The indie band Deerhof found a creative new twist on promoting their soon to be released record. They uploaded the sheet music of the (not yet available, soon to be released) single ‘Fresh born’ and let the public record it solely based on the notes, which will limit the participation, but guarantee the hype, not only for the site that hosts the ‘cover versions’, but also for the new single, once it can be compared to the user generated versions. A very creative, hands-on intellectual and fresh approach to use the accessibility of the web to work to your advantage. You can find the project mini site here.

(First read about on Cool Hunting)

Today’s visit of Obama in Berlin is graced by a very design savvy hommage to the Bauhaus movement. Just the latest genius strike of Obama’s amazing design & marketing team’s efforts.

An original Bauhaus Poster:

Bauhaus, revisited:

(As seen on Daily Heller)

Robeks Juice: Are you kidding us?

I had a student today who wore a bright orange (not yellow) rubber bracelet that featured the catchy line ‘LIVE HEALTHY’ (and not ‘LIVE STRONG’).

I don’t even want to think about what good cause this (very passé idea of a rubber band) is supporting, because it should read ‘Live Plagiarism’.

Jamba Juice, here I come.

Always liked your design savviness and smoothies better anyways.

Politics will not make their way onto this blog. As any professional in the service industry learns sooner or later, it’s never a good idea to share our political view points with our clients.

Yet it feels that a lot of creatives are inspired by politics and that is one of the goals of this blog. Some of us are outraged, some are encouraged. Of course, some of us feel like ‘It’s All Okay’.

I saw a truck with the above bumper sticker this weekend and I just had to ’shoot it’. What a great political design and statement. It encouraged me to view ‘Zeitgeist, the movie’ another time. Given the anticipated release of ‘Zeitgeist - Addendum’ is close and the movie itself just celebrated its first anniversary after seeing its release online, I feel that still too many people have not watched it yet. I do not necessarily agree to any of the political viewpoints, or statements, but then again, how could I possibly agree to what the media is dishing up every day? Get outraged, get inspired.

I received the second issue of ‘Deliver’ in the mail. The magazine with the sub title ‘a magazine for marketers’ is quite nicely designed, and interesting at most times, but…it is published by no one else then the United States Postal Service with the sole purpose of getting us ‘marketers’ to not completely forget about the good old direct marketing vehicle, the snail mail. The article ‘value in volume’ about an Atlanta marketing firm that created $600 a piece books to mail out to NYC’s fashion world in order to, may I add successfully, enter a very harsh and incestuous market, caught my attention. Not only because we experienced how hard it is to enter not only New York’s Design & Marketing market, but especially the fashion world (We now successfully formed a relationship with New York City Designer John Varvatos - we designed johnvarvatos.com), but also because of the crazy idea of spending that much on a single direct mail piece.

It’s crazy.

Crazy good, if done right.

Not only do people mainly receive junk and bills in the mail, but in an increasingly online world, receiving an amazing marketing piece, one that you know you will at least lovingly hold on to and braggingly hand around the office, is something special. Special enough to at least allow for a conversation with the sender.

When I designed an Open House Invitation to spend a glamorous evening at MGM’s CEO’s private residence in the year 2003, I went so overboard (on design and budget) that the client ended up hand delivering each of the ~250 invites of fear of damaging them during transportation. My idea was to replicate a film strip that showcases classic party scenes from the MGM archives, while creating an amazing first impression. When catering to Hollywood celebrity clientele, it is hard to stand out, and a smart idea like this one surely did the trick. As many jobs I hand off to our printers, this one was an all around challenge. And it was pricey. But in the end it worked wonders, just like the example ‘Deliver’ writes about.

The End Of Print?

Not in the world of Geyrhalter Design. Here, print does still ‘deliver’.

P.S.: You can subscribe to ‘Deliver’ free of charge here, just FYI.