“…a showcase of the best in sustainability, technology and design.”
Living Wright
WIRED and LivingHomes magazine produced the WIRED Home, what they call “…a showcase of the best in sustainability, technology and design.”
Constructed in-factory and erected in an upscale area of Los Angeles in just two and a half days, the home represents a convergence of aesthetic and eco-awareness.
WIRED’s Smart Home harkens back to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian concepts and organic design principles - with added technological advancements. One hundred years later, as oil prices and conservation become a global focus, we’re sure Wright would approve.
For details on the home here’s a link to the original WIRED article entitled WIRED Home by LivingHomes.
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.
Community Health Network wins an International Academy of Visual Arts (IAVA) silver award for a grand opening website promoting their new North campus facilities.
Congratulations
Brainstorm doesn’t usually enter design competitions, but sometimes our customers do. Congratulations to Community Health Network for their 2007 Silver WÂł Award from the International Academy of Visual Arts (IAVA) for the Community North Grand Opening website, designed and produced by Brainstorm.
Community Health Network joined CNN Money, Abercrombie and Fitch, Big Spaceship, Communication Arts, Discovery.com, Disney, and NASA, among others, in the winner’s circle this year.
About the WÂł Awards
The WÂł Awards honor outstanding creative sites, advertising, and video developed for the web.
The WÂł is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts. Sponsors and partners include The Creative Group, the world’s leading creative professional staffing company, and ADWEEK Magazine.
About The International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA)
The IAVA is an invitation-only body of top-tier professionals from acclaimed media, interactive, advertising, and marketing firms such as Alloy, Brandweek, Coach, Disney, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Estee Lauder, Fry Hammond Barr, HBO, Monster.com, MTV, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Victoria’s Secret, Wired, and Yahoo!.
For more information, and a full member roster, visit www.iavisarts.org.
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, Culture, Housing, Industrial Design, Architecture
