Japanese gum brand Sakeru's commercial is a playful love story like no other

A new global campaign launched today (6 February) by Absolut features 28 employees of the vodka brand completely naked. Titled the vodka with nothing to hide, the film satirises traditional employee induction videos by using nudity to draw attention to the “transparent” seed-to-bottle production process behind the brand, from the CO2 neutral distillation process to Absolut’s dedication to sustainability.

The Super Bowl draws an audience of around 111 million viewers, so it’s little surprise brands are willing to pay $5 million for a 30-second spot. Still, over the years this has caused the competition for best ad to get to incredulous levels of grandeur, with huge budgets, big stars and outlandish ideas a given.

Pumpkins are being pumped into lattes, special edition spooky packs have scurried their way onto supermarket shelves; and cartoon monsters are enjoying commercial mashups. There’s no doubt about it: we have been hallowe’ened.

In MailChimp’s latest ad campaign, a wide-eyed protagonist stands nervously like a rabbit in headlights against an undulating ‘black hole’. Comparing the unknowns of building a web business with an endless abyss, and offering a far less daunting alternative (using MailChimp), the ad is a surreal and tongue-in-cheek visualisation of the internet.

Kate Stanners is chairwoman and global chief creative officer at advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, overseeing the agency’s entire creative output for major clients from Proctor and Gamble to HSBC. Here she writes for It’s Nice That on the gender bias in the advertising sector and the women and campaigns already making a difference.

Creative director David Lane possesses levels of productivity most of us can only dream of. With business partner Marina Tweed, David runs Lane & Associates, a creative agency and content agency based in east London. From beneath the Lane & Associates umbrella, the work the duo produces spans creative direction, content and curation. They founded and edit The Gourmand and somehow, for the last five months, David has found the time to art direct frieze, where he has just completed an entire redesign. Phew!

It’s been a busy few months for Argentinian illustrator and animator Sebastian Curi. When we last chatted to Sebastian he was settled in Los Angeles, with a back catalogue of amazing clients and was working as an animation director at Buck. In just a few months everything has changed, he’s over in Vancouver for a start, “at this small but super cozy studio full of talented people called Giant Ant,” he explains and his move has inspired a breadth of illustration side projects too, which “felt amazing!”

“Working with collage there is such a marvellous diversity of textures,” artist Maria Berrio enthuses. “Different sounds made as they are torn… I love the spreading of glue with sticky fingers, the stretching, the cutting. These collages are built layer by layer forming the topographical features upon the canvas.”

Zurich-based graphic designer Marlon Ilg’s creations are characterised by their unconventional, offbeat typographic arrangements. Having worked on a broad range of design jobs from independent research projects to corporate visual identities, Marlon has years of experience under his belt. His ongoing series for local exhibition space Blossom, in particular, has offered him the opportunity to move beyond his comfort zone, experimenting and exploring alternative formats. “Blossom is an artist-run space in Zurich, which was set up by Gregory Hari, a local performance artist. Dedicated to the idea of collaboration, Blossom changes its structure according to the various projects it takes on. Each new endeavour involves inviting an external individual or group to create a new creative dynamic. Blossom has been a hotspot for exhibitions, workshops and underground parties since 2016,” Marlon tells It’s Nice That.

Acid-drenched colours and vibrant compositions permeate Animal Press’ archive of Risograph zines and illustrations. The Belgian-Korean publishing house was originally set up in 2013 by Jinhee Han who was subsequently joined by It’s Nice That’s much-loved illustrator Baptiste Virot. After printing multiple publications in South Korea, the duo moved back to Belgium but didn’t completely cut their Korean tie. “We spent more than two and a half months producing our first two books of the year because we wanted to print them ourselves. It took a really long time. It was difficult but fun. We then met a guy in Seoul who loved printing so we proposed he start his own Riso atelier. He followed our advice and named it Animal Print. We now work with Animal Print in order to produce as many publications as possible,” Jinhee tells It’s Nice That.

“On the one hand I admire the simplicity and lucidity of Swiss graphic design and, on the other hand, I can’t stop using drop shadows and metallic effects,” German graphic designer Vivien Hoffmann tells It’s Nice That. “However,” she adds, “I don’t think one necessarily excludes the other – mixing styles and combining unrelated elements often leads to the results I’m most happy with.”

Although it’s a medium packed full of practical applications, graphic design also promotes the exploration of ideas from a conceptual standpoint and it’s this space that Italian designer Michela Zoppi’s work firmly occupies. Inspired by a host of references that include the typographic experiments of the Futurist Movement, William Blake’s poetry and Jean Lucas Godard’s films, Michela has developed an incredibly conceptual and thought-provoking approach to her work.

A few years back we described designer, director and previous It’s Nice That graduate Josh King as a “Kingston graduate who spends his days being paid to come up with brilliant ideas because that’s exactly what he’s best at.” This statement remains undoubtedly true. In his latest creative endeavour Josh directed Khruangbin’s genius music video for their song Evan Finds The Third Room, which involves Han Li, a smiling lady in green, picking up an imaginary hula hoop while taking out the trash. She then proceeds to dance her way through Shanghai’s various neighbourhoods.

British illustrator Nathan Hackett is a story weaver; writing playful narratives for the characters who inhabit the intricate buildings he creates. Illustrating since he was 11 years old — at first doodles in his maths books, then blow-pens won as a prize on the nineties hit TV show Art Attack and later studying illustration at Bournemouth College of Art, Nathan’s work powerfully and playfully sparks conversation on how we, as people, interact with our surroundings.

Stefanie Leinhos could draw pretty much anything again and again and we’d love it. Repetition is a key part of the Leipzig-based illustrators work, often utilising the comic strip format to play with iterating the same form or shape through an inverted black and white colour palette.

Unlike other art publications, Les Fichiers Photographiques hones in on just one photographer and explores their work in the context of a broader social issue. The annual journal is the work of Plus Mûrs, a Nantes-based creative studio founded by Méric Chaperon, Vincent Labas and Nassim Bouaza. After graduating from L’ École de Design Nantes Atlantique, the three friends parted ways, working and interning at various studios around the world. However, they soon regrouped in Nantes and decided to pursue their creative interests as a team.

“It’s tangible, romantic, rich and vibrant,” replies Daan van Dam when asked what it is he loves about analogue photography. “The patience you need to have and the uncertainty of whether a shot will be a masterpiece or a mistake is the beauty of it all.” It’s this poetic concept that became the essence of One Shot, a project developed by Daan alongside Zack McDonald and Zorica Radovic.

Some of the most pleasing book designs are born from the simplest decisions, from subtle nuances that perfectly encapsulate the message of the book’s content. This is certainly the case with Basel-based graphic designer, Ronnie Fueglister’s array of artist books. Always produced in close collaboration with the artist, Ronnie’s work is varied in its visual language but one thing binds his projects: simple, yet smart design choices.

This week’s Friday Mixtape is by Frankie Cosmos! Led by Greta Kline, Frankie Cosmos’ third record Vessel was released last week (31 March), featuring a mammoth 17 songs performed with a host of new band members with David Maine on bass and vocals, Lauren Martin on keys and drummer Luke Pyenson.

Vicki King is one of those photographers whose images make you want to step straight into the world they create. Her subjects seem to inhabit somewhere else – an eternally sunny place, their faces awash with warm hues of orange and pink. This otherworldly-ness is no mistake explains the London-based photographer, who admits to having an obsession with wanting to exist in a “timeless dreamscape.”

Police cars made out of fingers and caterpillar men munching on leaves, Jules Le Barazer’s imagination seems to have no limits. Having worked with world-renowned publications like Zeit Magazin, Le Monde and Libération, the Paris-based illustrator has covered a broad range of topics from technological experimentation to Mikhail Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog. Each subject is, however, illustrated through an anatomical lens. “For my graduation project, I created a book about an amusement park that was built on a human body. Visitors could ride through the digestive system, eat liposuctioned fat or even climb over a silicone breast that was threatening to erupt,” Jules tells It’s Nice That.

“Go outside. It’s good for you,” replies photographer Lucas Foglia when asked what he has learned (and what he hopes others will learn) from his series Human Nature. Currently on display at Foam Museum, Amsterdam, and recently published into a book by Nazraeli Press, the series is at times genuinely breathtaking in its portrayal of stories linking people, nature and science.