I co-authored/edited this piece with Bill Gardner for LogoLounge.com, and it was picked up by Fast Company! It’s written in first-person, by Bill. Each year, I write a report on logo trends, and I always look to the past before looking ahead. You can’t tell where something is going if you don’t know where it […]
Category Archives: branding
Putting Your Best Font Forward
Finding the perfect typeface for your next project takes skill and know-how. Here we put together three different takes on type and why they work so well. Type says a lot about a brand. Letters are a language in themselves, communicating personality traits like sophistication, simplicity, and whimsy. They can shout or they can whisper. […]
Sustainable Packaging Options
So many eco-friendly packages are reminiscent of brown paper sacks—boring, colorless, no personality. The materials, themselves, can be difficult to navigate from a design perspective to make them more palatable, and avoid the use of harmful glues, inks, and bindings. Here, four firms have successfully navigated the eco terrain to come up with tactile and […]
Designers Lead the Charge in the Retail Revolution
Although we’ve seen many huge retailers downsize (like the Gap) and some close altogether (Toys R Us), you’d be surprised to know that there was a 58% increase in store openings in 2017, according to a study by Fung Global Retail and Technology. Amazon even made the leap to brick and mortar through pop-up stores […]
Enticing Menu Designs
Beyond offering a selection of food and beverage items, a good menu design is an extension of the restaurant’s identity, it’s well organized and easy to read, and hopefully it’s appetizing. Here, we offer up several menu designs with decidedly different ethnic and cultural offerings. Köksbordet is a family-style restaurant serving locally produced foods in […]
Winning Logo Design Strategies from 9 Industry Leaders
Andreas Karl “First: Look through all 265,000 logos in the LogoLounge library and see what other graphic designers have done before. It keeps you from creating doubles, and from following an idea that already exists. Second: Look at the logos of companies like Nike, Apple, Mercedes Benz, CocaCola, and ask yourself ‘What makes these logos […]
Hippeas Branding
Organic snacks have become a hugely popular category in the food sector in recent years, so creating an ownable brand that stands out is essential for survival. So, when Livio Bisterzo, founder of Green Park Holdings, a food innovation company in the health and nutrition sector, developed a new product, he commissioned Jones Knowles Ritchie […]
Thinking in Icons
Icons have become such a ubiquitous way of life for most of us, that we don’t often think about them. And the point is, we shouldn’t, unless they misguide us or leave us confused. In Felix Sockwell’s new book, Thinking in Icons, he walks readers through the process of designing icons and the subtle nuances […]
Developing Successful Identities for a Mr. & Mrs.
If you’re an identity designer, the most critical function in the beginning of the project is research—getting to know your client’s brand inside and out, as well as the competition, and some of that involves what Sharon Werner, principal of Werner Design Werks in Minneapolis, Minn., calls “feet on the ground.” This is especially true […]
Michael Ian Kaye: How Design & Advertising Inform Eachother
You may be wondering what the hell this title means. It’s obvious that design and advertising comingle, but often the nuances go unnoticed. Michael Ian Kaye is here to say there are obvious distinctions between the art and craft of graphic design and the fast-paced world of advertising. He should know. He leads the design […]