Design Classic

Snapple’s Bottled Knowledge

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Snapple_1

Did you know that drinking Snapple can make you more knowledgeable? For nearly two decades, Snapple has added “food for thought” to their beverages by printing Real Facts inside their bottle caps. Quirky and curious, these facts feature amusing trivia that people often read aloud to share with companions. Occasionally, the fact seems so unlikely that people have been driven to do their own research. Invariably, the Snapple fact is true. Snapple Real Facts have to be verified by two authoritative sources and approved by a legal team before appearing on a bottle cap. To date, more than 1,030 Real Facts have been printed – including the fact that “humans share 50% of their DNA with bananas” and “In the state of Arizona, it is illegal for donkeys to sleep in bathtubs.” Snapple Real Facts have become like the coveted prizes in Cracker Jack boxes to some nerds. When forced to choose between a Snapple and a Coke, they’ll choose Snapple because it comes with Real Facts.
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Illustration

Creative Process Infographics

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Genius_Is

When designers and artists pick up self-help articles, many aren’t interested in learning to improve their InDesign and Photoshop skills. They just want to be reassured that their creative angst is normal. They want to know that they are not alone in their procrastination, self-doubt, and fear that their work is derivative and not original. That’s why we got a chuckle out of this comic by ilustrator Grant Snider, who lives in Wichita, Kansas, and is a practicing orthodontist and maker of web comics. His cartoons have appeared in publications across the U.S.

Technology

Cooper Hewitt Redesigns the Museum Experience

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Last December, the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper Hewitt Museum of Design reopened its doors after being shut down for three years for renovation. Located in the old Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, the new Cooper Hewitt has designed an experience that integrates interactive,immersive technologies into all of its exhibits. Now visitors can view digitized collections on large touch-screen tables, draw their own wallpaper in the Immersion Room, solve real-world design problems in the Process Lab, and use an interactive pen to save objects that they want to view more closely at home. The Cooper Hewitt not only shows how design has evolved over the past century, it is a living example of where it is going.

Brand Logos

Chinese Signs of the Times

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Chinese_Neon
Through the use of neon signs, Mehmet Gözetlik, Istanbul-based art director of Antrepo design agency, demonstrated how 20 of the best-known Western brands might be translated into Chinese.

In an interview with the International Business Times, Gözetlik pointed out that China is now the world’s largest economy and has a current population of 1.35 billion people. Yet, he adds, foreign companies take a literal and phonetic approach to presenting their brand, instead of considering how the logo translates visually and culturally. “Most of today’s Western brand identities are created by Western design companies, based on Western culture. It means we have two separated worlds, because of our DNA. So, there is more misunderstanding than we thought. We don’t actually understand many things we assume that are understood. We are like a person who misses the view while reading on the train. We are not aware of where we are coming from, going to or passing by,” Gözetlik said.
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Humor

Geico “You Can’t Skip These Ads”

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Viewers hate YouTube preroll ads, those irksome commercials that run before you get to watch the real YouTube video you want to see. One survey revealed that 94 percent of viewers will hit the “Skip Ad” button as soon as it appears. But advertisers keep sticking their commercials up there, presumably in the belief that the few they don’t annoy will embrace their message fondly and run out to buy their product.

This brings us to the Geico preroll, created by The Martin Agency in Richmond, Virginia. In a YouTube ad campaign that can only be viewed as experimental, the car insurance giant crammed its ad message into the critical first five seconds, and then spent the next 60 seconds having the main actors freeze motionless, while absurd actions happened around them. The only mention of Geico was the brand name that stayed on the screen. I didn’t get it, but thought it was funny anyway. I watched it three times to see if I was missing a deeper message. The only thing that annoyed me was that a preroll ad for another product ran before I could watch the Geico ad. I hit “Skip Ad” on that one as soon as it let me.
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