After six amazing years, the founders of Hexanine have moved on to other independent design work and creative endeavors. Read more
Concrete brand talk in an ephemeral world

Q&A With Alina Wheeler On “Designing Brand Identity” 4th Edition

Hexanine: Alina Wheeler and Designing Brand Identity 4

Alina Wheeler wrote the book on identity design. Literally. She is the author of Designing Brand Identity, which is just about to be released in its fourth edition. It’s an excellent resource and is arguably the textbook on the discipline of overarching identity design. Over the years, we’ve found Alina’s thoughts, insight, and process to be an invaluable roadmap in developing and shaping our own identity design process, leading to greater results for us, and our clients. The book is a great 50,000 foot view, allowing readers the ability to see the design journey from beginning to end, but also allowing them to zoom in on how each part of the process contributes to overall project success.

On the eve of the book launch, we wanted to chat with our friend and colleague about this latest version, and also pick her brain about the state of identity design today.

Read on…

Nov 2 2012

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Musings: Death To Cynicism

Our short musings on design, branding, business and the human condition.

Cynicism (and its practitioners) should be confined to the museum of your organization as a long-dead relic — helpful to study, but worthless in practice.

Oct 30 2012

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As Partners

Hexanine - Partners in Old School

“No matter where you go, there you are.”

 

This is a photo, circa 1993-ish, of the Hexanine partners Tim and Jason (with sidekick Samantha Carrillo). Friends since 1986. Sometimes great things don’t come to an end.

Oct 5 2012

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Style Is Not A Solution

Style is not a solution - Hexanine

It should be obvious, but style is not a strategy. Instead, style is just one tool in the marketer’s arsenal, brandished to help deliver a specific result, whether it is emotional, visual, or otherwise.

Or maybe style is more like a spice or seasoning. It tastes good, adds unique and distinctive flavor, but can’t stand alone as a meal. We need the red meats of strategy and goal-oriented design to deliver the goods, without being tricked into the idea that style can solve a problem on its own. In our lightning-fast culture, the speed of trends is increasing, and marketers, designers, and artists are often at risk of getting “over trended.”

Ephemeral trends and visual styles are at the highest levels — they’re the waves crashing and moving quickly over the top of the water, while the still waters of good design and communication ripple underneath. Great design and branding is knowing when to ride the crests, and when it’s best to dive deep.

Sep 28 2012

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Remembering the Mold-A-Rama

Mold-A-Rama

If you were a kid in the Midwest and ever visited a zoo or museum, you probably ran into one of these machines. They were — and still are — pure magic. Even if you didn’t recall the name Mold-A-Rama, you might remember the smell and feel of warm, air-molded polyethylene in your hands.

For those who’ve never seen one of these machines in-person, they basically work like this: You insert money (today it’s $2.00) and hear the machine spring to life with a loud hum. Hydraulic arms come together in the middle behind the transparent bubble, where plastic enters the chamber as forced air pushes it into the existing mold. Roughly 45 seconds later, the mold halves pull apart, and another arm pushes the newly-molded piece off the chamber surface and into the opening compartment, where you can retrieve your still-warm plastic toy. See it in action here.

Read on…

Sep 27 2012

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Musings: Emotions As Fuel

Our short musings on design, branding, business and the human condition.

It can be easy in business or life to discount the importance of emotions in favor of things that are more easily measured. But the difficult-to-quantify are sometimes the most valuable and crucial in the long run. Nothing inspiring or meaningful ever gets done without the application of genuine emotion. Emotions might be ethereal and ephemeral when compared to numbers on a spreadsheet, but they are the fuel rods that power passionate action.

Sep 18 2012

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Writing For HOW: Writing and Designers

Writing for HOW article

Some designers seem to conveniently disappear when writing and copy are discussed, and I think this relates to our overall visual natures. Many designers think, relate, and communicate in images — it’s one of the skills that leads to great design and better designers. But while a picture is supposedly worth a thousand words, text isn’t going away anytime soon. So, it’s up to us, as designers, to wrangle the written word and to make the work we do even greater by engaging with the copy.

That’s a snippet from an article I wrote for HOW Magazine, about the fear that many designers and creative types have when it comes to writing. We find it’s a common issue among peers and others we rub elbows with, and I believe I’ve got some helpful thoughts to consider. Check it out and comment either here, or at HOW directly.

 

Aug 16 2012

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Musings: Weave Passion Into Business

Our short musings on design, branding, business and the human condition.

Sure, we all have to eat and pay the mortgage. But it’s easy to become a creative mercenary if you’re merely chasing lucrative markets or the next profitable, exploitable space. The wise and happy path:

Either figure out how to get deeply excited about the work you’re doing, or find a way to integrate your already-existing passions into your business. The world doesn’t need more creative hired guns; it needs more people who truly believe in what they do.

Aug 1 2012

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The Branding Sweet Spot

Hexanine: The Branding Sweet Spot
Trying to stake out intellectual and emotional territory for an organization’s brand is a challenging proposition — so many viewpoints, stakeholders, and ideas to juggle and consider. You have the business and marketing goals of the organization, the reality on the ground, and the thoughts and emotions of the brand’s audiences. Marty Neumeier said in “The Brand Gap” that a brand is “what they say it is,” — that what the world thinks about your brand is incredibly powerful and often definitive.

I think he’s right on, but there’s more to the story. Read on…

Jul 24 2012

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Logo Work Included in LogoLounge 7

Hexanine logos in LogoLounge 7

We’ve grown up as designers with the LogoLounge book series. It’s great to see the beautifully-redesigned, newest volume. Also awesome to see that we’re part of it, with work from projects like BevReview and Plastic Highway. Our work was chosen from 34,000 selections, which is an honor.

Jul 18 2012

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