Author: Delphine Hirasuna

Visual Merchandising

Hermes Window Display: Poetry in Motion

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Tokujin Yoshioka, who created shop designs and installations for fashion designer Issey Miyake for 20 years before starting his own studio in 2000, communicated the essence of the Hermes brand with utmost simplicity in this window display for Maison Hermes in Tokyo. Only two props filled the display area – a black-and-white image of a beautiful woman projected onto a monitor and a hanging Hermes scarf. Each time the woman appeared to blow gently on the colorful scarf, it swayed in response. Ethereal, poetic and uncontrived, the scene is devoid of anything that would detract from appreciating the ultra-silky elegance of the scarf.

Sustainability

Recycled Christmas Cards

By Delphine Hirasuna |

snowman
For the past three years, Johnson Banks in London has done a year-end clean up by recycling their old magazines and passing them along to friends and clients in the form of Christmas greetings. This year the UK design firm ram-punched the shape of a snow man. A tip they passed along is that Design Week “punches brilliantly.” It could be the weight and uniformity of the paper that cuts clean, the vibrant ink holdout on the sheet, or good design karma projected from the magazine.

Publishing

Worth Magazine Rebrands Itself

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Worth

In a year when more than 100 major newspapers and nearly 500 magazines have reportedly folded in the United States alone, it is interesting – if not reassuring – to note that some publications are striving to reinvent themselves. The 18-year-old Worth magazine, acquired by Sandow Media in 2008, has adopted a new revenue model, along with a new tagline “The Evolution of Financial Intelligence.” Now published bi-monthly, Worth has become a controlled circulation magazine, mailed free to a database of 110,000 high-net-worth households in major markets. It offers no subscriptions but sells a limited number of individual copies at $18.95 per issue primarily at select newsstands in private airports. In addition to the sale of advertising, the magazine essentially relies on thoroughly vetted wealth advisors to underwrite the publication in exchange for the opportunity to write articles in the leading advisors section of the magazine.

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Technology

Lost Boys’ Christmas Mobile Mobile

By Delphine Hirasuna |

When James Theophane Jr. was asked by his employer Lost Boys, an interactive marketing firm in the UK, to come up with a Christmas card, he thought of the 50 or so mobile phones discarded after the agency went through a company-wide upgrade.

That inspired the constructions of a gigantic mobile, with each phone programmed by computer to sound a single tone that together formed a choral arrangement. The interactive sculpture hoisted at the entrance of the Brick Lane studio can be enjoyed by anyone visiting the live stream and tapping out his/her own jingle on the onscreen keyboard.

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Humor

Student Assignment Celebrates the Ordinary

By Delphine Hirasuna |

We love student assignments because the parameters are loose enough to let the imagination run free – no client demanding that the piece “work harder” at branding or asking to see the metrics to prove that the design solution had the desired effect on the target audience. They are unbridled creativity, pushing the limits of personal talent and skill. So, when we ran across some animations done by 20-year-old Matthew Young, a graphic and communication design student at the University of Leeds in the UK, we were charmed by his innocent storytelling. “Colin the Umbrella,” completed in a week, fulfills a creative brief to celebrate the ordinary by making it seem extraordinary. Young’s story line has the undercurrent of the soul-searching angst of a young person searching for a meaningful purpose in life — and a sad ending.