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Smooth FM wears its art on its sleeve

Posted in Advertising, Media, Creative, Branwell Johnson, Latest reporters' blogs June 26th, 2008 by Branwell Johnson

Adland is no stranger to work being “inspired by” other ideas, either from youth culture, art installations or elsewhere. It’s always fun to identify where the cutting edge creative team has been trawling and in this case we’re looking at Smooth FM’s “Facesleeve” ad by Dye Holloway Murray.

The ad shows people using appropriate album sleeves to cover up parts of their body – mainly the face. It’s a great concept fit with the Smooth FM brand and looks a treat, no denying.

The idea of Facesleeving (or sleevefacing) has been around for many months and there are dedicated sites- including one on Flicker and this interesting site http://www.sleeveface.com/

Will Facesleeving remain as subversive and entertaining now it has gone “overground”? Will we still see such examples of the art such as the Barbara Streisand album cover replacing the head of a dog? It reminds me how exciting those bootleg song mash-ups were, like the one mixing The Strokes and Christine Aguilera, before everyone clambered on board and official releases started hitting the Top 10.

Actually, I guess it can only be around as long as people still have vinyl collections, as it certainly won’t work with a CD.