It’s always a pleasure to work with great shutterbugs, and at Hexanine we’re proud to partner with some excellent ones. In our ongoing work with the excellent Golden Apple Foundation, we’re working alongside talents like Greg Hinchman and Patrick Fahrner, and recently we banded together to traverse around the Loop in Chicago for a shoot. Great deli sandwiches, 11 portrait subjects, slight sunburn — all together, a fun and very productive day.
Inspiration is at the heart of what we do on a daily basis at Hexanine, and it’s something we love to talk about. That’s exactly what our co-founder, Jason Adam, did with the great folks at Western Digital’s Ventito in a wide-ranging interview. Here’s a snippet:
“My attitude now is the same as it was before: Opportunities need to be uncovered. And the best way to do that is by consistently making unreasonable requests. There’s almost always nothing to lose, and wild and incredible experiences to gain.”
You can check out the rest of the interview at the link above, and hear from other experts in creativity at Ventito.
Great work is the lifeblood of what we do, so it’s always fun to showcase work, even if it has been hiding behind the curtains for a while. Here are a couple such projects: Website design and branding work for Ashley Furniture, and an identity redesign for ILC. More details of these projects follow at their respective portfolio pages, so check ‘em out.
The world is changing. We are rapidly evolving away from a marketplace ruled by mass culture, to one filled with a riotous patchwork of specific niches. Not long ago, one-size-fits-all communications, branding, and products stood at the top of the heap. Whether it was the Big Three TV networks, Top 40 Radio, or products designed for the Average Jane, traditional marketing and branding sought the widest spread and the largest customer base. But in 2014, these bastions of lowest common denominator thinking are slowly crumbling, thanks to the increasing fragmentation of media, culture, and interests. And these fragments — whether you call them tribes, micro-communities, or niches — have powerful potential for organizations, brands, and marketers.
Wonderful, inspirational thoughts from Neil Gaiman, addressing students at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia:
“Nothing I did where the only reason for doing it was the money was ever worth it, except as bitter experience. Usually I didn’t wind up getting the money, either. The things I did because I was excited, and wanted to see them exist in reality have never let me down, and I’ve never regretted the time I spent on any of them.”
Occasionally we’re asked to partner with organizations who are looking to revive an old brand, resuscitate a product, or reclaim dormant intellectual property. Sometimes it’s for a brand new venture, or it’s a company rummaging through its archives for untapped assets. These behaviors can make a lot of sense, because typically, someone else has already put money, time, and effort into making that brand a recognizable one. The math seems deceptively easy: on paper it looks simpler to breathe life into an older brand than starting with a blank canvas. Some firms have even built their business models around reviving these castoffs. But it’s not always that easy.
Great thoughts on how ignorance and genius collided in the work of Charles and Ray Eames. The quote comes from the wonderful documentary, “The Architect and the Painter”:
“Sell your expertise and you have a limited repertoire. Sell your ignorance and you have an unlimited repertoire. He was selling his ignorance and his desire to learn about a subject. The journey of not knowing to knowing was his work.”
- Richard Saul Wurman on Charles Eames
Sometimes the tomorrow of yesterday is even more intriguing than the present. It’s fun to look back at past predictions of what “the future” would look like — flying cars, spaceports, food pills. But buried beneath some of those fanciful ideas are nuggets of insight and amazing visions.
Futurist and artist Art Radebaugh was one of those visionaries. Radebaugh was known for his beautiful airbrushed illustration and syndicated newspaper strips “Closer Than We Think” and “Can You Imagine?” in the late 50s and early 1960s. Each of the hundreds of entries he created was a jaunt into possibility, as his artistry was inspired by snippets of scientific breakthroughs or upcoming technologies.
Hexanine partner Tim Lapetino is working on efforts to preserve the work and name of Radebaugh, and wrote an article this month for our friends at Geek Magazine on the artist. It’s featured in the August 2013 issue of the magazine.
Our short musings on design, branding, business, and the human condition.
“Well-designed logos are the work of the designers. Successful logos imply the company’s use of the logo.”
-Per Mollerup, quoted in Steve Heller’s interview at The Atlantic.
Last week I had the privilege of moderating the panel discussion at the premiere event in our AIGA Los Angeles Blueprint series. We brought four of LA’s finest independent designers to NextSpace in Culver City, CA for a two-hour discussion on the business of freelancing.
While freelance designers love to talk about their creative work, they’re often less fond of talking about their businesses. Such “boring” topics as accounting, taxes, legal issues, business strategy and client relations are often considered necessary evils, reflected by their time spent in the conversational spotlight.
And that’s no good.