It may seem like the perfect blog entry for our ‘Brand Atmospheres’ blog, even though some of you may have already learned about this in a past edition of Wired magazine. You might have noticed that i took a couple of days off to rejuvinate while visiting a client up north. A part of the long weekend was trying to play catch up with magazines of past months, and this is when I came across ‘Flogos’. The image below explains it quite well: Flogos are foating logos, way above in the sky, created of soap-based foam formulations.

An interesting idea that can surely be used in very smart ways. Excited to see where marketers will take it. I guess we will see, if weather permits.

I was just searching for a note in my e-mail ‘Sent’ folder. This is what I found when I paid attention to the ‘Header’ and I felt it was a good last note before a summer weekend:

The latest issue of Creativity Magazine features a replica of the ‘sticky-flags-to-bookmark-certain-pages-idea’ that I wrote about in April, when I gave kudos to Domino Magazine for introducing this engaging and fun tool.

For a magazine like Creativity, which is all about fresh ideas, it is rather sad to be recycling someone else’s idea. It is another great example of the ‘Me-Me-Me’ attitude of a lot of advertising creatives, and creatives in general, burying the lack of concept under a great pile of Wow-factor, even if it is an idea that is ‘borrowed’ from someone else, and even if it does not make half the sense in its new, adopted, environment.

Looking through the magazine’s special Awards edition, it sheds light onto why so much advertising does not make any sense anymore, although original in all sorts and forms. The center of the magazine has a chart detailing how many awards which agency, which Ad, which CD, et cetera has scored ‘this season’. This is the target audience, this is the market, this is what’s on the mind of Creative Directors out there. You, the consumer, definitely come second. (I wrote about the decline in Advertisings’ messaging a while back as well.)

On a positive side note, and to give Creativity some Kudos as well, the ‘Peel ‘n Taste’ experience I wrote about yesterday, see below, was featured in the very same issue of the magazine.

Just brilliant! For the first time today I saw a print ad where I could taste (Yes, TASTE!) the actual product.

Image, check. Text, check. Sample taste, check.

Okay, first it was an obvious evolution since we already had breath mints that came in paper sized ‘strips’, and second it really was not an ad featuring an actual product, it was an ad for the company that produces these ad(d)-on features that goes by the name of ‘First Flavor’. It is called Peel ‘n Taste and it does work. Their sample was for Welch’s Grape Juice and it tasted just like the product.

I am amazed about the opportunities that this little invention presents to marketers.

Now try to suck on this onscreen. (Yes, I heard the rumours, but I doubt it will happen anytime soon.)

What happens to an international consumer brand once it starts ailing and laying off employees?

In the worst case, a blog of former and current employees of the company would start sharing secrets and discussing all ‘the dirt’ online, as it occured in the case of Starbucks. Grab a cup of Joe and stop on by ‘Starbucks Gossip’ to get the latest in barista rage and witness how one of the great international consumer brand phenomenons is losing its’ magic.

This new found freedom of speech opens the possibilities of low cost, overnight, viral marketing tremendously, but it also adds a new level of risk management to brands worldwide, which makes another phenomenon the best call for help: Google.

Above you can see a proposed re-design of the Starbucks name and logo by architect James Biber, as featured in Architects magazine.

I made the pledge to not write about music on this blog since I am focusing on design, brands and Geyrhalter Design’s Brand Atmospheres, but this one is riding such a fine line between the arts of music, film, fine art and graphic design that I think it has a right to appear here.

Anyone who knows me personally knows about my near-pathetic admiration of electronic pioneer band Depeche Mode. A band that had a lot to do with why I became interested in graphic design to begin with. I started collecting their records (Quite passionately, I think my collection reached over 1,500 items, many of which are completely unique) mainly because of the captivating graphic design and packaging. I picked up their 12″ Singles because of the beautiful colored vinyl editions, not the music. After a couple of listens I turned into a passionate follower, so passionate that by 1993 I have thrown an after-concert party in Vienna, Austria, with over 1,000 paying guests. I was 18, I met the band backstage, had a radio interview on Austria’s largest station Ö3, and I of course had to design the posters and flyers for the event based on budgetary restrictions, which in turn contributed largely to me being where i am right now. When I was asked who my biggest artistic inspiration was when I entered Art Center College Of Design when I was 20, I noted Anton Corbijn. Although I am not as impressed with his freeform graphic design work, I am very inspired by his amazing black and white photography and music video work, for my graphic as well as my photography work. Corbijn was responsible for many videos and cover shots of important bands like Depeche Mode, U2 and R.E.M., most notably U2′s legendary ‘Joshua Tree’ cover and Depeche Mode’s classic video to the song of the same status ‘Enjoy the silence’.

Coldplay’s recent ‘video cover version’ of Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy the silence’ is a quite funny and well done tribute to the band as well as ‘the genius of Anton Corbijn’, and how appropriate that it is a video to a song that already is known to have the same legendary status in years to come.

Time to revisit Anton Corbijn’s work, best done through the amazing DVD that was released a couple of years ago as part of the brilliant Director’s DVD Series.

As a sad side note, and since we talk about music, I just learned about the death of Isaac Hayes. Another legend that deserves revisiting, even if on a very tragic note. Rest In Peace.

Enjoy Coca-Cola.

In Iraq.

Before, during, and, if there ever will be such a thing, after the war.

Maybe there is a reason for it to be graphically treated in camouflage after all?

Years ago I took advantage of a too-good-to-be-true offer that Rolling Stone Magazine had: A lifetime (!) subscription for $100. Being obsessed with music, and thinking that just staying on top of current ads alone would be worth the 100 bucks, I went for it.

The other day I studied my address label and I found the expiration date (!) to my life long subscription. Rolling Stone magazine decided that Fabian Geyrhalter’s lifetime subscription will come to a sad end on the 17th of December in 2055.

Thank you Rolling Stone, but can I sign up for an extra year or so?

A similarly strange experience with a brand occured the other night when I got Fast Food on my way home. Being mostly Vegetarian, I maybe eat Fast Food 5 times a year or so, but coming home late from the office I did not feel like cooking, so I stopped by Panda Express. After already feeling guilty, and quite unhappy about a not-so-great late night dinner experience, I was OK with eating that Fortune Cookie too. Might as well.

Here was the message, or may I call it ‘fortune’, from Panda Express to its customer:

Ouch. Brand police – where are you?

…come in all shapes and forms. The turtle that comes to my mind is the one in a mark of a magical resort I tend to stay at a couple of times a year. Here is their very appropriate logo:

It was surprising to see the logo below in an article in the latest issue of Dynamic Graphics. The fat headline above reads ‘I DID IT MY WAY’. Ouch.

I assume and hope that the logo (which never was used by the designer’s client, luckily for more than one reason, as the article describes), nor its designer, have ever come in touch with El Capitan Canyon, so the likeliness of it being a straight copy, although very omminent on first sight, is quite unlikely.

Then again, you never know when it is plagiarism, and when it is not. To ask that question yourself, I found a blog post that went out for the hunt of these sad examples.

It might make you wonder, and it puts me into a constant fear of it ever happening at Geyrhalter Design.