Author: Delphine Hirasuna

Publishing

Is Publishing Dead?

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Turn up the sound and pay attention to the words all the way through. This video titled “The End of Publishing” was presented by Penguin CEO John Makinson at an internal sales meeting. It was so well-received that Penguin decided to share it with a wider online audience.

Prepared by the marketing arm of Dorling Kindersley in the UK, the video was done by Khaki Films in Kent. Khaki says that the approach was inspired by the Argentine film, “The Truth,” by Savaglio/TBWA Buenos Aires, which won a Silver Lion at Cannes in 2006.

For “The End of Publishing,” Khaki’s writer Jason LaMotte took four days to piece together a script that made the exact opposite point when read forwards and backwards. From there, arriving at the right voice inflexions and pacing for the film was an amazing feat in itself. Very clever. Let’s hope that the backwards reading is true.

Design Education

What Nobody Tells Beginners

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Ira Glass, the host and producer of the Public Radio International storytelling program, “This American Life,” expounded on what nobody tells to beginners. Singapore-based filmmaker, David Shiyang Liu, took Glass’s comments and turned them into a video. Glass’s words are insightful and reassuring in themselves, but displayed as kinetic type, we pay rapt attention with both our ears and our eyes, which makes Glass’s observations all the more meaningful.

Packaging

Rubber-Stamped Japanese Food Packaging

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Traditional Japanese packaging for food products has historically been made of the natural materials-at-hand out of utilitarian necessity. Straw, bamboo sheath (the leaf that covers the sprouting bamboo shoot), and thinly shaved sheets of wood show an abiding connection to nature and a crafted human touch. Although this package design for Forest House Honey does not use wrapping materials plucked from nature, it has that sensibility in a 21st century kind of way. Yamagata-based Akaoni Design gave the packaging a simple humility with its unbleached brown paper and rubber-stamped floral block print patterns. Rather than a slick, “over-designed” manufactured look, the product has a farmer’s market “boutique” quality. It feels wholesome, organic, unadulterated by additives, and packaged by human hands and not mass produced by machine.

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Public Service Campaign

Can You See Me Now?

By Delphine Hirasuna |

This modified eye chart is more representational than accurate, but, for the most part, it gets the point across. Designed by Salt Lake City-based creative director Gary Sume, this poster for the Utah Highway Safety office advises drivers to watch out for motorcycles.

Packaging

Morrisons Rebrands its Own Value Brand

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Morrisons, one of the largest supermarket chains in the UK, recently unveiled its rebranded entry-level “value” line, now bearing the name “M Savers.” The work was done by brand design agency Coley Porter Bell as part of a strategic assessment aimed at transforming Morrisons’ own label into a more coherent brand. With some 17,000 products and their variants in Morrisons’ own brand, positioning different tiers and categories of products was a daunting task.

Morrisons’ entry-level value line presented its own unique challenges. Stephen Bell, creative director at Coley Porter Bell, said that the term “value” had a negative meaning to some consumers. “Value ranges tend to be somewhat utilitarian, using template designs and basic corporate colors. Research shows that consumers are often ashamed to be seen with them. But with the economy stalled for the foreseeable future, value ranges will be competing on more than just price. We wondered why shouldn’t entry-level products have some charm and engagement?”

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