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Lego. As a young per­son, I had it. You had it. We all had it.

But what did you ever do with it? Me? Poorly thought out space sta­tions and space­ships. In this edi­tion of the Couch we’ll be see­ing what creative-types around the world have been doing with the old plas­tic bricks.

Cool Cre­ative

From the White Stripes “Fell in love with a girl” video to the wildly suc­cess­ful “Lego <insert movie fran­chise here>” game series from Traveller’s Tales, peo­ple have been tak­ing hun­dreds of bits of plas­tic and mak­ing some pretty cool stuff with it for years.

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I’ve been play­ing with my new DSLR this month (thank you Santa), and have been think­ing about some of the cool pho­to­graphic effects used in cam­paigns over the last cou­ple of years.

Get­ting the LED out in London

What do you get if you take a cam­era with a long expo­sure, some LED lights, some Lon­don scenery and some Kraftwerk-esque music?

This: Licht­fak­tor for Sky Movies. A bunch of guys hack­ing about with lights, cam­eras and action. Throw in some Star Trek and Star Wars noises and this is a great exam­ple of where cre­ativ­ity meets tech­nol­ogy. Waste some time this after­noon with a browse through the Licht­fak­tor Vimeo Chan­nel.

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Never work with chil­dren or animals

The Dig­i­tal Couch has never been one to shy away from a chal­lenge, so this week he’s taken on kids and ani­mals in the world of tech. Sounds like a recipe for dis­as­ter you say? Only time will tell…

Baby-Facebook

A new study com­piled by Dubit has revealed that nearly 50% of the UK’s under 12s are using Face­book, despite being too young to do so. Face­book requires its mem­bers to be at least 13 yet many young­sters are log­ging on way before this. And 66% of six year-olds are also aware of Face­book, so the pres­sure to be part of it must be high – even at this young age.

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The Dig­i­tal Couch took a well-deserved rest after Christ­mas but now it’s up and rar­ing to go again – revived after its mini-break to Paris. It did find love with a sofa in the Lou­vre but alas there was no Valen­tine card in the post. Worry not; we’ve man­aged to stop him brood­ing just long enough to take a look at what’s been hap­pen­ing in the world of tech so far this year.

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‘Tis almost the sea­son to be jolly. Santa has been dusted off, the rein­deer re-stuffed and both are being shoe-horned back into ad cam­paigns to sell every­thing from leather sofas to mince pies. At this time of year, any­thing not bright red or fea­tur­ing a ridicu­lous elf has to work hard to get noticed. With retail stores tak­ing a beat­ing from online sales, com­pa­nies have to think big­ger and bet­ter to reach their audi­ence. A shop win­dow isn’t going to cut it; you’re going to have to do bet­ter than that to impress Joe Pub­lic.

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There has been both excit­ing and sad news in the mobile world over the last few weeks. We have seen the rise of Android and the depar­ture of an indus­try leg­end. This week we look at cam­paigns and tech­nolo­gies com­ing soon to a pocket near you.

Bug Pow­ered Mobile

How do you keep a taran­tula on a tread­mill and not off eat­ing the other per­form­ers?

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So sum­mer is wind­ing down. The lobster-tans are slowly fad­ing and peo­ple have shuf­fled back to their desks around the coun­try. But fear not, adver­tis­ers have made sure we remem­ber the good times. Sun, sand and adven­ture await. Oh, and one mas­sive shower scene…

Skoda Off-road – Image Mapping

Czech car man­u­fac­turer Skoda is on a roll. They have had a very suc­cess­ful year so far, win­ning mul­ti­ple awards for both their Fabia & Yeti lines of vehi­cles. Even the aging Octavia saloon is doing well. From the orig­i­nal Fabia “lovely things” cam­paign fea­tur­ing “bright cop­per ket­tles and warm woollen mit­tens” — which came out over 4 years ago — to the more recent Skoda Fabia RS “Meaner stuff” cam­paign, Skoda are now push­ing their crossover flag­ship — the Yeti.

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The count­down to the 2012 Olympics as offi­cially begun. Peo­ple are dust­ing off their run­ning shoes and get­ting out their bicy­cles. Lon­don seems to be wak­ing up from its lethar­gic slum­ber and head­ing out­doors. Here are a cou­ple of cam­paigns that look at the ridicu­lous and sublime.

Car­ry­ing the (pen­light) torch

Olympics ath­letes doing weird stuff for quirky Cadbury.

Yes, it’s still 2011, but if you are a bud­ding sports star, or couch-bound enthu­si­ast, it’s also offi­cially one year to go until the Lon­don 2012 Olympics. And boy, have the spon­sors made sure you know it. The much-reviled logo is set to burn your corneas for the next year and a bit, before hope­fully being for­got­ten behind the actual event.

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It is said that if you give enough mon­keys enough type­writ­ers and time, they will write the com­plete works of Shake­speare.* Not great val­i­da­tion for your future prospects if you are a bud­ding play­wright. Fan­tas­tic news if you hap­pen to sell & ser­vice type­writ­ers…  This week we look at the count­less mon­keys and their type­writ­ers sub­mit­ting their rhetoric to count­less blogs, face­books, myspaces, twit­ters and youtubes. Harsh crit­i­cism? Not if you hap­pen to be one of the ones set­ting up, sell­ing, ser­vic­ing & devel­op­ing work for the interwebs.

Here are some great dig­i­tal ideas and pos­si­bly our sal­va­tion from an eter­nity of bananas.

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The Lion, the Switch and the Wardrobe.

Every year, the cream-of-the-global-ad-agency crop head to sunny Cannes for the Cannes Lions Fes­ti­val of Cre­ativ­ity. Often thought of as the ulti­mate in cam­paign kudos, the Grand Prix award is a cov­eted tro­phy in adver­tis­ing excel­lence. Here are some of my favourite win­ners from last week’s event.

Write the Future – Wieden Kennedy for Nike

What hap­pens when you have unlim­ited funds and access to pretty much every major sports star in the world? This out­stand­ing World Cup cam­paign walked away with the Film Grand Prix 2011. (W+K took the lion’s share with 6 Gold awards in total.)

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