Great branding firms do not create for the past, they also just keep the present in mind when designing for the future.

Change is hard to give into, especially when it intrudes an era of historic connections with die-hard fans, but there is a larger chance that Landor’s work will in fact do what it promises to deliver, which is to turn DC Comics’ objectives into a lively, current and adjustable brand platform that is weathered for changes within DC Comics that outside spectators, like myself, can not be aware of.

Branding has a large visual component to it, but that is only a part of it. It is unfortunate though that the other parts are hidden from the public, only the client and the agency know those complex pieces of information. What is left for brand advocates (‘fans’), is to form an opinion about a visual, which is a highly objective exercise. If bundled with waving good-bye to a brand mark that is dear to their hearts, in exchange for a visual that they might not immediately connect with, it is a sure formula for fan outcry. It happens all the time. Read this fun post ‘The History of the DC Comic Logo, As Seen Through 70 Years of Internet Comments’ for some mainly fictional, yet very funny DC Comics history.

Rarely are large consumer facing re-branding projects greeted with solely smiling faces by advocates, but what is most important is that over time the majority of those brands succeed, strive and show the results that the agency is being paid for to deliver. And with Landor, who myself and my peers have a lot of respect for, given their track record, there is a more-than-good chance this will be the case for the evolution of the DC comics brand.

I am not sure if this heals the pain of disappointed fans like @jwojchi, but time surely will.

Geyrhalter & Co. has an ideal location on Main Street in Santa Monica. It’s close to the ocean which makes for a perfect lunch hour. Walk two sunny blocks to the beach, take your shoes off, and eat your lunch. A true “sandwich,” as it were.

The lunch choices in our neighborhood are plentiful. Within a few-block radius we can choose omusubi or seitan and pico de gallo or pancakes. But with too many choices comes indecision.

How to break out of the office-lunch doldrums? When my co-workers and I can’t decide where to eat, we leave the decision to a cavalier roll of the dice. This practice is aptly called, “Lunch Dice.” (The term works like the word “Google” does. Nothing sounds good today? You can “use” the Lunch Dice or, you can “lunch dice it.”)

As I am sure by now you are riveted, you’re asking, “so what happened next?” It’s pretty simple really: we posted our fave lunch places on the sides of some blank dice and around 11:45 we fish one out and let it ride.

The only rule is that you can’t overrule the dice. The dice is gospel.

Here’s how to make your own:

1. Pick up some blank dice
2. Write a different local lunch place on each side of the dice
3. Roll the dice and go

Lunch dice aren’t for everyday, though. Some days, we know we absolutely must have a carne asada burrito, and some days we just need some Me time and we don’t order lunch together. But let me tell you, some days those dice get us out of some sticky situations. We’ve even seen hilarity ensue.

It is interesting when you listen to the 80′s pop genre. The music you know, you think of as ‘amazing’ and then once you hear B-sides or tracks on full lengths that you have not been exposed to, they sound, well, dated. Or shall we say ‘cheesy’, and often plain embarrassing.

The same holds true for the record sleeve designs, as you can see in the examples below:

We see all the 80′s had to offer: The haircuts, the neon, the bad typography, the ‘wild’ angles and effects. Sadly, the same forgettable design is to be ‘heard’ on a lot of the tracks that are hidden behind those album covers.

Yet my  top two 80′s albums, Depeche Mode’s ‘Music For The Masses’ and U2′s ‘The Joshua Tree’ seem to be immune to what is going on around them, in sound as well as design sophistication.

There seems to be a formula. Timeless compositions equal timeless designs. Great artists, regardless of their background and genres know to stay away from styles and trends and like working with like minded individuals or firms. It seems that they create work solely with inspiration that comes from within, a gut instinct, driven by just one fundamental thing: a strong concept.

Looking through design annuals of the past years this thread holds true. Trends become a big wash and the only items that truly stand out are new concepts; fresh ideas that are followed through with a smart and appropriate design solution.

Designers, let’s live by this rule! And for those Entrepreneurs and Marketing Managers looking to hire an agency; this might be an important variable to consider when interviewing the agency that creates your brand atmosphere, so that come 2011, no one feels that your brand feels ‘oh so 2010′.

Now we all know how important brands are in our every day shopping routine. From chocolate to clothing, from cars to consumer electronics, in one way or another, we are all brand name oriented consumers, even if we often neglect it in public; it could be seen as being shallow.

When figuring out the taste of this wine, I was stunned on how it threw me off that I could not have the visual representation of the wine in front of me while doing so. I was at that important moment of forming an opinion and it seemed that an integral piece was not being communicated to me. It affected my emotional connection with the product. I do not know if the above average wine would have turned into a very good wine, but it did make me realize once again how life without brands and visual representations would be, it would be brand communism.

I say, indulge in consumerism, form your emotional connections, be seduced. Knowingly and with great pleasure, let that hint of lemon in your wine turn into a hint of lime.

13 years later, the talented designers at Geyrhalter & Co are busy working on two new film posters, two web sites and several collateral pieces for Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion in Vienna, Austria. Fabian’s brother has since emerged as one of Europe’s most successful and important documentarians and we want to use this moment to look back at the work we have created for Nikolaus’ important films over the past 13 years. If you are intrigued, which we hope you will be, you can view trailers of his films via this YouTube channel.

Top to bottom: The Year After Dayton (1997), Pripyat (1999), Elsewhere (2001), Our Daily Bread (2005), 7915km (2008)

He thinks the magazine is “dull to behold, dull, dull” and wants its graphic design to be “as meaningful, as imperative, as the written expression.”

To us, this is a very significant statement showcasing the understanding of the importance graphic and brand design has gained with corporate veterans over the past years. It also signals that the marriage of design and content is seen to indeed create a more successful message delivery. While changes in staff and editorial views would be on top of the list for most newly appointed owners at this significant turning point, for Mr. Harman it seems to be the creation of a distinct and harmonious Brand Atmosphere in order to compete and win in an industry that is on the verge of collapse.

A smart move. In this day and age of content source overload, a news publication needs to create a product that differentiates and convinces through its design. We can’t wait to see the changes come around, maybe on Mr. Harman’s 93rd birthday?

I was thrilled to see a full page in yesterday’s New York Times Sunday Edition being dedicated to depicting the world cup to date. Being spoiled by the beautiful trend of seeing not only useful, but also extremely creative and conceptual information graphics these days – a trend that was definitely fed by Good Magazine – I was ready to analyze. Too bad I did not get very far, as the designer of this page clearly designed in color, which then got translated into a greyscale chart, with a gradation from dark to light and right back to dark again, making the chart impossible to accurately decipher and quite hard on the eyes. It surely is an unfortunate mishap to happen on a full page within the New York Times on a Sunday, but lesson learned: Design according to the medium and the restrictions from the very start of the assignment, because, like in this case, the medium is the message.

I illustrated or photographed each piece and was in desperate need of a great looking old wheel for the calendar’s cover. Down the street from where I lived in Santa Monica there it was, in a shop window. A strange shop it was as it was never open to the public and no one really knew what exactly was being sold. I caught an old man opening a side door and that’s how I met Parke Meek. A remarkable man who worked with Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles and Ray Eames, and who let a young Mr. Geyrhalter shoot his props for that calendar and shared his stories with me that fine day.

Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times announced that the little shop, Jadis, will be open today at 11:00 AM to the public to sell its vast inventory of curiosities, which were mainly rented by studios as props. In true fashion it was not yet open by 11:45 AM when I swang by to see if I could purchase that wheel as a memory of Parke Meek, who passed away in January at age 86. Thanks to the LAT write up, people lined up around the block. So instead of being in line, I opted to share this article about a great man, and some shots of my 2000 calendar with you:

Link to the Los Angeles Times Article

Pictures of the shop

Why is it that the more prestigious the design competition, the more it costs to enter?

Prices for a single entry can be around $120. But once you are selected to either receive an award, or be published in the awards annual, which after all is part of the exercise, there will be an additional fee of $280 – $400. And that is for just one single entry.

Sure, we play along. Sometimes. As we see fit, and for projects we feel deserve to be honored. But we too draw the line.

Let’s not forget that we are an agency, we have a PR budget and cash flow. How about all the students, freelancers, micro design firms, nonprofits and other entities that may have the big, creative, genius ideas that we should all be drooling over? The ideas that really look different because they come from folks that may not have ‘corporate’ breathing down their necks, or they do it for free, out of passion and just for fun? Isn’t that often when truly great ideas happen? They will never be in any of the ‘big’ award books showcasing the best, the brightest and most amazing ideas. The books that design students get for christmas, that turn into their text books of what they ought to measure their own creativity with, are lacking to showcase just that, the unconditionally best creative endeavours.

Like with any business, a contest revolves around having a budget. The more prestigious, the more funding it requires to produce the top quality books and award statues, to get the great judges, to do the office work and drum up the necessary PR. Fully understood. But in my eyes these contests should not be limiting creative entries based on an individual’s, or a small firm’s, cash on hand. Instead they should find a corporate sponsor that wants to be seen as a forward-thinking-creative-problem-solving-type (Hmmm, not sure I can name a single one of those?) and eliminate the entry fees.

May the true talent win…and give the sponsor a shot at creative bliss while you’re at it.

Glued to the book, I intuitively used the ticket stub as my bookmark and as Mr. Jarrett started playing, I thought of the emotional connection that bookmarks have with the time, the space, the moment in ones life when a specific book was being read. But once the book is put to sleep on the book shelf, that memory is buried, indefinitely. Quite different to a piece of music which can reach your ears unsuspectedly at a gas station, a bar, a restaurant, the car radio, yet it has the same power of almost instantly catapulting you back to a particular scene of your life. The book on the other hand is simply ‘filed away’. I thought it would be great to create a simple web site for anyone to upload their otherwise ‘bookshelved’ bookmarks. Great to have them archived, fun to share and even more fun to peruse other people’s books with their unique or fun bookmarks. Who knows, if a good number of people start using it, we might want to add social components to the site in the future.

The book I was reading, ‘Rework’, has a chapter in it that talks about not trying to produce a finished product, but rather launch it in a bare bones state. If people like it then change the good product to a perfect one (‘Launch now’, Pg 93). Good is good enough. It also declares death to procrastination (‘Start Making Something’, Pg 38). Funny as I run my company in many of the ways described in the book, and many of the others are big aspirations for this year. So here I was at an inspirational concert, an inspirational setting, reading an inspirational book and I had a quick idea.

The next day I showed a napkin sketch of the site to my team and I asked them if they felt it was a good idea. They agreed. I handed it over to our new developer, Tyler, to develop such site in a couple of days time. Sure it took a month, but he was busy on client work and becoming a dad in between, so we estimate his time on the project was less then 4 business days, combined with my input. Technical specs were communicated via IM on the fly until it felt right, and the design did not involve any of our designers (both approaches are usually against our company process when working with clients). It was quick, easy and most importantly fun and very fulfilling for everyone at Geyrhalter Design.

So if you get a chance, read Rework. If you have 5 minutes, look for your hidden bookmarks and add to the collection. And if you have an idea, just go for it. You don’t want to be like everybody else that says ‘I had that idea years ago, I can’t believe these guys did it before me’, because having an idea or transforming a thought into an action are two very different things.