The Brits have found the golden lining to gray economic clouds, with the yummiest example being a new candy created for the London department store, Selfridges & Co.

While Credit Crunch candy may seem a simple indulgence to help ease the force-fed diet of economic gruel, it illustrates one smart tactic to encourage consumers back to the stores. The British Retail Consortium states that retail sales are down 2.2% for October on a same-store basis, so they need to take steps to tempt consumers back. In America, Deloitte’s 23rd Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends indicates that 59% of consumers expect to spend less this season. In fact, 11% are still paying off last holiday season’s spending binge. Read the rest of this entry »

Take an odd tour of our space with Dave. This is our beloved creative nest. It’s fun, colorful, retro and…well frankly…a tad weird. Let me take you through some of the nooks and crannies at “wacko central.”  Read the rest of this entry »

Birth Announcement:

Baby boy, named Planet.

Weight 13,440 pounds.

Length 372 inches.

Marc Quinn is a well known British artist, one of the so-called 90’s YBAs (Young British Artists), of whom Damien Hirst was the most prominent member. One of Quinn’s signature pieces in the art world is Self, a frozen sculpture of the artist’s head made from several pints of his own blood, taken from his body over a number of months. It featured in Saatchi’s controversial Sensation exhibition. Another stunning piece involves his challenging work regarding sculptures of amputees, reinterpreting classical representations of our relationships with physical imagery. Alison Lapper Pregnant was erected on the vacant fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, London for many months.

Quinn’s Planet is part of Sotheby’s astonishing display of fine works for auction on display at Chatsworth House as part of their Beyond Limits sale. There is an astonishing video. The juxtaposition of contemporary art and the ancestral home of the Dukes of Devonshire is mind blowing.

What the world’s greatest composers are noted for, so are we! Omaha Symphony’s Music Director, Thomas Wilkins, was interviewed on KIOS. In a conversation about Berlioz and Mozart, Wilkins spoke about the transcendent beauty created by these great composers, who illustrated that emotion alone has no integrity and intellect alone has no art. It is that amazing synergy between the two that produces moments that arrest the human spirit.

Our branding process may not have the acclaim of Mozart or Berlioz, but we certainly engage the symbiosis of science and art in developing stunning brands.

I was at a brand conference recently and heard Dan Hill give the keynote address about emotionomics, facial coding and innate human physical reactions. We know that people say one thing, but may feel differently or behave in a manner inconsistent with what they have told us. That is a minefield for sellers seeking to connect with their consumers.

Dan Hill spoke about the need to tap into consumers’ unconscious feelings in order to understand how to truly connect with them. His premise is based upon the non-verbal, instinctive physical cues that humans inevitably provide in response to situations, especially those cues in facial expressions due to the unique physiognomy of the human face. Consider the fact that there are a number of innate behaviors that are not socially developed, such as the tendency of a baby of any cultural background to smile and recognize smiles, or that people blind from birth also instinctively know how to smile. Read the rest of this entry »

karim rashid kite chair

karim rashid kone cleaner

Karim Rashid was in Omaha last week and offered an insightful and entertaining chat with the audience, somewhat along the lines of a loosely structured monologue of thought. Despite some apparently contradictory comments, Rashid spoke of the democratization of design, centered on the recognition that all of human existence involves interaction with design. Rashid suggested that the more design focused on the function and aesthetic of the design, combined with an open-minded creative decision making process, the more democratic design was, because it then served the needs inherent in everyone’s experience of human existence.

In a fun expression of this ethos, Karim Rashid referred to “divertente,” which he applied to design that makes you feel alive and present. My only regret is that the Karim Rashid design that I would really like, the Kite chair, is (undemocratically) beyond my budget, although I can afford and have at home his Kone vacuum cleaner!

One of the key reasons that I am a strong brand designer and consultant is my intense passion for, and loyalty to, the brands I love and those I work for. 

You can pry my iPhone or my Mac from my cold, dead fingers! 

Unless it’s an Omaha Steak, it’s flavorless shoe leather! 

No lady – Diet Pepsi is absolutely NOT okay!!!

But I have a big secret. And with this post, I’m completely out of the closet. My first – and still one of my strongest brand connections is to a freakin’ furry cartoon character. Strange but true. I confess my soulful adoration for Bugs Bunny. Yup. The irreverent nonchalant hare is one of my true heros. Read the rest of this entry »

The Web acts as a gateway to an immeasurable amount of resources and information. However, the main access point for all of these sites are a relatively small number of sites – the bottlenecks and watchdogs for Web content - search engines. So, as a Flash Developer, one of the first questions you learn to fear is, “How will this Flash content show up in search results?” Flash is, unfortunately, by and large invisible to search engines - which is a major detriment to the growth potential of the technology. And although the best answer is to provide an alternative HTML version of the content, any programmer worth his salt will go out of his way to avoid having to do repetitive labor. So, here are a few tricks we’ve picked up along the way.

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It is hard to be at a design firm like dd|a and not have an interest, call it “lust,” for art. I only wish I had the wallet to match. That said, Omaha’s Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts has a stellar art auction each November at which my art libido has hit overdrive. In recent years, they have exhibited the works for a few weeks prior to the event. For the attendee, that has the benefit of providing a sense of the art before the evening’s bidding scrum, while allowing the Bemis to maintain a quality art exhibition and even pre-sell some of the art work. Read the rest of this entry »

A fun survey of Presidential nominees brand associations was published by Landor Associates and Penn, Schoen & Berland on October 21. While I did not feel the brands associated with the candidates reflected my own views of which brand I would associate with each candidate, the exercise was a good reminder of the power of brand archetypes. A more considered perspective was that of Robert Draper’s piece, The Making (and Remaking and Remaking) of the Candidate, in The New York Times Magazine’s October 26 issue, regarding the shifting sands of McCain’s campaign narrative. In either case, what is compellingly evident is that Presidential politics are an excellent illustration of the power of associating an iconic story with the person. Read the rest of this entry »