Logo design and design thinking is always evolving. Sometimes a look back can be useful, either to inspire something new or in some cases remind one what not to do.
A Feb. 2009 article in Ad Age “Kraft Latest Marketer to Cheer Up Its Logo” (sorry if you don’t have Ad Age subscription, it is locked up behind their wall now) about how so many brands are refreshing their logos to be “happier” got me thinking about the constant evolution of logo design and design thinking. For your viewing pleasure, consideration and retro-y inspiration:
A collection of vintage logos from a mid-70’s…
Advertising joins the ranks of magazine, restaurant and hotel businesses turning to pay-as-you-want pricing schemes to help them survive in this crazy economy.
At Agency Nil, clients submit a work request form to the agency, which draws from a pool of recent grads and between-jobs business and advertising professionals to get the work done by deadline. Then the client decides how much the work is worth (required charges are agreed upon ahead of time).
At least from the client perspective, it’s hard to argue against crowd sourcing; those I know who have used it to procure services say the work is generally…
Video round-up of the ad world’s problems by “L. McDuff,” twisting Don McLean’s classic hit “American Pie” into “The Day The Media Died.” Hmmm. Think of what he could do with Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
Hat tip to Piers Fawkes for this, owner of one of my favorite blogs, PSFK.com. He got it from Nick Baum. (Awesome visuals over there, check it out.)
Helena Bouchez is principal of Helena B Communications, an expertise PR firm serving creative agencies. Connect via Linked In or Twitter @helenabouchez.
Great ideas are hard to come by, but as elusive as they may be the crass ones are always the best. Check out http://usa.theviralfactory.com/ work for Trojan–hilarious! UK work…of course!
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Jinean Robinson is a CCIO (Chief Creative Infections Officer) who has been in the communications industry for over 8 years, specializing in creative strategy and implementation, 360 branding communications, and brand development. Join her at http://twitter.com/germllc or her firm’s website at http://germonline.com/
For all those media doom and gloom reports about the economy and all of the woes you may be experiencing right now, there is still plenty to be done. Remember, readers, we are the keepers of our destiny and have the power to make it happen.
Peep these tips for all you creative folk out there.
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Jinean Robinson is a CCIO (Chief Creative Infections Officer) specializing in creative strategy and implementation, 360 branding communications, and brand development. Join her at http://twitter.com/germllc or her firm’s website at http://germonline.com/
Chicago – Dallas – Los Angeles – San Francisco – New York City – Seattle: These placement gurus have got some good work and clients brewing. Go get you some work and you are free to send all commission checks to me via Paypal 
Seriously, lots of great work and opportunity for freelance. Let me know how it goes!
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Jinean Robinson is a CCIO (Chief Creative Infections Officer) specializing in creative strategy and implementation, 360 branding communications, and brand development. Join her at http://twitter.com/germllc or her firm’s website at http://germonline.com/
Finally, an opportunity to write on a bus shelter without consequence. Interactive e-cast billboards have been erected by Sharpie around cities, allowing people to deface at will. Pick a Sharpie and leave your permanent mark on a bus shelter, telephone booth, or, for the brave ones, a billboard.
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Jinean Robinson is a CCIO (Chief Creative Infections Officer) who has been in the communications industry for over 8 years, specializing in creative strategy and implementation, 360 branding communications, and brand development. Join her at http://twitter.com/germllc or her firm’s website at http://germonline.com/
I have a friend who doesn’t eat anything he hasn’t had before without a huge amount of coaxing. He decides he doesn’t like things even before he’s tasted them. There are literally thousands of amazing foody experiences he’s going to miss out on because of this. It boggles my brain how he can be so phobic of food – all he needs to do it pop it in his mouth, give it a whirl, and low and behold he’d probably like it. Maybe even love it.
The same thing happens in advertising. Clients are the main culprits of this extremely frustrating trait.…
In the past few days I was able to get some time off from my ever-so-enthralling retail job to head north by about five hours and visit a college friend in the beautiful town of Der Kommissar. While the origin of this trip was indeed to visit my old college roommate Blondie, it also had the added advantage of being close to a university that provided a master’s program I was sincerely interested in attending.
Making an adventure out of my interest, Blondie and I made our way to the nearby city of Taco, at the Dead or Alive School of Spinning…
When creatives work agency side they spend quite a lot of time moaning about clients. I am no stranger to this. When I worked agency side I used to whine about them until I was blue in the face for all sorts of reasons. Mostly, I used to moan because they said idiotic things like “I don’t like the colour of that background” or “I don’t like the model in that photo” when initial scamps were being presented. I always found this trait of the client quite moronic.
I used to moan about other things too. Like when clients would…
A while back, when I was still a college student, I had the amazing opportunity to partake in an independent study with a leading advertising firm. There, I experimented (like you do in college) and was given Nabisco as a faux client to help develop my portfolio. Now, I’m not meaning to toot my own horn over this, but I feel I did a pretty bang up job on these billboard ads.
The concept was simple: “Nabisco Cookies are a treat, a reward that parents give to their children for being themselves, for being kids.
All was right with the world until…
Ever wonder, “what does it really take to develop great ideas?” I mean the big ones. The juicy, sloppy, wet ones that drench the culture and live soaked in society for decades. Well, there is a great Cannes Selection film, “Art & Copy,” that does just that. Or, shall I say instead of wondering, the filmmakers decided to Just Do It!
Check out a screening in your area: http://www.artandcopyfilm.com/screenings/
While in Atlanta, I’m gonna go to the screening on Wednesday, April 22nd as part of the Atlanta Film Festival. Tune in Thursday for my review–like you care what I think–but I’ll let you…
Don’t you just love a photographer that can show a portfolio with many sides? Don’t cha wish you could curl up with one? Allow their depth of focus to take your design to a whole other level? Don’t cha wish your photographer was hot like this guy…don’tcha (sorry couldn’t resist)! From still to portrait to fashion this dude is GOOD!!! With clients changing things at the last minute down to the camera click it’s good to know that someone out there can handle it. Harold Daniels is one of my back pocket goodies that I’m itchin’ to use.
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Jinean Robinson is a CCIO…
With the economy continuing in its downward spiral, last week’s start of baseball season saw the owner of Major League Baseball’s Detroit Tigers announce that prime signage locations that the automotive companies occupy at Comerica Park would be allowed to keep their billboards spots at NO CHARGE! Why? Mike Ilitch wanted to do something to help the Big Three and subsequently the city of Detroit.
Hello 12 Point Type readers! I’m a new writer to this blog and I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with an eloquent and compelling first post on par with my fellow bloggers here that would convince you to subscribe so fast you’d chalk it up to an outer-body experience. Unfortunately, my aspirations fail me. Instead, I offer this:
Now I know a good deal when I see one, but I think it’s safe to assume copy-writing just isn’t for everyone;
even if you do it for a living.
A little something to keep in mind when writing is content and…
Ok. Gonna tell you a little secret….
I know we can get caught in our rut of, “how much bigger do I have to make this logo,” “must EVERYTHING have to be sketched, comped, and spelled out to buy off on just the concept?,” or “do I have to work with the brand marketing all-star team from the 60’s?”
But on my way to meetings yesterday, I got a quick reminder of how lucky we are. I was riding on the interstate and saw a car on the freeway hit the guard rail only to be thrown into oncoming traffic. This reminded…
On Monday, April 13, one of the towering figures in broadcasting and commercial voice over, Harry Kalas died at age 73, prior to the Philadelphia Phillies – Washington Nationals baseball game. Kalas collapsed in the broadcast booth two hours before the game.
Kalas had been the voice of the Phillies since 1971 and was one of the most recognizable voice talents in the sports broadcasting industry for the past five decades. Before coming to the Phillies, he was the broadcaster for the Houston Astros from 1965 to 1970. In 2002, Kalas was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and received…
Working as a creative means that you’re bound to come up with ideas that have been done before. It’s happened to me countless times; displaying a scribbly scamp to a creative director, complete with captioned arrows pointing to my rubbish drawings and puffing my chest out like a scabby city centre pigeon, only to be shot down in ratty, pigeony flames after being reminded that the same idea ran four years ago.
It’s annoying but it tends to happen. The term “back to the drawing board” has never been so true when it comes to creative solutions. But it’s part…
Ahh, now I know where awards are and the money to pay for entering can be found.
To those of you who dream of seeing your name grace the gold pencil, running in meadows with gold lions, or at least getting in the table of contents of design award annuals: get ready to pay up. I have been amazed at the fees participants must pay for entering design shows. Ok, ok, maybe I can understand the big bucks for Cannes, One Show, even CA, but all types of “award shows” are now asking for exorbitant amounts for just one entry in…
“After its package redesign, sales of the Tropicana Pure Premium line plummeted 20% between Jan. 1 and Feb. 22, costing the brand tens of millions of dollars. On Feb. 23, the company announced it would bow to consumer demand and scrap the new packaging, designed by Peter Arnell. It had been on the market less than two months.”
Sarah and Mason go out west to shoot a Dove commercial and Mason wants to use the opportunity to work the client’s brand manager for more work. Mason has been teaming up with Sarah now that he and Conner are on a creative time out. Conner soon finds out the extent of Mason’s loyalty to him. But things go awry as Sarah clashes with the insufferable director while Robin from Dove is on set. Never good!
Ok, ok…how many of you guys out there feel my pain.
“Jazz it up, add great graphics and make it snappy!”
This was literally copy and pasted verbatim from an email I once received from a client. Teaching clients the value of what we do is getting old and I refused to forward this to my creative teams because I value them waaaaay more than jazzy, great-n-graphicy, and snappy (sounds like the 8th, 9th, and 10th dwarf). So, glad I didn’t here my all time favorite, “make it pop.”
So I open the floor to two questions:
1) Why, oh why, do strategic communication…
This ad require no help whatsoever…. Brings a whole new meaning to fashion victim.
Joel Kirstein is a Creative Director who has been in the ad agency trenches for 25 years, specializing in shopper marketing, branding, and retail. Contact him on Linked In and www.coroflot.com/joelkirstein
Some WWF ads that do a great job reiterating a very important cause. Global warming and the severe impact on animals! http://www.worldwildlife.org/home.html?sc=AWY0900WCG00&searchen=google&gclid=CLzll-7b2pkCFQu-GgodoUOvXA
Joel Kirstein is a Creative Director who has been in the ad agency trenches for 25 years, specializing in shopper marketing, branding, and retail. Contact him on Linked In and www.coroflot.com/joelkirstein
I love billboards. The sheer magnitude of their size always invigorated me. The challenges. The possibilities. These are some examples of the best that’s out there, coming to a field of vision near you. http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2009/01/05/clever-and-creative-billboard-advertising/ 
Joel Kirstein is a Creative Director who has been in the ad agency trenches for 25, specializing in shopper marketing, branding, and retail. Contact him on Linked In and www.coroflot.com/joelkirstein
One of the oldest forms of OUT-OF-HOME advertising is the public bench. Here are some top shelf examples: http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2008/12/04/clever-and-creative-bench-advertisements/
Joel Kirstein is a Creative Director who has been in the ad agency trenches for 25, specializing in shopper marketing, branding, and retail. Contact him on Linked In and www.coroflot.com/joelkirstein
It never fails to amaze me how we spend so much time, money and effort looking for answers and then so little time listening or learning from them.
A great example of this are focus groups. A staple of advertising and marketing insights and behavior. I have never stopped learning from consumer insights.
It’s the venue that is used to extract value that I am calling out here…
Focus groups really work my last nerve because the setting is not congruent with the shopping experience. I put a lot of stock into surveying shoppers in the aisles at retail, the point of impact…
So, what is the answer?
In a world of competing designers where everyone with Arial and a Sharpie are now the next Paula Scher, how do you compete for work? Is spec the answer?
Well, as lines have been drawn, there are two sides to the work-for-free war and boy oh boy are the jump drives flying.
One side believes that designers must take a united stand to not give free labor and belittle our purpose and industry. The other side says that in this overcrowded, over-saturated, and any other “over” word you can think of, it is just part of the evolving world…
Hey kids! It’s time for another installment of “Does That Really Happen In Advertising, Joel?” The answer is yes. I know, I know, you haven’t even asked a question yet. That’s OK, this is advertising, so the answer is always YES. Even if it hasn’t happened yet, the answer is still YES. As in, Yes, it will happen, just stick around long enough and reality will make fiction look like a dull, faded mirror. www.tnt.tv/series/trustme/episodeguide
It’s evaluation time at RGM and Mason takes a break in the taping of a radio spot to inform Conner that as his superior, he has to…
Joel 
