As with all designers I have a soft spot for info-graphics, something that pares down a topic to the salient points and presents them with great visuals to better explain what could be a comlicated topic. So naturally I love this beauty by Linda Dong. She explains the issues with Fracking, a very poignant topic in Australia at the moment, in such a simple and economic style, it’s beautiful. Read the rest of this entry »
Deck the Halls with Branded Beach Towels
Australian newspaper ‘The Age’ recently published an article on Corporate Gift Giving in their Executive Style lift-out in time for Christmas. For most companies, this gesture of Christmas giving for staff and for clients tends to follow an age-old path of logos on golf towels. As an expensive exercise, the opportunity to create indelible brand gestures at this time of year is often missed. The Age asked Truly Deeply Founder David Ansett for his perspective on this seasonal sticky question.
You can check the article written by Sylvia Pennington on-line here: Merry Christmas here’s an iPad.
A Tantalizing Brand Challenge
Melbourne is one of the great food cities of the world. Big statement I know – but having traveled through more than two dozen cities in different countries, through Europe and Asia over the last couple of years, I feel I’m well positioned to make the call. What a challenge then to create a brand each year for the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival.
Leveraging the Brand Magic of Art.
For many brands, especially those who are business to consumer/customer brands, the great challenge is to creatively engage with your audience.
Retail Branding in Living Colour
McDonald’s in the US is set to launch an in-store TV channel featuring; local school sports, movie previews and heartwarming human interest stories
Street art of Continental Europe.
On my recent trip to Europe the rich quality and diversity of the street art caught my eye. In my mind there’s no doubt that stencil, spray and paste-up art has matured to become it’s own credible art form. The visual language of the art I saw was hugely varied in form, style and message. I snapped a stack of what I came across and hope you enjoy it.
A Beautifully Executed Re-branding Project.
We were engaged with Jean Hailes to conduct a full brand re-design, starting with the strategic framework and outputting all brand identity collateral. In a little under two decades Jean Hailes has developed a significant standing in the women’s health sector. But it also understands that it needs to continue to proactively develop the direction of the Jean Hailes brand. A direction that would further solidify Jean Hailes as the authority in women’s health to deliver cutting edge research and medical services for their clients. The result – a beautifully designed re-brand for this not-for profit in women’s health.
The Litmus group is a market leading niche international management consulting company who needed to rephrase their brand to better fit their highly differentiated approach business proposition.
The famous and annoying catch cry, “down, down” and the big red finger might actually carry far greater symbolism for Coles and their reputation than they realise. As the brand becomes more elastic and focuses on ‘stretch, stretch how far can we stretch’, could this strategy actually bring the brand down or is Coles setting a new benchmark for Australian brands?
Companies are always seeking new ways to grow and expand but when brands start to develop a bigger range of products, there is a danger of stretching the brand too far. Extensions can have a knock on effect that confuses the brand’s identity, its customers and can potentially leave the brand open to attack from more focussed competitors.
IKEA reminds us to not forget the Brand Communication in our Brands.
Last year we featured a post on IKEA’s brand communication, and here the Swedish mass-design furniture and home-wares brand are popping up again. As a global brand, IKEA is well known for the budget priced, low-mid quality Swedish inspired, practical and functional furniture they design and sell. The interesting additional element to their successful brand strategy is design. IKEA have accomplished the not insignificant task of lifting the design bar for the average Joe (and Jodie). The secret ingredient to the IKEA brand DNA is their ability to bring an impressively high level of Swedish furniture design to the masses. So what better way to communicate that brand attribute than through delivering creatively designed brand communications along with it.
