Clever Drawings With GPS Tracking

Ever since live GPS tracking allowed people to see the paths they've walked/run/biked, people have gotten the bright idea to make pictures. There was a woman a few years back who famously drew all kinds of penises while running with her Nike+ app, and now there is a guy who biked 125 miles just so he could draw a picture of a goat. I gotta say, I'm not immune to immortalizing myself through GPS drawings--the two pictured in this post are my attempts. It required some planning in Google Maps and running with a sheet of detailed instructions on when to turn on which streets.

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Packaging: 10 Steps to a Better Process

1. Prioritize. Prioritize. Prioritize. When three people are talking to you, you can’t hear them all. The same is true for design. Visual priority must be established from the very beginning of the design process. If every item is given primary importance, nothing becomes important. The visual priorities are what drive how all creative will be judged. The design firm should include as part of their creative brief, a hierarchy of 5 communication points for the front of the package. This includes 1) brand 2) product name 3) why-to-buy statement 4) feature points 5) product image. 2. Come together. Everyone has an opinion, so clear project objectives are vital to any job. Consensus regarding the creative brief must be obtained from the people expected to judge the package design from within your corporation. Without this consensus, the design process will fall apart. Without clearly stated, agreed-upon objectives, you are not able to provide constructive feedback. As soon as you start t...

New and Not Necessarily Improved

A story in the March 3, 2009 issue of the LA Times regarding the unfavorably received new Pepsi brand redesign reminded me of another recent unsuccessful redesign—the one for Tropicana orange juice. A few months ago, I was in a Target store buying some orange juice. I usually get the Tropicana brand, and was disappointed when I didn't see any in the cases. I just saw a bunch of unfamiliar cartons that I immediately wrote off as "not Tropicana" and kept looking around. It was only during a second pass that I realized that these new cartons were indeed Tropicana. Wow, I thought, that's a pretty radical new look. Gone were any vestiges of familiarity--the funky old-style logo, and especially the orange with the straw stuck in it. The new carton is dominated by a large shot of a tasteful-looking (not necessarily tasty-looking) glass of orange juice, with the word "Tropicana" in an unfamiliar sans serif font and green color turned 90º clockwise along the side. T...

Let Your Packaging Sell Your Product, Not a Funny Name!

So I ran across this product while I was traveling in NY and needed some earplugs. I can't sleep without them. Earplugs are notoriously hard to find on shelf so I had to scan many products. I came across this product and got quite a chuckle. I don't think I need to explain why (To be fair, it was awhile ago, and the package design could have changed since then.): Zim's Crack Creme---we can assume that Zim is the pharmacist who created this all-natural herbal wonder cream (creme) for your crack. Or is that really what this means. Surly it couldn't. We design packaging and I couldn't help but analyze this package as I would for a client. The first thing we help our clients do is to prioritize the elements on the front of the package. What is the most important thing to communicate? The name? The brand? The why-to-buy? The features? Obviously, Zim felt the name of the product was most important. But if the name of the product doesn't really convey what it doe...

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