Level Orange

When looking for work late last year, I recently got in touch with a former employer of mine, Bob Lamons, and we discussed building out a site for his new B2B marketing venture, Industribrand (as in “industry brand”). Now, I’d worked for Bob for nearly six years at his ad agency, Robert Lamons & Associates and when that operation closed its doors, I moved on to publishing for several years. Still, I jumped at the chance to both rebuild a working relationship with Bob as well as flex some more of my skills in web design. As I’m sure often happens in the design industry, I was once again working for a former employer, albeit in a slightly different capacity.

Back in 1998 or so, I’d built the RL&A site (ads2biz.com) entirely by hand, one page at a time. Eventually, I retooled the site using one of the early versions of Movable Type mostly out of a need to make adding and editing content a breeze. Similarly, the Industribrand site would need to be just as easy to use, while still being powerful and flexible. Enter WordPress.

(more…)

Design firm Turner Duckworth announced today that its work on the packaging for the latest Metallica album “Death Magnetic” has been nominated for a Grammy award. Yes, a Grammy. For packaging. Turner Duckworth, known for its work with Coca-Cola and Motorola, made some unconventional design choices in the face of traditional music packaging, including the ambiguous/not-so-ambiguous cover image and a rather intrusive die-cut that pays no mind to photos or text in the liner notes.  

I’m not sure what’s more surprising for me; the fact that Metallica is still bothering to put out music or that they turned to a design firm to build and market their “brand” or that there’s even a Grammy award for packaging design. Anyone recall who won last year or the year before that?

“Barack Obama has won a much deserved and long-fought campaign. Everyone will be talking for weeks about the reason why — political trends, economic slumps, Sarah Palin, etc., but I think we all need to realise that Obama has successfully run the first truly 21st century campaign, and thereby the first branded campaign. That is the principal reason for his victory.” LINK

It’s not often that I find something in my local supermarket that really makes me do a double take. Since I’m the one who usually does the grocery shopping in my family, I use that time to exercise my designer’s eye and observe all the different types of packaging and consumer-focused design that’s out there.

Unfortunately, I live in a typical suburban area where stores usually carry only regular name brands or dull generic brands on their shelves. Not the most interesting design by any means, but as I was making my way down one of the aisles of my local store recently, I saw something I’d never seen there before—Everybody’s Nuts!

(more…)

One of the biggest challenges of starting any new enterprise revolves around the most basic and essential factor of business–the name of your company. It requires you to know your own ideas and goals, as well as your target audience and customer, far ahead of time.

It can be tricky in the beginning, because not only do you have to take into account everything that you want to accomplish with your company, but you also factor in how people might possibly react to your brand, and maybe more importantly, how you’ll be able to process said reactions. If you present your brand and aren’t solid on what it is or what it means, you’re going to have a hard time defending it or having to explain it on a regular basis, so it’s best to choose something that you believe in and can stand behind.

(more…)