This month we have the distinct privilege of being featured as one of How Magazine’s November Top 10 Sites for Designers. It’s great to be among such good company. Thanks to everyone at the great design pub HOW.
Haunted Halloween designs For Target
As the feast of All Hallows’ Evening (Halloween) nears, some of our work has risen to the shelves of Target. We designed several exclusive products for Target’s Halloween seasonal line, including a “bloody” rimmer (red sugar melted over cocktail glasses for candy-flavored martinis), Scary Sangria drink mix, and a few flavors of ghastly party punch. These in-store only products were designed with partners Creative Commune and Urban Accents.
Lawyers are the real Monsters for the beverage brand
Steve Tanner runs BevReview, a great site devoted to reviewing and finding soft drink/soda products. He has been reviewing drinks since 2001 without incident (and often having drink manufacturers send him review samples) until recently. BevReview received a pointed lawyer message from Hansen Beverage Company (makers of the Monster energy drink) informing them that the review site violated the Monster trademark. This is silly lawyering, as BevReview enjoys protection for its fair use of product for review purposes, and doesn’t sell or advertise anything that would confuse/harm the Monster trademark. Maybe this is really about the lukewarm-to-bad review their product received from BevReview.
Really, the actions taken by Hansen’s lawyers are counterproductive, if not plain bullying. This all adds up to a publicity black eye for Monster and Hansen. To see exactly how they’ve harmed their brand image, check out the comments in both posts. And no amount of design or positioning is going to help gain back the goodwill Hansen has spilled. Now who is the Monster?
Urban Accents featured in Gaper’s Block
One of our great partners, Urban Accents, is featured in the excellent Chicago web magazine Gapers Block. Check our the packaging work we’ve done with Urban Accents, especially the fantastic Dryglaze line of products.
Join The Party With EPIC
This Thursday night we’ll be hanging with some of the best and brightest design and marketing minds in Chicago, to celebrate the work created by the latest EPIC team. EPIC is an organization founded by Erin Huizenga (a good friend and talented designer), to pair select teams of creative folks from the advertising and design industries with nonprofit clients dedicated to education, children and families. The work that has come out of previous 8-week “creative rallies” has enormously helped a wide swath of nonprofits to continue their great missions with professional-level brand materials.
Thursday’s celebration of work for 2 BigHearts Foundation, CASA of Cook County, and Project Kindle will be at Sean Williams Photography Studio from 6-9pm. More details at EPIC’s site.
Park Church Logo Featured In LogoLounge5
We just wanted to mention that our work for Park Community Church has been included in Rockport’s book LogoLounge5. Out of 33,000 submitted logos, ours for Park was chosen for publication. Even after five volumes, this series of books continues to be an excellent resource and inspiration for identity designers everywhere–we’ve been buying these books for years. Along with the book series, LogoLounge offers an annual membership that allows members access to all submitted logos, not just those chosen for the books. It’s absolutely worth the price, for inspiration and research purposes.