COOL BRANDS

Portfolio of Britain's coolest brands.

JORDANS NEW MAKEOVER

The entire range of Jordan's muesli cereal has recently been completely redesigned and launched in the supermarkets. The rest of the Jordan collection will be redesigned this year. The new packaging has a much more modern appeal, the logo has also been simplified to give a more modern touch. The aim of the new branding is to "focus on taste and present a 'unified identity' following an expansion to the range". Heres the old packaging, so you can see that significant improvements have been made.

BARCLAYCARD NEW IDENT

The new logo is meant to project a global and modern image. The new ident will appear in different colours, but it is going to take at least 12 months to phase the old one out.
I think this ident looks much more confident and professional for a bank than the previous.

VITAMIN WATER.

Since being back in the UK I've noticed that vitamin water is slowly beginning to appear on the shelves of cafes and shops. This was a huge product in Australia, and the copywriting on the bottles entertained me immediately. The Glaceau products are designed to address people who are aware of the importance of their health, supported by their slogan "hydrate responsibly". There is a great sense of humour behind the copywriting which is perfect for the young audience that the vibrant packaging is aimed at. The names add to the appeal too, instead of boring flavour names "blackcurrant", each flavour has been given an imaginative name to enhance the personality of that flavour and support the copy.

The look of the product is simple and distinct, making the product not only look good on the shelf but stand out from its competition along side it. The website also promotes the products in a great way, each flavour again has a distinct look (colour) and an animated illustration similar to the "coke side of life" imagery I have blogged previously.

There is plenty of information, and the same amount of humour and good writing packed into each page. The UKs page is slightly different but the same tone of voice is used, and in my opinion is just as sucessful and witty. The whole campaign lends itself to creating a personality for each flavour making for a successful and fun piece of branding.

FLICKR RELATED TAG BROWSER

Flickr Related Tag Browser lets you surf Flickr's tag space. Like the labels on our blogs, the tags are the keywords used to describe an entry. This allows you to search keywords, and words related to your initial search. Easy to use and nicely designed layout. 

THINK NOW, DESIGN LATER

I bought this book last weekend, written by Pete Barry who worked at Ogilvy in London on advertising concepts- an area Im looking into for dissertation. Its a great book, "structured to provide a complete course on advertising and a quick reference on particular topics, the book covers every aspect of the business, from how to write copy and choose a typeface to how agencies work, to the different strategies used for print, TV, film, and interactive media". A great feature of the book is Barry's sketches of some of the best adverts of all time, in an attempt to recreate big ads and show how important the concept is to the final outcome. He states that "without  a great concept you have nothing but mutton dressed as lamb". The books core lesson is that a great idea will last forever. 

THE FACE OF DEFEAT

Here are some images from, Photographer Sandy Nicholson's latest book, 2nd.

Sandy decided to photograph the 'losers' from a range of contests and competitions rather than focusing on the glory of the winner, he took a closer look into getting 2nd place. Through the series of photographs one can see how important coming first is to people, the look of disbelief and 'if only' makes the viewer relate to how it feels being second best, not the best. Each of his subjects were photographed just after hearing the results or standing down from the '2' podium so you really get a sense of reality and disappointment. An interesting collection of work to look at.

MIGRATION

Migration is part of an exhibition that has taken place in two Capital cities over the past two months. In August, London based illustrator, Hellovan installed his drawings of abstracted birds outside of the Truman Brewery, Brick Lane in London. The flock of abstracted birds will then be moved to New York and installed on a billboard outside of the Espeis Gallery, leaving the impression that has work has literally migrated.

DESIGNER TRAINERS

Design Agency accept and proceed have designed illustrations for Nike. "Seduced by innovation" and "Recognise the original" were the concepts chosen by Nike. These designs will be used on the trainers, point of sale, and other marketing and promotional items.

GNARLS BARKLEY

The Gnarls Barkley site has had a make over by design agency Rokkan. They used saturated colours and quirky animations throughout to reflect the band's identity.

DIANE ARBUS

American photographer Arbus (1923-1971) was known for her portraits of people on the fringes of society. Her work is very raw, and sometimes quite controversial. She spoke of her work and said, "I really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them”. Alot of her work was focussed on transvestites, dwarfs, giants and prostitutes- showing an insight to the outcasts of society. Even her work with the working class "ordinary" people was posed and shot in unconventional places to capture an honest yet obscureness about them. She was captivated by all kinds of people.
As Arbus' work began to develop, a distinctive style became apparent. A big feature in most of Arbus' work was for the subject to be starring into the camera. Susan Sontang, who Arbus once photographed said "Arbus' brilliance was to catch everybody unmasked, at the moment of transition between unconscious repose and practiced, social self-representation. People seemed to reveal, in that moment, their essential being, which was alienated and miserable".
At the age of 48, Arbus committed suicide. A year later, MOMA held a retrospective of her work. It was the most popular solo photography exhibition in its history, and the monograph that followed, one of the best-selling art books in history.

HARD ROCK

HP CREATIVE

HP give you some ideas of how to "Put your Old Printer to Better Use" to promote their trade it in facility when you buy one of their new printers.

NEED A COFFEE?

Some nice playful ads for McDonald's Coffee.

ANDRE JORDAN

Andre Jordan's funny postcards, doodles and stories are all on his website.

HALO

Lancashire's answer to the Angel of the North. This structure is part of a unique scheme to install public artworks at key gateways across the North to enhance the image of the region, improve its quality of place and increase tourism and economic growth. Designed by John Kennedy of LandLab, 'Halo' is an 18m-diameter steel lattice structure supported on a tripod five metres above the ground, which sits at the top of the Rossendale Valley.
Carolyn Wilkins, Chief Executive of Rossendale Council said that "This is a genuinely eye-catching and innovative piece of landmark sculpture which will become a unique visitor attraction for Rossendale. Moreover, as part of the overall project, we reclaimed a former landfill site and created a very pleasant recreational amenity for local people and visitors to explore."
The huge sculpture which sits at the top of Haslingden in Rossendale is shaped like a UFO, as the area is a 'hotspot' for sightings. It has cleverly been designed so that when people drive into the Valley from the South it looks as though the halo (UFO) is actually hovering over the hills. By night its illuminated which makes for an effective impact.

PUMA

This is an older campaign from Puma, but I thought it was a good example of how good photography, crisp presentation and excellent execution can make a particularly engaging piece of work out of an idea which does not appear to be overly strong. It shows that sometimes it is not all about the idea, but what you do with it is just as, if not more important for it to be successful. "New Stuff" is an immaculate campaign by Puma.

"New Stuff" Print








"New Stuff" Ads

A BAD EGG

Nulaid, a South African egg company teamed up with South African agency,The Jupiter Drawing Room, to produce this series of adverts which clearly aim to convince people that the have the ability to spot and prevent bad eggs going into circulation for sale. They only produce 'good eggs'!
They have used notorious characters to represent the 'bad eggs' giving the adverts a humorous style although some have argued that using this type of imagery is becoming abit repetitive in advertising at the moment, I still think it helps this advert communicate well.

HELLOVON TYPOGRAPHY

BECKS CANVAS

In association with the Royal College of Art, Beck's Canvas places emerging contemporary artists in your hands. These bottles feature one of a series of four artworks, created by: Charlotte Bracegirdle, Simon Cunningham, Ritta Ikonen and Tom Price. This is a limited edition label and it is the first time the iconic green bottle’s original label has actually been replaced in mass-production since 1952 to give these emerging artists a chance to reach a wide audience.
Find out more on this and Beck's arts projects here.

GIANT SPIDER ATTACKS LIVERPOOL

Ive just been watching the lunchtime news and found that a giant spider has hit Liverpool! Madness! The mechanical spider is in Liverpool this week as part of a street theatre project, and is central to Liverpool's European Capital of Culture programme.


Going by the name of 'La Princess', the beast is spreading its way around the city after appearing during Sunday night to shock the commuters at Liverpool Lime Street on Monday morning. The massive monster is Liverpool's first glimpse of the La Machine exhibition, being held in the city this weekend. The spider weighs 37 tonnes and stands 50 feet high and will appear at different locations around the city and will be manually operated to walk through the streets of Liverpool over the next few days. The spider is made out of steel and poplar wood and will be operated by 12 people strapped to its frame in order to make it move when it comes "alive" on Friday.

Such an original way of informing people and creating interest. Brilliantly ambitious! I look forward to seeing what else the project will reveal at the weekend, rumour has it there is going to be a "spectacular finish" on Sunday.

The people behind the innovative project are the same people that caused a stir in London in 2006 with Sultan's Elephant where an estimated 1 million people went to watch the elephant move around the city.

To see more visit La Machine

DESIGNBOOM: LOVE YOUR EARTH

Savio Alphonso designed an entire campaign when developing ideas for the competition, symbols and applications which you can see on designbooms website. He submitted the first image, "embrace solar power" which was the winning symbol for DesignBooms "Love your Earth" competition.
Talkng about his work Savio says "no individual is capable of changing the world alone;however, it is possible for each of us to facilitate change in a small way. as a graphic
designer,I have responded to these issues by creating a series of universal pictographic symbols to raise consciousness about the social and environmental issues facing our global community. amidst the complexity of our accelerated lives, these simplified visual interpretations act as concise abbreviations promoting awareness. the symbols, designed to mimic logomarks for corporations, subvert the persuasive methods used in branding and advertising.they reach out to the viewer in a clear language more conducive to acceptance and believability."
This project was part of a University Exhibition in California where he studies, you can see more of his work on his website.
The pictograms Savio has created have a very simple aesthetic about them which is appealing. I can see these being successful if they were used to create awareness. As a student its good to see what other people out there in the same field are creating and how successful they are being.