BLADE brings together the world’s first exclusive collection of advertising masterworks in a massive 450 page, full colour publication. Our eclectic survey of cutting edge communications gathers the wit and wisdom of the worlds leading creatives. Only the most compelling copy, captivating designs and dynamic brand identities are showcased in a publication that shifts the way we look at advertising.

Page through a portion of it and find out more at The Blade on Pocko Editions or view its external microsite.

Dear Thank You Yours Sincerely
This book is a collection of 77 letters received by the artist in reply to his incessant applications over a period of three years. From these most prosaic documents a kind of bittersweet poetry emerges, a sustained and repetitive meditation on the politics and the poetics of rejection. Author: Atsuhide Ito

Dear Reader,
Thank you for your interest in buying this book. However we regret to inform you that despite your impressive credentials, competition in this field is extremely fierce and unfortunately we are unable to grant your request at this time. Best of luck in the future.
Yours Sincerely,
Pocko

Yamanote
Iñigo Asis’s photographs, taken on Tokyo’s circle line, exploit the sense of ‘curtains opening’, when the unsuspecting passengers momentarily confront the waiting photographer.

Standing in front of the camera has never been so annoying. But the point is that from this uncomfortable situation the most fascinating facial expressions emerge: hidden details of the contained anger created by the impotence to do anything about it. Author: Inigo Asis

Powersmile
Privately collected by two German teenagers in the 70’s, the press-photos of US Senators and Governors in ‘Power-Smile’ are a miniature archive of a period when media-friendliness became the establishment’s key survival strategy, evidence of the then-emerging reality that a good PR shot is worth a thousands votes.

Clean as my teeth, straight as my tie. Here in all their greasy glory are the power-hungry political chameleons of Nixon’s America, flossing for office and combing for Capitol Hill.  What do you see in the mesmerised stare? Learned or lobotomised? Groomed or doomed? Author: Adam Lowe

Tablehead
‘Tablehead’ is a kind of travelogue, a document on the appearance of ‘players’ in six different countries, and the pictures themselves are replete with subliminal signifiers of national difference.

They play without pay. Table footballers are four-inch ‘time capsules’. Bruised and abused by their obligitory vocation, some lose their heads, others bear their scars with pride. Every face a story soaked in personal pain and glory. Author: Nicola Shwartz

He said, She said
These unassuming snippets of typed dialogue and ultra-naïve felt-pen drawings of stylish young people, set against a background of lined school notepaper, presents us with a catalogue of poignant, and often hilarious, vignettes.

“I love you.” he said.
“How do I know that?” she said.
“You don’t.” he said.

Prodding for reassurance, these felt-tip creatures explore the deception behind romantic cliches. Emotions wrapped in words confuse the truth. It’s not that we don’t mean what we say, it’s that we don’t know what we mean. Author: Daisy de Villeneuve.

I Am Me
In the hyper-reality of popular Japanese culture nothing is ever as it seems. Every month thousands of the young Japanese girls that read teen magazine Nicola send in illustrated postcards to Yonehara, the editor. On blank cards the girls draw Manga style personifications of themselves.

What goes on in the mind of a teenage hormone-bomb?  Slip under the skin of one of the world’s most impenetrable societies, below the apparent sweetness and feel the wakening heart beneath. Author: Yasumasa Yonehara.

Out of Science
In Hiro’s world rational scientific order has completely collapsed – it’s almost as if the Enlightenment had never happened! Through a series of related images Hiro describes a world that is surreal, amusing and threatening by turns. His richly coloured, expressionist paintings are populated by a host of characters.

Is science the dominant religion?  We place our lives in the hands of doctors, we trust science to play with natural order.  Where will this worship take us? Where are we now? Strap on your safety belt and prepare to launch…out of science. Author: Hiro Sugiyama

U EL EL UL EL TE KA is the remarkable record of a series of co-operations between the Ukrainian military and a host of respected Ukrainian artists.

The USSR-the world’s last great empire was held together by the fear of the Red ARmy. Now, a group of Ukrainian artists and their former oppressors engage in a once unthinkable collaboration.  As fashion blends with the crumbling symbols of military power, the old order fumbles down an unchartered trail. Author: Marta Kuzma

M.I.A.
Images and icons of revolution and resistance litter our visual environment. Torn from their original context they are put to work for their own ends by agents of our culture industry.

From a long-forgotten region of endemic conflict comes a project to challenge your ethical core. The art of warfare is sprawled across these pages transforming bloodshed into beauty and raising the phoenix of forbidden expression. Author: Maya Arulpragasam

Quattro Stagioni
Beware the darkness! This 24 page postcard book is the chilling visual record of the effect of the endless Finnish winter on Haapaniemi’s psyche.

Shrouded in winter for most of the year, Finland’s seasons are mostly left to the imagination. Fantasy creatures and visionary landscapes merge to create a whole new calendar. Author: Klaus Haapaniemi