Mighty Optical Illusions » Billboards

An Audi R8 for $470 ???

Vurdlak — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 17:41:20 +0000

THE DEAL seems legit, only problem is you won’t be getting a real Audi for peanuts – what did you expect? Having a Lamborghini Murciélago or an Aston Martin DB9 in the garage might be the ultimate in-your-face moment for your showy neighbors, but realistically, not all of us can afford a supercar. It’s a tragic notion that the people over at Audi Canada want to remedy. The price tag on the 2010 Audi R8 V10 may read $141k, but you can start an ownership cycle with one for just $470. Audi Canada has created a garage door wrap with a life-size print of a red Audi R8 sitting in a garage – quite a clean one too, I might add. The cover may officially label you as a poseur for life, and it certainly won’t be able to take you anywhere nice. I bet quite a number of people will be secretly disappointed to learn how the company will only ship to Canadian residents. If you ask me, the car looks nice but it’s nothing special (Chrysler 300C fan speaking here). Does all this somehow ring a bell? You’re right – BMW HAS ALREADY BEAT YOU ON THIS, AUDI!

Hmm, they say: "Get an Audi R8 for just $469.99 this way". I say: "$$$ for just a poster"?!!

Quick Dry Nail Polish Illusion

Vurdlak — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:19:34 +0000

What I’ve noticed is no matter how some illusions tend to be better than the other, it absolutely has no influence on number of comments. See the Jack Daniels post below. I thought it was one of my best finds, you seemed to agree (based on ratings), but still the post only got 8 comments. I’m aware they don’t directly point to the prestige of the illusion, still I somehow personally rate the illusion’s quality by the number of comments. I know it’s a bad habit I have to ditch. On the other hand, yesterday’s illusion wasn’t the best one I ever posted, yet it managed to build over 100 comments. Perhaps the questions appointed really make a difference! Thanks for clarifying the difference between color/colour, and I’m glad I learned about many other similar cases. I never imagined how such a simple question could trigger such a big reaction from my audience, and still on-going debate. Hope people who follow moillusions.com also learn few things from this site :) For the illusion today, I prepared something very simple – check out this ad for a quick dry nail polish. Great idea, don’t you think?

An interesting ad for Rimmel quick dry nail polish, placed in public location

Jack Daniels on Cafe Floor

Vurdlak — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:56:26 +0000

When we talk about 3d chalk drawings we usually talk about Julian Beever, Kurt Werner, Eduardo Relero or Edgar Müller. Well, just as I started to believe I exhausted all the available material on this topic – I heard about Gregor Wosik! Gregor is an academy-educated Polish lad who migrated to Germany back in 1984. Street-art, murals and oil paintings belong to his particular strengths. In Germany Wosik is primarily known as a street painter. This particular art form gives him the opportunity “to live out his passion”, and maintain direct contact with his audience. His works are characterized as high-quality and detailed. The motives of the images range from classical to current issues.

In today’s edition I bring you a small chunk of his opus. As of lately, huge brands recognized this form of advertising to be particularly effective. Still, it looks like mega whiskey brands gave most attention to this form of marketing . Johny Walker and Ballantine’s did it first, but as we see now – Jack Daniels couldn’t resist jumping in this game too. Please comment which of these 3 brands got themselves the best deal, and why? I’ve included a small gallery beneath, where you may see the same picture seen from few different angles (Anamorphosis !!!)

Yes, it's another awesome 3d chalk drawing for another whiskey brand

Check out how this chalk drawing came to existence:

The Fringe Poster Treasure Hunt

Vurdlak — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:59:19 +0000

Except from saying how much he loves our blog, David T. sent us this interesting illusion (well, “hunt and seek“) poster from the tv show called “The Fringe”. Apparently FOX states it’s not just a poster, it’s something more like a real treasure hunt! This “Fringe” billboard for second season of the series contains hidden objects from the show’s past and future mythology. All in all – 16 altogether. The use of the hole adds a strong element of mystery. I’ve heard one amateur critic described this poster as “a Photoshop disaster.” But on the marketing side, any ad that keeps you staring at it while giving you reasons to watch the show is well done. When we finish spotting all the 16 hidden mysteries in this one, you can try and solve previous Fringe poster. FOX says there’s actually a hidden word in last year’s “Fringe” poster (located here) that nobody has ever noticed, which hints at a plot element not revealed until later in the season. Not easy to find. If somebody finds the correct word, please comment. I’d like to start this game with revealing what I’ve found in the below poster – just above the words “New Cases” there is a face that appears to be screaming… please no more than 2 answers per comment.

It's not just a poster, it's a treasure hunt!

Volkswagen’s Escher-style Billboards

Vurdlak — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:45:12 +0000

Probably inspired by Henry Lim’s LEGO installation, Eric submitted these fun-lookingVolkswagen billboards. By now, you are all aware that these ads were based on M.C. Escher’s “Relativity“, “Waterfall” and “House of Stairs“. In the gallery below, I included all of the three original posters done by Volkswagen for their “4Motion” van. I think their pitch-line “Get to the jobs others can’t!” suits this Escher campaign perfectly! Have you seen any of these out in the wild?

Advertisement for Volkswagen 4Motion, based on Escher's artwork "Relativity"

Check out complete set below:

Frontline’s Interactive Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 16:26:04 +0000

If you are a dog lover, and have your own best friend like I do – reading about Frontline will surely ring a bell. Those of you who aren’t informed well enough, well basically its an anti-flea substance that keeps your dog safe from all kind of parasites. Perhaps cat owners use it to protect their pets as well, dunno. Explaining all of this was necessary before I introduce you with today’s optical illusion. As you see, Frontline painted this mega billboard on the floor of a major mall. This ad wouldn’t make much sense if there were no people to interact with it, but since their painting was placed on the floor of such a mass-trafficked location – the results make lot of sense. Hope you liked this one, I just had to share it with you (maybe just a poor excuse to link a photo of my dog within this text ;) Enjoy!

Oh, by the way – yesterday I managed to fix our Newsletter subscription form. Some of you emailed me over the previous weeks, asking how to subscribe to our daily newsletter (optical illusions directly sent to your mailbox each day). If you wish, now is the time to subscribe. Don’t forget to confirm your subscription in your mailbox after you have joined our mailing list! There is an envelope type of icon at the very top of our homepage.

Those pesky peop... I mean flees! How can I get rid of them?

Till Eulenspiegel Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:54:59 +0000

I had this one on my computer for couple of months, until I finally decided to share it with you. I know I’m about to be flamed, but in my mind the optical illusion present puts “decency question” in second plan. Hope I haven’t offended anyone. Anyway, what you see below is a somewhat naughty ad for a theater play. In the first plan there is an image of Till Eulenspiegel wearing a jester hat. The lady behind the board is doing something, but you can’t be really sure what, can you? The two combined show a funny result. Till Eulenspiegel was an impudent trickster figure, who originated in the German folklore and was disseminated in popular printed editions. He made his entrance in English-speaking culture in nineteenth century, but was first mentioned in English Literature by Ben Jonson in his comedy play “The Alchemist”. General opinion now tends to regard Till Eulenspiegel as an entirely imaginary figure around whose name was gathered a cycle of tales popular in the Middle Ages. You can find more of this character on Wikipedia.

Is this Till Eulenspiegel wearing a jester hat, or something entirely different?

USAF Alien in Google Earth

Vurdlak — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:37:02 +0000

By now, you probably realized I’m not the biggest fan of Google Earth illusions. Don’t get me wrong, its mostly because people who submit these satellite screenshots see illusions everywhere – even when there aren’t any. Today’s illusions was almost ditched from the same reason. I became so judgmental of these type of submissions, that I almost missed an interesting detail in this photo. Luckily, in the last second I managed to see what Frank McAree was trying to explain in his email: “Saw your site featured on the BBC click program, It is fantastic and has renewed my interest in this sort of stuff. I thought you might like this, not really an illusion but attached is a Google Earth image of the Beale Air Force base in California. I think the image on the white building is supposed to be the USAF logo, but given its area 51 connections….” Can you see the illusion? Here is another hint.

Check out the USAF logo! What do you see?

Megafon’s Folded Chessboard

Vurdlak — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:30:02 +0000

Just found this great advertisement done by one of the largest Russian mobile communication companies Megafon (which unfortunately, I never heard of). If you’ve been following our website from its very start, the photo below may look somehow familiar to you. Yes, we posted “The Terrace” optical illusion (article title: “Parallel World”) back in March 2006. But the most interesting part is that both of these are just a variation of an even older original. Let me explain this further…

Ad for Russian mobile communication company Megafon, inspired by Sandro Del-Prete

Sandro Del Prete's original "Folded Chessboard". Click to see it in full size.

Check out the thumbnail on your right. It has been cropped, but when you open it in full size, you’ll see the original artwork done by Sandro Del-Prete titled “Folded Chessboard“. This piece of art was created all the way back in 1975, and I’m still not sure how it managed to slip my attention when I posted complete opus of Sandro Del-Prete’s artwork.

"The Terrace" by David Mcdonald. Click to see it.

Anyway, “The Terrace” optical illusion we talked about earlier is JUST ONE in the sea of successful variations of Sandro Del Prete’s “Folded Chessboard”. If you browse the web, and search for Chessboard Illusions you will find dozen of examples. The Terrace was David Mcdonald’s first published illusion. It proved very popular in the last few years, and it can be found all over the web now. The most interesting part is that when compiling “The Terrace”, David took more than sixty purpose taken photographs, and used them to create this image you see on your left. I’m looking forward to hear you thoughts, and be sure to explain which of the three optical illusions posted today you find the best. Also, do you find “in depth articles” like this one I compiled today more interesting, or would you prefer more illusions per day but with less text? An idea struck my head to start posting new optical illusion every 6 hours or so, but then only few lines of text would accompany each article. Share your view on this, I beg you.

Maasai Landrover Freelander Illusion

Vurdlak — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:24:46 +0000

Few people know that Landrover Freelander has been developed after studying Maasai tribes. The photograph below represents jut a part of the ad campaign for Landrover. Am not sure if you remember one of our older posts, where some dude held a store that resembled an African face? This just came to my mind. Be sure to check both posts, and rate them accordingly! Logging of for now, but be sure I’ll return with some fresh stuff tomorrow! Looking forward speaking to you again!

Can you spot the Landrover Freelander?