Fresh

It was the beginning of the year when I first saw the “modern” design look of Tropicana’s new packaging. I stopped the cart immediately to run over and grab the first carton I could get my hands on to examine all of its design elements (Most of you reading this blog I assume understand this instinct to look at every angle of this new packaging, while others of you just nod and smile). Now, I have enjoyed OJ all my life, and would consider myself to be a prime customer target in the cutthroat game of pulverized citrus played by the major citrus syndicates. During the next few weeks after I saw the packaging I had at least a handful of conversations about it with agency and non-agency people around town, while also reading at least a couple of articles about this subject. Each conversation and article ended with the same conclusion … this was a bad move by Tropicana. As it turns out we weren’t the only ones.

The New York Times had a great article yesterday about the backlash Tropicana received in this “brave new customer finger tip feedback world”. Apparently a small, loyal and very vocal group sent countless emails, posted numerous posts and even tweeted (The Dylan’s of the world still love their OJ) about how much they despised the new Tropicana packaging. I believe this gives us a great opportunity to look at brands and how customers react when a brand promise is broken. One of my mentors out of college was a great brand strategist and he always instilled into his clients that your brand represented a promise you had with your customer. Your job as the keeper of your brand is to make sure that at all of your communication touch points ring true with this promise. I feel that Tropicana committed major brand FAIL breaking their promise of being a wholesome, natural orange juice (Straw Sticking out of Orange, can’t get much more natural than that!), for something more modern and up-to date.

Tropicana has decided to bring back the Orange (Crowd goes wild!) But, do you think this could be a mistake in the long run? Obviously they went through a lot of meetings and God forbid, focus groups to make this decision. Was this change to soon? Did they not wait long enough for the customers to get used to it? What do you think?

LAIKA’s first full-length movie, Coraline, finally hit the theaters on February 6th to a lot of fanfare and high expectations (especially in Portland). The response from the public on opening weekend definitely gave the Portland animation studio reason to take a deep breath, relax and open a cold one (or 3). The movie came in at #3 in the box office for the weekend and raked in quite a bit more money than was expected.  I got a chance to see it in glorious 3D last Monday, after missing out on a couple showings over opening weekend that were sold out.  Showings were also sold out Monday evening. A word to the wise, if you’re planning on seeing this movie any time soon within the Portland area, get there REALLY EARLY.

Much of the success of the movie’s opening weekend is certainly due to the clever PR campaign ran by Wieden & Kennedy in the few months leading up to the big day.  W+K approached the marketing for Coraline with a multi-faceted approach, doing a few things that movie marketers had never done before – or at least, had never done incredibly well. Check out the laundry list of marketing deeds undertaken by W+K as described on their blog.

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In honor of Valentine’s Day, a time that fills some people’s hearts with warm fuzzies, (and makes others want to hurl) we’ve been musing on the things that we love, and conversely, what we hate, here in the creative department of eROI.

Please enjoy some of our sentiments:

I love the beginning process of a site.
Slice it, dice it and code it all up!
-Mai

My Elton John valentine’s wishes

(love)
That’s What Slices Are For
“Keep slicin’, keep dicin’
Knowin’ you can always help me crop, for sure
That’s what slices are for”

(hate)
Password In The Wind
“And it seems to me you were set-up
like every other site
Never knowing where to go to
when you can’t log in…”
-Julie

I heart clean typography.
-Elliot

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You may recognize Kevin Cornell’s work from reading A List Apart. That’s where I first saw his illustrations, and periodically clicked over to his website, Bearskinrug.co.uk. I immediately fell in love with his style.

One of the things I like most about Kevin’s style is his use of ink. It lends a really neat layered effect to many of his illustrations and I particularly enjoy that it’s non-digital. Another one of my favorite things about Kevin’s illustrations is his use of hand-drawn type. I am a huge sucker for hand-drawn type and I often get my fix from checking out Kevin’s stuff.

The image above is from a side project called The Superest, where Kevin, Matthew Sutter, and several guest artists draw competing superheroes. Each one has to out-super the previous hero. It is HILARIOUS. It is also a fantastic display of hand-drawn type. *swoon*

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Valentine’s Day is looming on the horizon.  If you’re feeling especially amorous over typography (who isn’t??) head over to Font Feed and participate in Valentype 2009.

The contest is as follows: Create a “declaration of love” for an OurType or FontFont typeface (you can use whatever typefaces you want to design with, though.) Types of submissions can include images, poetry, or “whatever you feel like creating.” The winner will take home a license to four weights of an OurType or FontFont typeface of their choice. It’s is open to everyone and runs until Saturday February 14th at midnight GMT.

Learn more about the contest here, and check out the submissions at The Gallery.

I caught a new show that I’m starting to dig… Trust Me.

The setting is an advertising agency and it follows a creative group through it’s daily ups and downs. The dialogue is snappy and I like
seeing Ed (of Ed) and Will (of Will and Grace) team up.

One memorable exchange was about taglines. Are taglines old school? Hmmm…

“Just do it. Think different. Kills bugs dead. When you care enough to send the very best. This Bud’s for you. We try harder. The ultimate driving machine. Uh oh Spaghetti-os.”

The thing that had me thinking though was the working relationship within the agency. Everyone is set up in teams. The creative pair works together on new clients and existing accounts, which led me to wonder ‘what if…’

What if we worked in consistent design & development pairs at eROI?

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Shepard Fairey’s Obama hope poster is an icon, a cultural phenomena. Following his huge success with it, he’s being sued by the Associated Press for alleged copyright infringement on a photo from 2006. This doesn’t come as a surprise to me, as Fairey has been criticized for using others’ work without attribution before (read more about that here).

Fairey’s lawyers are claiming that he is within fair use protection. Personally, I think the poster seems like a derivative work of the photo, in which case he should have gotten permission from whoever owns the rights to the photo before he used it. (Learn more about copyright law and fair use)

At left is the photo from the AP and on the right is Shepard Fairey’s poster.

I’m also torn, because I doubt that the photographer stands to loose any profits from the photograph because of the existence of the poster. In fact, Fairey’s iconic poster may even bolster the market for the photograph.

Fairey’s vision and skill to transform the photo into a meaningful graphic is clear… But does he owe the photographer compensation? It is an original work that was only inspired by the photo, or just a plain rip off of someone else’s work?

What do you think?

This is going to be a killer show. It’s free and all ages, but they do ask you show some love by bringing a donation of one can of food for “your fellow Portlanders in need!” There are over 250 artists lined up.

“To Feel Love” by Remedias Rapaport, 20″ x 24″ x 1.5″
Oil alkyd painting on aluminum & wood panels

Here is the concept: “a non-juried show about love, open to everyone be they beginner or professional; to highlight the complex nature of love as a contrast to all the syrupy romantic schlock we are bombarded with leading up to Valentine’s day; to make a fun, low pressure, non-commercially oriented environment to show vulnerable, honest work.”

It will also feature “songs of Love, Death, Loss and Drunkeness” from Stumptown Sawyers at 9pm. Some of the proceeds of the show are going to the Oregon Food Bank and Buckman Arts Elementary School. The event is presented by Launch Pad Gallery and Portland City Art. Curated by Ben Pink and Chris Haberman.

The results are in! eROI is going to be representing at Cut & Paste PDX!! Our very own Tom O’Toole of iBronto fame will be competing against 7 others in the 2D section.  Congrats Tom!!

I just wanted to say how much I love this illustration by Jason Bergsieker:

It makes me all sorts of happy.
You can buy it on a tee over at Threadless. Via Design Crush.