Most people I know want to find a way to give back to society, to be a positive force for change. Some are able to contribute financially to causes they support, some donate time as volunteers, and a select lucky few can use their professional skills for philanthropy. I have been fortunate over the past months to engage with ‘one of the best philanthropy programs in design education‘ (Print Magazine), Art Center College Of Design’s Designmatters program. I was conducting an Independent Study with one student where our task was to create an Identity System for a United Nations sub division in Bangkok counteracting gender-based violence in the Asia-Pacific region. The project will come to a successful close this week with another 3-way skype call to the client in Bangkok presenting him with the full style guide for the new Identity. An experience that combined strategic design thinking, branding, academics and philanthropy, all on a global level and with the finest of institutions.This week I will embark on the next journey. Again with Designmatters and the United Nations. I will teach a trans-disciplinary class with the goal of creating public awareness and subsequently media attention through provocative and successful campaigns catered to the future generation of small gun owners. The intervention will launch and/or take place in Mexico City during the 62nd Annual DPI/NGO Conference in September this year and should live on thereafter as a campaign, via media coverage and in the minds of 10-13 year olds that find themselves at a pre-puberty turning point where they are the most likely to put a gun in their hands for the first time. The effort will be a collaboration with Mexico’s leading design school, CENTRO, through video conferencing and in-person sessions as the students will travel north to participate in some classes on Pasadena’s campus. It will take 14 weeks in which I will host many guest panelists on interventions as well as the subject matter of disarmament, all brought in through Designmatters amazing network. I will make sure to check in with you on this blog about this great adventure, the challenging task ahead as well as the important results.

I fully understand that we are all bored hearing about the Tropicana branding fiasco, but Geyrhalter Design has been in the juice label design world for a while now with our client Evolution, so we just can not help but keep thinking about it. The fact that the new – now old – Tropicana package hinted at the same design sensibilities that attract clients to Geyrhalter Design (clean and simple ‘Swiss Design‘), does not help get our minds off the subject matter. It is challenging to deal with an existing brand, an existing image that might seem like it is outdated to designers, but there is an emotional connection to that image, even though it goes against all experts’ opinions. As Alex Kuczynski noted in the Design Spring ‘09 Edition of TMagazine, customers of brands that evoke childhood memories, such as OJ or snicker bars, don’t think in terms of good versus bad design and outdated versus current. Sometimes the new needs to be massaged into the old, creating a transitional phase in a re-branding effort. That way it can be seen as a nice update, an upgrade even, but still look familiar to let the consumer know that they still get ‘the same good stuff’, just in a more professional package. Below you can see a project we approached the same way for Evolution Juice a couple of months ago. When I was at Whole Foods last week I spotted our revised label next to a ‘No Pulp’, original, label and it very nicely reinforced this point. 

Geyrhalter Design’ed web site and brand for Audiolife received a nice treatment on ‘Attack of the show’. Check it out on G4. 

We receive an e-mail about our business cards every day. Potential clients who want ‘the same card’, designers who want to re-create them for themselves, or publishers and collectors who want to publicize the card. What is new to our collection of admirers is a company that seems to have build a business around our card. Utilizing a near-replica of the card I designed 6 years ago, they proclaim it is ‘the hottest thing on the market’ that will enable you to ’set yourself apart from the competition’. Maybe it is finally time for ourselves to re-design our cards so we can set ourselves apart from followers. Ah, the beauty of the media. Thanks to my former student Strahan for the great detective work. Hey, were you trying to print your own GD-cards?? ; )  

As a nice follow-up to yesterday’s music packaging entry, the New York Times today features a very interesting article confirming that the recently introduced new packaging design for Tropicana will be exchanged with…the old one.

Why? Consumers hate it.

How did PepsiCo find out? Via Twitter.

How will that change the job of brand-, advertising- and design agencies?

They will listen.

Again.

…maybe the newly launched Pepsi branding effort will be scrapped next? Surely everyone has been complaining. The money that could be saved by using 2.0 technologies prior, during and after major re-branding efforts and the idea of the resulting success is just imminent.

I taught a class at Art Center College Of Design with the focus on creating Brand Atmospheres™ for an artist or a band. I am very passionate about music, design and branding, so the outcome of the class was a big success for the students as well as for myself, which most often is the case when you put passionate people to work together.

Based on us just having spent 3 months designing for music as a group, it was reassuring to see today’s digital music fans being very opinionated, and also quite savvy, about design and brands that are being built around their favorite artists as new albums are being released.

Three of my favorite creative collaborators, Depeche Mode, U2 and Anton Corbjin, sparked this blog entry. Depeche Mode’s soon to be released single design to the upcoming ‘Sounds of the Universe’ album is, well, let’s face it ‘wrong’. I will not bash it more then others have already done before me, but it is amazing to see fans’ mock-versions appearing online when the single will not even be released until April 6th. As a bonus I throw in the design of the full-length, just so we all understand the depth of the design issue at hand. Anton Corbjin is the backbone of the visual re-launch of the Depeche Mode brand in 2009, and it shows that an amazing creative force with a unique vision for the moving image, does not immediately make a good graphic or brand designer. Or typographer of course:

The mock ‘remix’:

The full length album design (NOT a mock-version):

U2’s just as eagerly awaited full-length feels like the opposite to me and I was taken by its beauty and modern simplicity, yet the equal sign disturbed me mainly because of Coldplay’s very apparent and frequent use of the ‘trade fair’ symbol. Yet, as you can read here, fans of photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and U2 had their own strong opinions.

And the ‘trade fair’ logo as seen in tattoo form:

The power of brand building, seen in one of its mass market – and most competitive and critically viewed – forms.

On that note I salute our friends at Audiolife for having launched their web site recently. The power of music and design, displayed in a visual language that, we hope, shares common ground.

Barneys catalogue, Winter ‘08…

…meet BCBG catalogue, Spring ‘09:

I hope you two get along.

Looks like you might, since you share the same style.

At least on first glance…let’s see what happens when you actually get to know each other a little bit.

If I recognize this on a plain ‘consumer’ level, I just wonder if anyone else does as I won’t be the only household receiving both of these within months of each other. Peculiar.

This is an update to an entry that got erased during a server problem. We added images and a link to a full write up to the post:A while back, I shared a project I was about to undertake for Art Center College Of Design’s designmatters department with you. Time has passed, and about a month ago we travelled to Mexico City to launch this student effort during the 62nd Annual United Nations DPI/NGO Conference.The Vato Verde campaign is a design intervention for civic disarmament that includes environmental, print and multimedia components, which provoke us to take a close look at the complex problem of gun violence in mega cities such as Los Angeles and Mexico City.Vato Verde aims to reach a generation of children and tweens who are at risk for gun violence and often over-exposed to the glamorization of guns in mainstream media. My students decided to work with Claymation for the first time and the campaign has received great interest from educational leaders to be included into curriculums in Puebla, and maybe other states within Mexico.You can now read an updated essay about this campaign as well as view the videos on Art Center’s designmatters site.

The great illustrator Christoph Niemann shares his Lego Graphics on the New York Times Blog. My former employee Evelyn shared it with me, and voila, as times are busy, I am relying on second hand inspiration : )

Click here for the full Legomania.

Ahhh, the beauty of visual language. Not quite politically correct, yet quite hilarious. I know nothing about this campaign, not even if it is a real campaign (or a real beer therefor), so if you know more about this good communicator of a campaign, please comment. Enjoy:

Thanks to Geyrhalter Design Alumni Cum Laude, now Full-Time Googler, Evelyn for sharing.