager to see whether her new work’s look will catch on commercially. Compare the image above, created in 2008, to Akazukin, from three years ago, below. Patterns and transformation are featured in both, but the similarities end there. Personally, as much as I love the clean and minimal, I miss the vivid landscapes and superabundance of Aya’s older work.

Akazukin, 2005

• Aya Kato T-shirts
• Tori Amos music video based on Aya Kato’s work
• Murakami on Coilhouse
• Yana Moskaluk on Coilhouse

More from Aya Kato below the jump.