News round-up 17.02.12
17.02.12
With all the news you need (and some you probably don’t, but will enjoy) – it’s the Big Picture News Round up.
Time for a Big Picture News Round-up, (probably) everyone’s favourite quasi-monthly summary of news which is wholly, partially or vaguely related to the worlds of design and marketing.
Name That Brand Game!
We start this week with the bit that normally comes at the end – Name That Brand. But there’s good reason for this: in response to its popularity within our news round-ups, we’ve made it into a fully-fledged interactive game. Think you know your brands? Prove it right here.
Cogs of Industry
Fans of Fosters beer and Alan Partridge are rejoicing at news that the Fosters-sponsored internet comedy series Mid Morning Matters is set to return. The first series of the Youtube-based comedy attracted over 3m hits. Cashback.
Anyone who has ever opened a new Apple product will know that the packaging is no afterthought, and in fact is an experience in itself – not something many brands pull off. How do they do it? Well the secret’s out – they have a packaging room where “for months, a packaging designer was holed up performing the most mundane of tasks – opening boxes”. Read more on Apple’s shadowy packaging department here.
Cillit Bang has a new variant which will be sold exclusively through Facebook. The move is the first of a series of social commerce trials by owners Reckitt Benckiser, and will also see the return of cult hero Barry Scott.
Morrisons are launching a new veggie-friendly range in collaboration with Atul Kochhar, the first Indian chef to be awarded a Michelin star.
Mobile technology will decide who wins the High Street battle, according to a report. Contactless cards have been around for a bit now (e.g. London’s Oyster cards), and the next move for the technology seems to be in mobile phones. There’s already an app than allows mobile transactions for Barclays, and Near Field Communication (NFC) – a technology that allows mobile phones to act like the cards do – is likely to be built into future smartphones.
Reason to be happy: there was a retail sales jump in January, according to the office of National Statistics.
Commentary Corner
It’s finally the year of the Games, so an apt time to revisit that logo. We take a fresh look at the identity, and reflect on how it’s working out now that the Olympics are upon us.
Another one of ours – a look at the wave of kitsch that’s rolling through packaging. Is the vogue for vintage transient, or here to stay? And, according to Sainsbury’s, it’s not just packaging that’s going back to the future, it’s shopper habits too.
JKR have an interesting blog on the current trend for novelty flavours, like KitKat’s ‘chunky champion’ campaign.
Brand identity blog/bible Brand New gives their opinion on the new Dulux identity, which we worked on with Design Bridge.
Pretty Packaging
Here’s another we worked on – the new Häagen-Dazs pack, designed by Lewis Moberly. More here.
Here’s some nice clean work by wpaPINFOLD on British ale Tetley’s, which reinstates the huntsman as a brand equity.
Here’s a nice bit of branding and packaging work by Studio Output for Irish confectionary brand Pandora Bell. More here.
Here’s some interesting concept packaging for Heineken by KISSMIKLOS, created as part of a contest that you can read about here.
Here’s an interesting eco-packaging concept by students Federico Beyer and Marisol Escorza. The expandable pack allows customers the ability to pack from 100g to 200g of chocolates in one pack, protecting the chocolate and keeping it in the best condition.
These are Bonnie’s Jams by Louise Fili Ltd, and they’re awfully pretty. More here.
And Finally
Ever wondered what your favourite album art would have looked like if designers didn’t exist? No? Well here it is anyway: this is ClipArt Covers, chronicling just how nasty album covers become when the twin evils of Comic Sans and ClipArt combine.
Cats’ residency as King of the Internet Memes continues, this month with ‘Cats as fonts‘ – a helpful guide to fonts’ character, as explained by cats in costumes. What did we do before the internet, ay?
This is a vortograph, a method of photography credited to Alvin Langdon Coburn that generates the kind of Inception-esque landscapes shown opposite. This one is by photographer Simon Gardiner. There’s more info here.
Typography fans prepare to be floored: witness the amazing calligraphic skills of steady-handed Luca Barcellona in the amazing video here.
Name That Brand
What’s that? You scrolled straight down to this, completely bypassing the amazing news that there’s now a recession-inducingly-addictive interactive name that brand game? Oh well, you know now. Name That Brand will return in its usual format next month.
Oh yes – and the impossibly hard Name That Brand from last month was Disney, believe it or not.