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?

The people that form it, first and foremost. That is why I love the way this company chose to showcase their people on their web site. First you see the information labeled ‘IMPORTANT’, which is the stuff that goes on a CV, the tidbits customers NEED to hear. Then there is a second link titled ‘CRUCIAL’, which talks about what makes them as a person. Not that they love bike riding and sailing, but the information that really makes them who they are. And that is what customers really WANT to hear. Kudos.

‘Send It Certified’, a startup company, approached us around a month ago, and after a couple of meetings we were convinced that they have a great idea and the power and background to make it happen. In more of a partnership then vendor approach, Geyrhalter Design engaged in the first step, the Identity Design. Send It Certified’s current tag line is ‘Your Private E-Delivery Network’, and in short the company is a fast, secure and affordable alternative to the vulnerabilities and inadequacies of standard email (Did the e-mail end up in Spam? Has it ever been read? Will the Administrator read highly secure information?) and the expense and delays of overnight delivery services (Plus the fact that FedEx often just leaves a package in front of the actual delivery address, or with a neighbor). One of the most amazing features though is that ‘Send It Certified’ offers to send e-mails biometrically secure, so by finger print identifications. Quite an amazing offering, and also a lot to address in a simple mark.

Our solution, as seen above, conveys a lot of the points, in a very simplistic visual manner:

The white spaces to the left and right are a metaphor for two fingers, as in a sender and recipient (with the lines becoming the friction ridges), meeting to exchange the biometrically secure data, which is shown by the orange portion, which becomes evident by the further use of orange in the word ‘Certified’. The round shape of the mark represents the worldwide/global service area, while the circles enforce the notion of spreading a message. The larger blue areas in the logo mark stand as a metaphor for the ubiquious area of non-certified exchanges, as enforced by the blue type reading ‘Send It’.

As we are engaging in all other areas of creating Brand Atmospheres for SenditCertified, which we will share with you at a later point, or through our soon-to-be-relaunched web site, we feel well-weaponed with an Identity in tow that is as trustworthy and established as it feels significant and high-tech.

Italian photographer Mateo Ferrari shows a series of photographs of people being loyal to their cars, over quite a significant number of years. What happened to brand loyalty in the car industry – and where are the objects of desire anno 2008 to be found? How many people do you know who buy (and not lease) and keep their car over the span of more then 10 years?

I just signed up a dream client/job for Geyrhalter Design. A client who actually needs a real brand (mark), one to put on his barrels of wine. We will create all aspects of our Brand Atmospheres offerings for a new Winery up north and I could not be more thrilled about the first written (‘snail mail’) communication I received from my client: A check in a blank envelope with a real wine-glass stain as the ‘seal’ on the back. Especially after a day of a record setting 9 hours (!) of continuous lecturing at Art Center College Of Design, receiving this envelope in the mail surely put a grin on my face. I will keep you updated, after the research/hangover phase is over.

Cheese? Ham? Bacon? I know whatever made its way into these ‘Lean Pockets’ surely ain’t very healthy, but do I want ‘brand’ in my sandwich? ‘A brand stuffed sandwich’ – sorry, but help me out on this one because I am quite puzzled. I do promise, in return, that this is the only, and last post about anything to do with nasty frozen sandwiches. Promised.