Friday 27th February:
How can your brand reflect these serious times?
Think like Greek cosmetic brand, Korres, who are bang-on-trend with their new brand aesthetic. More and more brands are adapting their packaging design to the new ‘rough luxe’ environment, reducing sparkle in favour of a more austere, serious aesthetic. Here Korres’ products are starkly labelled with simple fonts and white space, ideal for the new rough luxury consumer.
Korres Natural Products has roots in Athens’ first ever homeopathic pharmacy. Set up in 1996 in order to use its extensive scientific resources to create safe, effective products, the company today offers a complete skin and hair care range including make-up, sun protection products and herbal preparations.
Ref. https://www.lsnglobal.com/seed/view/393
Thursday 26th February:
How can you use all the mechanics of new media to break your brand news?
Michael Surtees (DesignNotes) took a close look at the interaction between different media sources covering the crash of Flight 1549 into the Hudson River. Just by keeping up-to-date on his tweets and tracking down live video and photographs, Surtees was able to stay involved with events as they took place. His article explains how he followed the story via a range of different sites.
DesignNotes reflects on the day’s activity:
http://designnotes.info/?p=1645
“Thinking about it now, the speed of events was pretty crazy. Within an hour and half I’d learned that a plane had landed in the Hudson, saw images within minutes of it happening, watched the rescue live, heard survivor interviews soon after, and by the time it was over knowing that everyone was going to live, I was listening to music from A Flock Of Seagulls. All the tools that I used to get more info was available to anyone out there, which was kind of cool in itself.”
Ref. http://www.psfk.com/2009/01/the-mechanics-of-new-media-for-breaking-news.html
Wednesday 25th February:
How can you help people be more responsible?
Think like Mycashplus.co.uk – the plastic card that makes it impossible to get into debt. It works like a pay-as-you-go phone. You simply top up with cash, or from your bank and you can even have your wages paid straight to it. (Cheers, Wadey)
A prepaid card is similar to the gift cards available from most UK high street chains. However, prepaid cards are more widely accepted, and can be used internationally. They’re the same as credit cards but without the credit. The majority of UK prepaid card providers offer cards embossed with your own name, and some are even CHIP & PIN cards.
Check out http://what-prepaid-card.co.uk/, a comparison site featuring cards such as Bread and Splash as well as Virgin and Tesco.
Tuesday 24th February:
How can you take your brand to the people so the people don’t have to come to you (or the retailer?)
Think like Google who’ve launched an Internet Bus in order to educate Indian people about the web and its benefits. The customised, web-enabled vehicle is bringing the online experience to several towns and cities across India’s Tamil Nadu region, with demonstrations focusing on education, information, communication and entertainment.
The initiative is part of Google’s overall strategy of ‘organising the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful’. Its efforts have also included localising and translating multiple Google applications. Prasad Ram, head of R&D for Google India, explains: “We are passionate about empowering users with information, and the internet democratises access to information. With this initiative, we want to take the power of this medium to people who will really benefit from it.”
Ref. http://springwise.com/non-profit_social_cause/internetbus/
Monday 23rd February:
How can you develop a distinctive and iconic brand that’s also capable of continually adapting to the world around it?
Think like Tel-Aviv agency, designlab, which has developed a modular packaging format for milk that can change shape and colour according to the weather or the value of the dollar. (Thanks, Dr Woo).
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/5401/dag-designlab-tal-mor-and-shlomi-azulay.html
Friday 20th February:
How can you use the web to help people track what’s happening in their lives?
Think like Bedpost, the online beta site that helps people track their sexual encounters. Each time you’ve had sex, simply log in and enter the key details. Users begin by creating a profile for their most recent partner and then enter details such as when it happened, how long it lasted, some descriptive tags and a star-based rating of the experience. The site then presents all the information in a map of activity for the month on the user’s dashboard. For a historical view, Bedpost tracks summary statistics including frequency, average rating, and totals for the month and year so far. ‘Solo sex’ tracking is also available.
As Bedpost notes in its privacy section, sexual data is potentially second only to financial information in its sensitivity. But will consumers be willing to trust a third party with that information—and will the benefits make any risk worthwhile? Time will tell. In the meantime, Bedpost is seeking donations as votes for the project’s long-term viability.
Ref http://springwise.com/lifestyle_leisure/bedpost/
Thursday 19th February:
How can you develop cost-effective ways for people to personalise the stuff they buy from you?
Think like Sydney-based Grippiks, which sells coloured and patterned adhesive sheets for you to customise your IKEA furniture. Grippiks Surface Accents are pre-cut to just the right sizes for some of IKEA’s most popular items, including its Billy, Benno, Expedit and Effektiv storage solutions, Lack tables and Malm drawers. The plastic-based film grips surfaces using micro suction rather than sticky adhesive, so the sheets are easy to position, reposition and remove without bubbles or sticky residue.
Ref http://springwise.com/homes_housing/grippiks/
Wednesday 18th February:
Humour is a great antidote to this 24/7 stressed out world – just take a leaf out of F*** My Life’s book
F*** My Life (FML) is a forum for people to share the semi-awful but trivial things that happen to them. It’s an online form of what the Germans call ‘schadenfreude’, which translates into ‘pleasure derived from another’s misfortune’. So if you ever need reassurance that someone, somewhere is having a worse time than you, this is the place to go. You can even vote on whether you agree that their life is indeed f***ed and whether they deserved it or not.
For example, “Today, when I tried on a pair of pants at the mall, I asked the salesperson if I could have the next size up. She informed me there wasn’t a next size up. I have to LOSE weight to fit into the biggest pair of pants the store makes. FML.”
#29334 (3) – 02/12/2009 at 12:45am by ardenm – misc – I agree, your life is f***ed (206) – you deserved that one.
Ref. http://www.dailycandy.com/everywhere/article/41598/The+Weekend+Guide
Tuesday 17th February:
How can you help ease people’s anxieties about health, the environment and violence?
Think like the late avant-garde composer, John Cage, who composed the longest and slowest piece of music in history, designed to go on for 639 years. The piece is called ‘As Slow As Possible’ and the first three notes, which will last for a year-and-a-half, were played on 11 February on a church organ in Halberstadt, Germany. (Many thanks to Laura for spotting this one).
We see similar ideas from people like the Slow Food Movement. This organisation was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions, people’s dwindling interest in the origins and the quality of the food they eat, and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.
Monday 16th February:
How can you help people in their moment of need?
Think like vending shoe brand, Rollasole, who know that the best nightclubbing shoes are painful, precarious and perilously pointy. So, just like a modern-day prince charming, they’re here to save your stiletto-sore feet. Next time you’re all danced out, one of their vending machines will give you a pair of stylish, comfy pumps and a shiny new bag to shove your sling-backs in – all for a fiver. (Thanks to dancing queen Emma for this one).
