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 Tuesday, April 29, 2008
What When Where And Y
I hope I'm not late to the game, but I just noticed this cool nutrition drink for kids called Y Water. The bottle was designed by Yves Behar and they're not only recyclable, they're reusable. The bottles link together with biodegradable rubber connectors to form a building toy.   Posted by Megan
Designers
4/29/2008 12:53:04 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) 
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Friday, April 25, 2008
They (don't really) Suck at Photoshop
Awhile back, we jumped on the bandwagon and posted about You Suck at Photoshop, the videonline phenom that seems to have reached beyond its core designer-geek audience to go mainstream. (At least, we think we posted about it ... we can't find the post, thanks to the not-so-great search function on this blog). Anyhoo, Time yesterday revealed the IDs of the two guys behind YSAP. Turns out, they're Matt Bledsoe and Troy Hitch, two ad guys in Covington, KY, which, so you know, is just across the river from us here at HOW HQ. Who knew?
Designers
4/25/2008 1:06:20 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, April 21, 2008
Jason Santa Maria
I included designer Jason Santa Maria's business card in my story " Hey Good Lookin'" in HOW's December 2007 issue. Today, eight of his cards are arranged on Swissmiss in a way I didn't realize they could be. I loved the cards because of the humorous copywriting. I like them even more now.  Posted by Megan
Designers
4/21/2008 1:44:29 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, April 17, 2008
Most Unusual
This morning, I'm offering an unofficial award for most unusual entry. The winner is Lincoln, NE-based the minnow PROJECT for their Heat Activated Urinal Billboards for Spilker Ales. The "billboards" are stickered inside urinals. At first, it looks like there's a big black square in the middle. But add a warm stream, and a fire hydrant is revealed. 
Posted by Megan
Designers | HOW Magazine
4/17/2008 8:42:09 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, March 28, 2008
Anniversary Self-Promotion
To celebrate its 8th year in business, Maryland-based design firm Octavo Designs created a self-promo mailer with fun temporary tattoos. We gets lots of promotions from designers at HOW. This one caught my attention because it was simple and showed a sense of humor.  Posted by Megan
Designers
3/28/2008 8:58:59 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Hatchy Easter
Design firm Hatch just sent a super fun Easter self-promo in the form of an egg-coloring kit. The kit includes a white crayon for creating resists, dye tablets, stickers and cardboard egg holders. The box itself is perforated with egg-sized holes to use as a drying rack. We haven't seen any other Easter promos, so this one stands out even more. Hatch also created a website where you can upload decorated eggs to be voted on.    Posted by Megan
Designers
3/19/2008 11:32:47 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, February 29, 2008
Life In NYC
Henry Sene Yee, whose day job is designing gorgeous book covers, has a photoblog that captures the essence of being in New York City.     Posted by Megan
Designers
2/29/2008 8:12:30 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Thursday, February 28, 2008
The Fall
Amazing designer and friend of HOW Stefan Bucher just sent over the trailer for a new movie called " The Fall." Stefan created the titles for the trailer, including the exquisite "Fall" logo, based on previous work he did for a book promoting the film. "The Fall" is directed by Tarsem Singh, the man behind 2000's gorgeous " The Cell," but he's probably most famous for his work on R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" video. After watching the trailer, I can't wait to see this movie, which is supposed to open in the U.S. this spring.  Posted by Megan
Designers
2/28/2008 8:09:13 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Mmmm, Lettering
Poking around on Flickr last night, I came across some playful lettering by designer Jon Contino, which made me want to know more. It turns out he has a blog as well as a site for his design studio Onetwentysix, so you can see work from early sketches through finals.  Posted by Megan
Designers | Typography
2/26/2008 9:58:15 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Valentine Video
Just in time for Valentine's Day, Zune Arts has released a new video called "Tickle Party" by famed art collaborative Friends with You. A story of friendship and love, the video features a unique blend of stop motion, puppetry and assorted 3D elements. You can watch the video on the Zune Arts site by clicking on the characters, which look like this:    Posted by Megan
Designers
2/13/2008 1:35:37 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Arts And Crap
If you like your posters (and other design) on the punky side, check out Feral Designers and their online store Arts and Crap.    Posted by Megan
Designers
1/30/2008 1:45:54 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Sagmeister on Ideas
IdeasonIdeas has a great interview with Stefan Sagmeister about everything from design celebrity to fruit. Eric: Although it may seem somewhat odd that designers concern themselves with publicity, it helps attract new work. How important is this? Should designers dedicate part of their time to self-promotion?
Stefan: If you have fun doing so, yes. If not, no. See, I do get a kick out of doing public talks and don’t mind answering your questions in this interview, both tasks connected with publicity. If these things would be a chore for me, I would not do them. I sometimes (like, right now for example) use them as an excuse so that I don’t have to do actual work, which is much harder, of course.
Posted by Megan
Designers
1/22/2008 1:49:09 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Monday, January 14, 2008
Designer Digs
Leave it to Design*Sponge to give as a great sneak peak inside the home of design vets Ellen Lupton and Abbot Miller. The space has a great sense of color and style without sacrificing comfort and livability.  Posted by Megan
Designers
1/14/2008 3:31:44 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Thursday, January 10, 2008
Dog In Space
The new Zune Arts Film "Laika" was released last night. Created by 72andSunny and Curious Pictures, the film imagines what might have happened to Laika, the dog launched into space by the Russians fifty years ago. The charming tale incorporates 2D and 3D still photography and textures to create a planet that might as well be doggy heaven.
Designers | Just for Fun
1/10/2008 8:37:32 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Wednesday, January 02, 2008
The Gift Of Giving
This year, The College of Saint Rose, in Albany, NY decided to do something different with its annual holiday greeting. The College's in-house creative team created its holiday greeting to be used as wrapping paper, subtly imprinted with the three words that make up the College's tagline—passion, knowledge, purpose. A wrapper around the folded paper asks the recipient to "Wrap up your holidays with purpose" and to wrap a hat, mittens or gloves for a child or adult in need and donate them to a local shelter or to send them to the College which then would donate the items to an appropriate shelter.  Posted by Megan
Designers
1/2/2008 12:49:09 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Monday, December 17, 2007
A Fresh Start
Stop and Start Over, a website devoted to helping recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, began as a Thesis project by Lara McCormick for the School of Visual Arts 'Designer as Author' MFA Design program in 2007. Now that McCormick has won a Sappi Ideas That Matter grant, she'll be expanding her project by working with the non-profit NCADD
(National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency) to create a
campaign based on the current graphics and content of the project. A series of brochures and posters will be produced, then distributed through NCADD’s network of
affiliates.  Posted by Megan
Designers
12/17/2007 1:45:13 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Forget the Classifieds
Not surprisingly, when Wieden+Kennedy needs new hires, they don't go the traditional route. Rather, they made an offbeat YouTube video that points to an application on their website:
(Wieden+Kennedy's innovative application process for their W+K12 advertising school was featured in the October 2007 issue of HOW.)
Designers
12/12/2007 10:42:26 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Best Behavior
Behavior Design recently partnered with The Museum of Modern Art, New York, for their latest exhibition, Georges Seurat: The Drawings, creating an interactive touch-screen kiosk that enables MoMA’s visitors to virtually explore Seurat’s four surviving sketchbooks. Directly alongside their conventional showcase (each object opened to a single spread), the sketchbooks can be viewed in their magnificent entirety on two kiosk monitors. Behavior mastered numerous challenges to collect, digitize, and choreograph elements into an intuitive and becoming interface that gracefully reveals Seurat’s work and invites users to marvel and explore at will. Behavior Design also designed and developed a companion website to supplement the show and its themes, featuring a sampling of the sketchbooks, drawings, and other works alongside examples of Seurat’s working methodologies and processes.   Posted by Megan
Designers
12/4/2007 9:20:54 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Listen Up
I first saw Jason Munn of thesmallstakes.com speak at this year’s Design Camp, from Minnesota AIGA. I just got word of an interview he did with Dave of grainedit.com, which features some great design examples (much it being beautiful vintage ones, but other categories of the blog cover “designers bookshelf,” “thrift hawks,” and “how to/diy”). 
Design Resources | Designers
11/20/2007 2:52:56 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Friday, November 16, 2007
Music House
I just got an email from designer Jeff Harrison about a CD cover project he recently designed for the band Vonnegut Dollhouse. You can see images of the finished CD here and images of the design process on Flickr. (Did I mention how cool I think this is?)   Posted by Megan
Designers
11/16/2007 11:53:23 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Thursday, November 08, 2007
Terrific Titles
Production & design company Imaginary Forces recently completed main titles and animated content for the new FOX sitcom " Back to You" starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton. The main titles are executed in an illustrated style reminiscent of film title sequences in the 1960s, and take viewers on a journey from the cityscape into the inner workings of a newsroom. Opening on the Pittsburgh skyline against a burnt yellow sky, the camera moves through 3D space through the various sound stages of the network building. As each character and their newsroom personalities are identified by the highly stylized illustrations, the color transitions from the yellow of a setting sun to the blue and purple of evening.
   Posted by Megan
Designers
11/8/2007 12:59:47 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Delivering Great Design
Willoughby Design Group, in collaboration with the United Nations, recently helped launch the international brand campaign Deliver Now for Women and Children at Bryant Park in New York City. Deliver Now is a new global advocacy drive to reduce maternal and child deaths and improve the health of women and children around the world.  Posted by Megan
Designers
11/7/2007 10:47:51 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Friday, October 19, 2007
Chip Kidd Wins
Personality-plus designer Chip Kidd won the National Design Award last night for Communication Design. If you've never heard Chip speak before, he's a hoot. A video of his presentation at the most recent HOW Conference is now available online for $39 (with a discount for conference attendees).  Posted by Megan
Designers
10/19/2007 12:27:38 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
VSA Turns XXV
Noted Chicago design firm VSA Partners is celebrating its 25th anniversary in November and they're throwing themselves a party. While I'm bummed that I'll have to decline the invite, I absolutely love the logo they developed for the event. It's simple, elegant and appropriate. (It looks even more amazing embossed on heavy cardstock with silver ink and some kind of semi-gloss varnish.)  Posted by Megan
Designers
10/17/2007 12:13:22 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Paula Scher's Paintings
Maya Stendhal Gallery recently announced a solo exhibition
of renowned artist and graphic designer Paula Scher,
which runs from November 8, 2007 through January
26, 2008.
"Scher expands on her highly acclaimed Maps
series to create her most engaging work yet, depicting entire continents,
countries and cities from all over the world that have been the critical
focus of attention in recent headlines."
 Posted by Megan
Designers
10/16/2007 12:55:16 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, October 08, 2007
History Lesson
Never heard of Muriel Cooper? Seriously? The New York Times's weekend Style magazine profiled the woman who influenced a generation of designers working in digital media. Pentagram designer Lisa Strausfeld commented: “She was not at all skilled technically, and she wasn’t even that tech
savvy, and she leveraged her ignorance in a truly brilliant way.”
Designers
10/8/2007 8:52:21 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Hybrid On Display
I just got an email from San Francisco-based designer Dora Drimalas of Hybrid about an exhibition of her paintings and illustrations called " Creature Comforts".  If you can't make it to SF for the show (which runs through October 30), you can nab one of her super cute prints from the Hybrid-Home site.  Posted by Megan
Designers
10/3/2007 3:56:11 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, October 02, 2007
At The Top Of His Game
Mediabistro has a fantastic interview with noted magazine design and Pentagram partner Luke Hayman. "Good design doesn't cost much money. It just needs someone in charge
who understands what good design is, and very often the people who are
in charge don't care, or aren't aware, or are not educated enough to
see that. If you look carefully, you can find some trade magazines that
are as beautiful as any consumer title, and it's because they have
someone who cares and is allowed to do that."
Posted by Megan
Designers
10/2/2007 12:42:11 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Y Is For Yeti
Designer and illustrator Jon Setzen of Standard Motion in Brooklyn recently designed an original alphabet poster for his soon-to-be-born first child. My favorite letter is "Y is for Yeti." The scribbley creature also shows up on a concert poster Jon designed for Black Mountian/The Cave Singers. Both posters can be ordered from Standard Motion.   via Design*SpongePosted by Megan
Designers
9/19/2007 2:36:26 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, September 17, 2007
Logo Design Process
It's always interesting to see exactly how a designer works and it's rare to get the opportunity. A colleage recently stumbled on just such a step-by-step deconstruction of a logo design process and sent it to me (thanks, Pam). It's actually from a site that I like a lot, Chuck Green's Ideabook. It was a HOW Top 10 Site recently, but I thought it was worth pointing out this specific page. 
Posted by Megan
Designers
9/17/2007 11:06:03 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Public Service Announcement
When Green Bay, WI-based advertising and design firm Arketype was offered six months of advertising space in a business publication, they decided to use the opportuntiy to raise awareness about a variety of issues including breast cancer and pet adoption. The result is a series of attractive ads that subtley promote the firm, while they bring attention to the causes. 
Posted by Megan
Designers
9/12/2007 11:09:20 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, September 07, 2007
Philly's Worst Logo
Every town has its share of terrible logos, but Philadelphia's Gyro Worldwide decided to do something about it by sponsoring the Philly's Worst Logo competition. They rounded up a bunch of bad logos then asked everyone to vote. The "winning" logo was redesigned by Gyro's crack team of interns and the results are actually pretty good. Before 
After
Posted by Megan
Designers
9/7/2007 10:07:32 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, September 05, 2007
A New Look In The Fight Against Cancer
Minneapolis-based Duffy & Partners unveiled a new logo brand identity, for the " Breast Cancer 3 Day" 60 mile walk event, in conjunction with its’ 5th anniversary which took place on August 3-5, in Boston, August 10-12 Chicago, August 17-19 Cleveland, August 24-26, and will take place on September 7-9 in Seattle Washington 2007. This new identity is just one piece in a larger, overall rebranding of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation into Susan G. Komen for the Cure. 
Posted by Megan
Designers
9/5/2007 1:33:01 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, August 28, 2007
New Identity
Cincinnati-based design agency LPK (Libby Perszyk Kathman) has developed a contemporary visual representation for the agency formerly know as AVOC (AIDS Volunteers of Cincinnati), now known as STOP AIDS. The organization's new identity, developed by LPK on a pro-bono basis, is aimed at reflecting the importance and urgency of STOP AIDS' mission.  Posted by Megan
Designers
8/28/2007 9:29:20 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, August 16, 2007
Off The Wall
I just got a press release about a really cool project where a women-owned design firm ( Omnivore) created custom wallpaper for a women-owned architectural firm ( Front Studio). Yen Ha describes the wallpaper now covering her SoHo office walls: "Karen Hsu played with scale and density to create a double reading in the pattern. From afar it resembles traditional floral wallpaper, but up close there are hard hats, wigs, skyscrapers, flowers with pencils for stamens, etc. Hsu did not lose sight of our femininity. It's also a standard blueprint size, intended for print on actual blueprint paper—a subtle gesture for us architects."
Posted by Megan
Designers
8/16/2007 9:19:02 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, August 06, 2007
Behind The Icons
Posted by MeganI just got a fun email from illustrative designer Von Glitschka about a recent icon-design project he completed for Merck Pharmaceuticals:
In 1982 my Dad who worked for the school district asked me to create a set of icons for the district's emergency procedures manual. Technically speaking it was my first paying gig. I was going to make a whopping $125 for designing around '10' icons based on themes like 'Earthquake' and 'Floods'. I remember thinking how cool it was to get paid to do something I'd do for free. Little did I know that was a foreshadow of things to come. It's now twenty five years later and I am still designing icons and having fun.
Merck Pharmaceuticals needed a set of icons they could use in their print collateral pieces on Diabetes. The icons needed to be easily recognized by a very broad audience from kids to adults. The icons also needed to work using a simplified color palette based on two colors that could easily be adapted for varying color themes.
I nested each icon on a rounded-corner square motif which allowed me to then use it as a cropping device on the icons which wouldn't work as stand alone elements. The hardest one by far was the icon for 'Nervous System'. My first attempt looked more like an alien life form then it did a nerve ending.
Designers
8/6/2007 11:03:30 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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What A Concept
Posted by MeganWe just got a peak into the interior design of the Volt, a brand new concept car from GM. The Volt is a futuristic electric car with an extremely inviting interior designed by 34-year-old Therese Tant. As Therese explains, "I wanted the Volt to be an attention getter not just for what is under the hood but also for its sleek and chic interior design.” And where did she get the inspiration for this stunning interior? A love of fashion played a big role and is apparent in the attention to detail in the Volt's fabrics, textures and finish. However another source of inspiration came from a more unusual source: Fire. One of Therese's hobbies is "fire spinning," which she performs while dancing in a traditional New Zealand dance known as Poi. “The movement and curves of light the fire makes as I spin the rope inspire a lot of my work. It is an abstract image that I can turn into an industrial work of art,” she says.   
Designers
8/6/2007 10:55:02 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, August 01, 2007
One Punk Wins Gold
Posted by MeganNew York City-based motion graphics house nailgun* just won seven statues at the 2007 North American BDA/Promax awards, including a gold for art direction and design for their promo campaign for the Sundance Channel's documentary series One Punk Under God. One Punk Under God is a documentary centered on the life Jay Bakker, son of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and a very different minister in his own right at New York's Revolution Church. 
Designers
8/1/2007 1:33:26 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, July 26, 2007
Highs And Lows
Posted by Meganvia Oh Joy! Abby Clawson Low is a design director specializing in identity and publication design, and her blog Hi+Low is an eclectic collection of printed ephemera and inspiring objects. Before starting her own business, Low flexed her design muscles at Kate Spade and Design MW. I'm totally adding this blog to my RSS feed right now!
Designers
7/26/2007 3:20:19 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Creative Workspace
Posted by MeganMattson Creative, based in Irvine, CA, recently relocated to new digs. The 100-year-old warehouse was formerly used to process lima beans! You can see a bunch of interior shots of the space at the Mattson website. 
Designers
7/26/2007 9:35:57 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Mad Ads
Designers
7/24/2007 3:43:05 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, July 17, 2007
The Color Of Movies
Posted by MeganArmin Vit recently added an interesting post on Speak Up about the colors used in posters for top-grossing movies. His argument is that they tend to be black or very dark, except for G-rated movies. To help illustrate his point, he created a great visual represenation of the color palettes. 
Designers
7/17/2007 1:51:21 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, July 16, 2007
Flower Power
Posted by MeganNew York City-based Trollbäck+Co. was recently challenged to create a 30-second spot for the History Channel's "Hippie," a two-hour documentary about the ideas, values, conflicts and legacy of the hippie movement.
  
Designers
7/16/2007 1:03:35 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Plaid Nation
Posted by MeganThe team from Connecticut-based agency Plaid recently embarked on a three-week road trip from NYC to Dallas to spread brand and design love. It's called Brand Aid 2007.
Brand Manager Darryl Orht says: "We'll be visiting clients, potential clients, and interesting spots along the way. Meanwhile, we'll be using all of the latest web 2.0 tools so that everyone can follow the tour. We'll have a live webcam in the van, webisodes broadcast on YouTube, a tour blog, a tour twitter stream, Flickr photo set, and a GPS/Google Maps mashup that will allow viewers to track the exact location of our van. Oh yeah, we're totally pimping out a van in Plaid, after our agency's name." 
Designers
7/16/2007 10:10:53 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Friday, July 13, 2007
Feeling Like A Million Bucks
Posted by MeganAshleigh Hansberger, principal of Myrtle Beach, SC-based Motto Agency was recently one of eight winners in the Make Mine a Million $ Business program. The program was created by Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence and founding partner OPEN from American Express to help women-owned businesses reach the million-dollar mark. The winners receive money, marketing, mentoring and technology resources in order to realize their million-dollar dreams. These most recent winners join 87 other women who are already in the program, which travels the country looking for the best women-owned businesses.
Designers
7/13/2007 10:30:28 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Driver's Ed
Posted by Megan
I just got an email from JUXT Interactive about their latest project RelearnToDrive.com,
a series of flashback videos to how we all "really" learned to drive. JUXT partnered on the project with GSD&M
in Austin, TX. This micro site closes the door on the past and opens
the door to the new BMW Performance Driving School site. "Undo The
Damage", the performance school site, combines Flash animations of the
track with hair-raising video to accelerate the experience at the
Ultimate Driving school.   
Designers
7/13/2007 9:17:52 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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