CAN you dig it?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...Remodel your whole livingroom.

I love these clever cans. Courageously challenge yourself to express creativity on a wrinkled piece of aluminum, or just buy one from www.paintingcans.com. Either way you are taking a stand for art and the environment.

Question is...how does one frame it?

Beijing Olympics Meets Design Olympics

Are these aluminium bottles gorgeous or what?

Here’s the thing, as a designer we throw a lot of crappy work on the wall. A good 98% of the work you do is thrown in the garbage (most of it for good reason). But seeing this comprehensive display of packaging is like watching a runway show of amazing dresses. Every garment another aspect of a beautiful vision. It represents a deep-seeded fantasy that all of our best work would someday be shown together (and actually look decent). I love this gallery of great design. Some of them speak to me more than others, some would flatter certain curves, and others would simply serve as the crown jewel in a personal collection. It’s a Cornucopia of swank.

I like to look at them, lined up in a row; a perfect army of sleek and unexpectedly sophisticated soldiers.

Coca-Cola knows how to push a brand to the very edges of recognition and still be true to their core identity. I am sure there is some form of verbal-jujitsu that would explain exactly how this is accomplished, but for now, I don’t want to know. I just want to soak in the mastery. I don’t need the curtain to be drawn back.

OZ has spoken. And I, for one, am listening.

The Official Coffee of Airstream

There are packaging designs that speak to you, and disappointingly, some that don’t. But there is also a rare category of packaging that is so different and unique, that you simply have to own—regardless of the content.

Silver Joe’s is one of those exceptional pieces of design. It ignores commonplace sensibilities about coffee bags and buckets, and heads straight to our core desires—to be shiny and lasting and new. I truly envy this coffee tin!

While it is obviously cool, it is also quite smart, making it irresistible. The colourful buttons defining the various roasts look good enough to press. The tins stack nicely, and the tactile design encourages the audience to not only look, but also feel its qualities. And heck, once you pick it up—why not throw it in your basket and take it home? It sells itself.

I wish I had designed it. It goes way beyond the box. In fact, this tin takes the box camping, feeds it some s’mores, sings it some campfire songs, shows it the time of its life and then tells the box that it will call later. But we all know that it won’t.

Bad Rhymes with Sad

This is an advertisement offering free beer to college students with deteriorating GPAs. As if they don’t have enough bad habits already—let’s promote drinking.

The strategy behind this campaign was touted as an effort to reach out to college students and push the creative limits to grab their attention. There are lots of ways to grab someone’s attention, but I consider this on par with ass-grabbing or catcalling. Ultimately, it only speaks to the lack of character in the perpetrator.

And finally, answer me this…is Tequila Flats a subsidiary of AIG? Has our entire nation begun to subscribe to the practice of rewarding incompetence? If so, I would like my check for failing to see the humour in this.

Orange you glad you didn't design this?

Delicious orange juice, yes. Hideous design, absolutely. Pour me a Tropicana!!!

I am not an advocate of “re-branding” unless you are going to do it well, not simply clever. In these unstable times, messing with a classic and beloved icon is dicey, and perhaps even reckless. It makes me suspicious and paranoid, but that’s for another day.
If you are going to create a fresh look, start with your assets. Don’t put the brutally- stabbed-with-a-straw-orange icon straight into the trash. There are plenty of creative ways to “Martha-ize” pierced citrus. Just think about it.

The thing that I find most outrageous about the design is the bulbous orange cap. I don’t get any meaningful brand value from that cap. All I register is the piles of money needlessly spent on a silly gimmick, which could have easily gone toward buying some imaginative fonts.

The design is generic and the cap is just senseless. It is like putting a tiny hat on a nameless, faceless, 100% bland, mannequin. And tiny hats are generally quite funny, but the new design manages to suck the life out of a brand, as well as, a timeless gag.

Hat’s off to you Arnell Group!


Image from tropicana.com