Design trends come and go, but there is — and never will be — a substitute for grounding identity design in a singular idea. All unique, proprietary and enduring visual identity systems ignore easy bland professionalism to transform the ineffable into visually arresting design.
Despite the recent popularity of the “dad bod,” every hot new trend officially ends when dad, mom, Uncle Joe, the grandparents and the dorky neighbors down the street join the fun. Just ask Facebook. With “design thinking,” however, practically anyone with a sticky business conundrum now waxes rhapsodic on the method’s purported magical properties to overcome every operational challenge. Even […]
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Our last post on the fuzzy math of social media got us thinking of . . . the 3Rs, back to school, and more precisely, back to school performance! In the race to ever greater achievement, never have a circle, two dots and a line struck as much trepidation in students and concomitant delight in ambitious parents than the "<a title="Kumon Logo Explanation" href="http://www.kumongr
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Ever the conscientious consumers (or guilt-ridden bourgeois souls), we couldn't help but choose these when shopping for free range eggs recently: Shockingly bad corporate wordmark aside,
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Another dispatch from our man on the Continent, this time probing deeply into...refuse bins? Two things caught our eye about this recycling container: <img class="alignleft" title="ENFO Brochure
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The usually illuminating Tony Spaeth has let our industry down big time. In his review of Starbucks' new logo, Spaeth repeatedly refers (and quotes Starbucks Chief Design Officer Steve Barrett referring) to the move as a 'rebranding'.
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Welcome back loyal readers. We hope you all sent 2010 out with a bang, and enjoyed a restful and restorative start to the new year. Now let's get to it, shall we? We recently saw these nicely designed pieces on climate change and it got us to thinking - will 2011 be the year it's finally possible to look 'green' without using green?
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Yesterday Sir Richard Branson announced the launch of Virgin's new magazine Project, available only on the iPad. We think that giving it an independent brand is an instructive decision for business leaders grappling with the brand architecture issues surrounding the launch of any new product or service.
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Our man in Ireland brings back this report in our intermittent series on poor choices in typography. In a nod to the Thanksgiving holiday and an effort to dull the sting of the government's latest austerity plan, he stepped into one of his wee locals, The Old Reliable – a pub so authentic that it still smells like a roomful of lit cigarettes, nearly seven years after the last one was sm
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The past few weeks have seen a firestorm of controversy surrounding the planned rebranding of Irish energy suppliers ESB and Bord Gáis, the government-established incumbents providing electricity and natural gas to the Republic.
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Our man in Europe sends this report (the first of many, we hope): at least one EU concern appears (claims?) to get the link between branding and organizational development. Take a look at this out-of-home ad for eMobile, Ireland's newest mobile provider:
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