Design Education

A Process for Designing Successful Brands

By Delphine Hirasuna | July 19, 2012September 4, 2014

Brand consultant Alina Wheeler has developed a phased process for researching, clarifying and implementing a brand strategy. A reminder that building a strong brand demands more than a logo, Wheeler outlines a disciplined approach that has been used with success by several major companies. Her book Designing Brand Identity: Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team (John Wiley & Sons, third edition) distills this process into five easy-to-follow steps. It’s worthwhile advice. Following this process will not guarantee branding success, but ignoring it will inevitably lead to a muddled identity program that confuses consumers and employees alike.

Motion Graphics

Hyundai Takes 3-D Projection
Mapping to New Heights

By Delphine Hirasuna | April 14, 2011September 4, 2014

Just over a year ago, we ran a story about innovations in 3-D projection mapping. At the time, it was largely a performance demonstration that hadn’t yet become established for commercial marketing purposes. Now it has. This dazzling 3-D mapping stunt was created in Malaysia for the 2012 Hyundai Accent, which will be debuted at the New York Auto Show later this month. The part of the video that is real is the car, which was suspended from the side of a building, and the driver who “walked” to the car and got in to “drive.” The wheels spun, but the rest of the imagery was computer generated. One thing about 3-D mapping films is that they need to show viewers the reaction of the in-person audience and even the behind-the-scene production work to truly appreciate what the producers pulled off. Otherwise, just seeing the 3-D show on a screen would lead many to conclude that the whole thing was done on a computer.

Sustainability

School in a Bottle

By Delphine Hirasuna | January 27, 2010September 4, 2014

In the mountainous village of Granados in central Guatemala, Peace Corps volunteer Laura Kutner came up with a way to solve several problems at once – the need for more classrooms, the shortage of building materials, and the abundance of plastic trash littering the ground.

Kutner rallied the community of roughly 860 people living in the village and surrounding area and together they collected more than 4,000 discarded plastic soda bottles. From there, students and volunteers used sticks and hands to cram the plastic bottles with more plastic — used bags, packaging and grocery sacks – to give the containers heft and form, then stacked them like bricks held in place by chicken wire, and “stuccoed” them with a cement-sand mixture.