I’ve written a few times about corn field mazes which can be seen using Google Maps – enter the newest “skyvertisement” promoting Whole Foods at P Bar Farms:
The Whole Foods corn field maze advertisement
It’s not the first time “crop art” or corn field maze designs have been used to promote a company. (more…)
Google Israel has a logo for celebrating Tu Bishvat. Barry Schwartz explains that the Tu Bishvat (פרוייקט ההר הירוק) holiday is known as the “New Year of the Trees”, and to observe it many people will plant new trees or donate trees in Israel. (The associated Google search for the logo goes to “Green Mountain Project” which is an online photo album allowing people to share past photos of Carmel, which suffered a fire that ruined the trees there.)
What’s particularly interesting to me is that this special logo is based on earth art which is accomplished by people planting crops and arranging earthworks to depict pictures or words:
I’ve written about crop art and earth art a number of times before, and you can also see a number of examples, as viewed through Google Maps via my past article on Search Engine Land: 20 Awesome Images Found In Google Maps.
I’m just wondering if the artist that made this Google “Doodle” logo is familiar with earth art or crop art, or whether this was just coincidental use of the earth art motif. (more…)
Captain Phil Harris in the Rutledge Corn Maze
The cool “mapvertising” concept of a corn maze is now being applied to memorializing the Deadliest Catch Captain Phil Harris, who died earlier this year. The Rutledge Corn Maze in Tumwater, Washington, has declared that their theme this year will Captain Harris, and the aerial photos show that the maze has been shaped as a sort of portrait of him, and includes the name of his crab boat, the “Cornelia Marie”.
I’ve written previously about cornfield mazes and how some companies are using them for advertising. While it’s not unusual for companies to also memorialize people, I think this is probably the first time a corn field maze has simultaneously been a memorial remembrance. (more…)
Pongsocket has some fantastic satellite maps picked out as “Earth Art” from Google. Ex:
Each of the aerial/satellite pictures highlights some extraordinary terrain or landscape coloration and patterns. The pictures have a wonderfully expressionistic feel to them and are well worth browsing.
However, these selections are not truly “Earth Art”, which is a name that refers to manmade constructions which fit into the natural environment in some way, rather like the works of Christo and Robert Smithson.
I’ve collected quite a bit of Earth Art examples for articles about Google Maps for a while now. Here’s Smithson’s famous “Spiral Jetty”:
Pongsocket’s examples are some really good samples of beautiful satellite or aerial photography. But, for it to be “art”, it requires human intervention of some sort – some level of intention.
President of Argent Media SEO Company, Dallas, TX, Technologist, Artist & Commentator.
