Advertising

Intentionally Designed by Apple

By Delphine Hirasuna | July 29, 2013September 4, 2014

It is nice to see that Apple is still channeling Steve Jobs in this new ad campaign by TBWA/Chiat/Day. The “Intention” video is classic Apple. Like Apple’s products and its packaging, it feels elegant, devoid of fussiness and ostentation. It communicates simply, directly, softly. It doesn’t provide boastful descriptions of its own engineering prowess or gee-whiz features. In fact, it doesn’t show or name its products at all. It tells you how it strives to deliver what you want to feel when using Apple products. It’s all about you… your desires… your pleasure. If iMac was a guy, he’d have women swooning at his feet.

Product Design

OXO Founder Sam Farber’s Lasting Legacy

By Delphine Hirasuna | June 21, 2013September 4, 2014

It is with sadness that we note the passing of our friend, OXO GoodGrips founder Sam Farber, who died Sunday at the age of 88. Farber, who received the “Design of the Decade” award from the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) and BusinessWeek magazine in 2001, proved that ground-breaking innovations don’t have to be based on cutting-edge technology nor even have mechanical parts.

Product Design

Pantone Partners With Sephora

By Delphine Hirasuna | March 7, 2013September 4, 2014

The Pantone Color System is nuanced and exact, which is why it is common to see designers agonizing over Pantone swatches to find the precise hue, tone, tint and saturation they want. When Pantone decrees the “Color of the Year,” designers in every industry pay attention. So it is not surprising that the cosmetic giant, Sephora, has teamed with Pantone to turn out a Sephora-Pantone Universe Color of the Year collection. Pantone 17-5641 Emerald is Pantone’s choice for 2013 Color of the Year, and Sephora has issued the color in a limited edition line of products for 2013. If emerald makeup isn’t flattering to you, maybe you can settle for an emerald makeup brush just to be in on the hottest trend.

Brand Language

7-Eleven Sweden Does Retro Re-Branding

By Delphine Hirasuna | February 6, 2013September 4, 2014

Asked to rebrand the 7-Eleven convenience stores in Sweden, the Stockholm creative agency BVD decided to whole-heartedly embrace the 80-year-old company’s graphic roots. BVD made 7-Eleven’s signature green and orange bolder and brighter, stenciled its old Helvetica typeface, and turned its traditional broad stripes into pinstripes, reversing out the “7” and suggesting “Eleven” with two orange lines. The look is contemporary yet retro, and it doesn’t run away from 7-Eleven’s original concept, which was to provide people with a handy place to go to buy an emergency supply of milk, eggs and other basics late at night. The new Swedish graphic identity refreshes 7-Eleven’s identity without trying to disguise it as something more upscale than it is.

Packaging

El Paso Chile’s Border Town Packaging

By Delphine Hirasuna | March 22, 2012September 4, 2014

When El Paso Chile Co. commissioned Charles S. Anderson Design in Minneapolis to create a new packaging system for its retail salsa and marinade lines, it wanted to make sure that consumers grasped the fact that its products were authentic Tex-Mex, not wannabe imitations made in places like Cincinnati or Brooklyn. A border town in far west Texas, El Paso is so close to Juarez in Mexico that the two cities are sometimes considered one metro area. El Paso Chile Co. knows its salsas and wanted the packaging to capture that in look and feel.