BackThis Creative Director’s Clever ‘Combophotos’ Are Awesomely Off-Kilter
“Combophotos” is a project featuring clever pairs of pictures spliced into single images, playing with scale—and often food—in delightful ways. It’s the brainchild of Stephen McMennamy, a BBDO Atlanta creative director behind work like AT&T’s riffing kidscampaign and new Milana Vayntrub work.
It’s worth spinning through one of his pages—there’s an Instagram and a Squarespace, but theTumblr‘s linear layout is probably most enjoyable, allowing for more focus on each image.
Some of the compositions are just visually curious and charming—like a turtle with a vintage bike helmet for a shell, or an albatross with a plane’s tail. Others are witty, like a boxing glove/tomato (imagine how that story ends), or laugh out loud funny—like an apricot that stands in for a man’s ass (by no means a new joke, but exceptionally executed, and perhaps a bonus for industry insiders, shot in Cannes … which is apparently not like Las Vegas).
There’s even a little borderline social commentary, like a cigarette topped smoke stack (though the caption demurs “not trying to stir up any trouble. Just combining some photos”).
They’re all the more notable for the fact that McMennamy actually shoots them, rather than using stock—and that the cuts are obvious (Some of the commentary over at Reddit captures why that’s nice.)
In fact, the only real, small complaint might be that, at least among certain small populations, the “Combophotos” name itself might evoke panic at the thought of an ad campaign for pepperoni pizza pretzel snacks.
And if you’re wondering whether someone has already productized donut headphones, the answer is, of course, yes.
