The Brilliant creative team blog

Buoyed by the 2011 success of its Star Wars-themed 'The Force' advert (Adweek's 'Commercial of the Year 2011', 44 million YouTube views, 6.8 billion impressions), Volkswagen is again going intergalactic for its 2012 Super Bowl XLVI TV commercial. Called the 'Bark Side', this 64-second teaser previews the full advert which will air on 5 February. Featuring a collective of canines (some 'dressed' as characters from the series' titles) barking the 'Imperial March' from the film's soundtrack, it's looking like it will cause as much of a sensation as last year's Vader-themed clip.

Graffiti guru Above has been one of my top five favorite graffiti artists for the last decade not just because we share a common love of using chunky-ass arrows but the shear vibrancy of his work that has kept me looking out for him. Apart from his signature arrows stencil, the art is full of color and manically controlled backgrounds which almost pay homage to the 80's, plus he paints lots of hot chicks.

He, just like King Robo and Banksy prefers to keep his identity a mystery but he has a
website, a book and even a wikipedia page.

So you have been given a print job to work on. You have your layout setup and looking great, you have flowed in all the copy and created all the styles and masters you will ever need, at this point you couldn't be more efficient... now all that is to be done is source some awesome looking photography.

Images of great photography start to flash through your mind, you know what you want and now you're on a mission. A quick check from client notes "a young, attractive woman at a party having fun", easy!

You enter your search and wait in anticipation like a kid opening a birthday present who is 99% sure what it's going to be, only to be greeted with page after page of the most bizarre and useless photography ever taken. What results next is hours of searching and next page clicking as your excitement dwindles into despair and you actually wish you could punch the models in their stupid faces.

Wow... what happened there, everything went dark?

Anyway, there is a fantastic website called www.awkwardstockphotos.com dedicated to the best of the worst in stock photography, seriously this is simply amazing and should be a real eye opener to those that don't have to deal with sourcing stock photography!

Buzzfeed have also put together their top 60.

Happy new year everyone... so back to work and back on the hunt for more awesome stuffs to inspire, excite and generally distract you from what you are supposed to be doing.

I have found some really talented work by Laura Bifano who takes the focal subject of her paintings and throws a modern twist at it, turning the subject into blocks with almost an over sized, disorienting pixel like effect.

They have a hallucinatory quality to them which I really enjoy plus, it reminds of that Simpsons episode... you know the one where homer eats the mega hot chilly and trips balls.

View more of Lauras fantastic collection here.