Transparent House, a San Francisco-based 3D design and visualization studio, allows clients to visually model end products long before committing them to finished processes.
Often, clients know what they want but can’t really envision it, much less articulate that vision to a vendor. The real value-add of Transparent House is not in delivering finished goods but in delivering that articulated vision.
And so it is with their variation on the concrete slab, transforming a cold commodity into warmth and art.
Inventive Allusion
Transparent House didn’t invent nor do they provide concrete etching. Their end product—three-dimensional modeling—allows them to package such concepts as something new and valuable. It helps customers envision new possibilities and unexpected applications through the illusion of reality.
Now that’s resourceful and inventive use of available marketing resources. A core benefit lesson for any brand marketer.
The new ferocious face of the Hamilton Southeastern High School Royals
“Our identity was fragmented; it lacked the presence a class 5A high school athletics program ought to project.”
-Greg Habegger, Hamilton Southeastern Athletic Director
Big Stakes
Brainstorm has branded many sports teams, venues, and organizations over the years: The Indianapolis 500, the U.S. Grand Prix Formula 1 race, the Brickyard 400 and 3M Performance 400 NASCAR races, the Disney 200, Conseco Fieldhouse, the NCAA Hardwood Cafe, RCA Dome, soccer associations…and now, the local high school?
Professional and college sports programs have become increasingly aware and protective of brand equity and the revenue it generates. High school sport programs that “borrow” identity elements in part or in whole from collegiate or professional teams often meet with threats of litigation.
Big Vision
With that in mind, and a desire to create an identity that transcended standard high school fare, Hamilton Southeastern High School’s athletic director, Greg Habegger, tapped Brainstorm to create the new Royals identity system.
Redesigned all-sports program cover and football helmet—click to see larger view.
The Brand Audit
Brainstorm reviewed Hamilton Southeastern High School’s (HSE) brand identity and found a pencil rendering—loosely based on a piece of clip art—being used in a myriad of graphic styles in more than 15 interpretations to depict the Royal’s lion mascot, “Roarie.”
The artwork was too soft and detailed to reproduce properly at smaller sizes and across various mediums. But even more importantly, Roarie was not fearsome-looking but rather passive and friendly.
“Brainstorm’s branding elevated our Royals identity to a professional or collegiate level.”
-Jim Self, Hamilton Southeastern Athletic Director
What’s in a Name?
Hamilton Southeastern High School Royals is a mouthful to say. Taking a cue from fans who generally refer to the school teams as the Royals, Southeastern, or HSE, we opted to drop the county name, Hamilton, in conjunction with the school’s athletic team identities.
Branding 101
Unlike professional team identities which are designed for a single sport, out of necessity, we approached the project more like a collegiate mark needing to encompass many sports. The identity needed to be flexible enough to allow for individual sport identification while retaining a strong core brand identity. We designed a system that worked as a family based on the core mark above.
Broad-based Deliverables
Brainstorm created a media cd and usage guidelines to assist the athletic directors in managing the brand rollout. We also re-graphicized the gymnasium floor, created back-lit dimensional entryway signs to the Royals sports complex, and designed a variety of logowear apparel.
In addition, we created over 35 logomark variations to give individual sports a unique identity within the Royals brand.
To see more brand deliverables click to play.
Between booster clubs, coach’s and team apparel, sports venues, signage and the like, a large high school has nearly as many branding needs as a collegiate program. (Trust us on that.) The rebranding effort began in December, 2005 and is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
For a good clean feeling, no matter what, we offer up this serial Wrigley’s Orbit® gum spot. Smacking wads of Orbit, this threesome pushes nearly every FCC boundary, yet never broaches one.
Add the signature Orbit brand sign-off: hand-held, frame-centered package; Vanessa, the onlooking, ever-white-bright and ĂĽber-perky narrator with package-matching scarf; a tagline reinforcement finish; and this one’s a wrap.
Viral. Free. Fun.
At last count Orbit has enjoyed 1,967,514 brand impression-delivered views of this video on YouTube alone—part of what’s propelled Orbit to a top five chewing gum brand. Now that’s meteoric viral distribution. And for brand agents, that’s just good clean fun—key word, fun.
This street sign isn’t advertising a 4-star restaurant, it’s a 24-hour White Castle that serves miniature hamburgers called Slyders®. A regional player, they consistently rank among the Top 100 U.S. foodservice companies, serving over 500 million burgers a year.
White Castle is running a serious business, but not too serious.
Love is in the Ambiance
A kitsch castle motif and hamburger joint ambiance doesn’t register as a romantic destination for most couples. Nor does dining on steamy Slyders® in a stainless-steel and plastic-laminate setting on candlelit, linen-draped tables. Which is exactly why White Castle’s charming Valentine’s Day promotion works.
Not your typical White Castle experience: waiters, flowers, candlelight and tablecloths.
Embrace Yourself
From a strategic marketing standpoint, White Castle understands and embraces their market space and brand persona—and are willing to leverage it by poking fun at themselves. This promotion transcends a one-way communication, inviting consumers to interact with the brand—sharing a little levity with others at White Castle’s expense.
Instigating Viral-ability
The promotion’s self-effacing humor became an opportunity for consumer-generated online viral buzz. The Brainstorm employee who took the picture emailed it to 3 people; two within Brainstorm and one in Oregon. Several weeks later she received the image back in an email from a former co-worker, unrelated in any tangible way to the original recipients with the subject ‘Valentine’s Day dinner plans?’ Who knows how far it traveled or how many people saw it?
Share the Love
Socially shared experiences both on and offline begin with transparency, relevance, and often wit. Inspiring people to talk positively about your brand requires involvement and reaching out to engage.
Here’s a free Mac app allowing you to call up, via customized abbreviations, any text string you copy and paste frequently. Best of all the text is placed pre-formatted - returns, bullets and all. It’s become a staple here at Brainstorm. You can download your own at app4mac.
If you can get past the vapid brand identity and UI, PimpMyNews, the talking social news site, is an interesting concept. The site will read your RSS feeds to you over your mp3 player, iPhone, etc. or computer.
[via: PR-Squared]
NPI’s personal cosmos transport. Like Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine Happiness Machine, the iPlanet, a holiday product parody, promises a “thoroughly self-absorbed social media experience.”
Robert Scoble explores the notion in this BusinessWeek piece re: the running debate over where we’re headed with aging, albeit ubiquitous, email paradigms versus spam-free Tweets.
[via: Scobleizer]
Track the Hive’s Buzz
Aggregate the aggregators at Popurls.com—simultaneously follow the most current posts from all the top sites like Digg, Newsvine, YouTube and Flickr. Or, “find your favorite thing,” over at Buzzfeed.
Peter Bruhn’s Swedish type foundry is preparing a new freshet of fonts to flow forth and flourish among us—according to Typographi and Bruhn himself.
[via: Sheer Brick]
Can’t see how your two soda bottles a day are impacting the environment? Chris Jordan’s images will help you visualize it. View his amazing statistical depictions at Running the Numbers, An American Self-Portrait.
Okay this would just be a goofy flash-based Spirograph-esque toy if it didn’t generate downloadable .svg (Scalable Vector Graphic) files—which it does. Pattern enthusiasts, meet Qbesq.
Enter at your own risk. A proof of concept that design does matter. Havenworks.com hailed on Digg recently as perhaps, “…the most poorly designed website in the world!”
Tags: Design, Featured, Inspiration, Branding, Industrial Design, Architecture, Illustration
