Controversial Lips

Spicing up the men's room in the Rolling Stone's Museum with the iconic band's logo (red lips), has turned to be quite a controversy in Luechow, Germany. Some women find the urinals extremely offensive. Others remark and remind the women that the logo is modeled after Mick Jagger's own lips. The designer of the piece is a Dutch woman named Meike van Schijndel.

I think these are colorful! It's a neat way to implement a logo design, resulting in a redesign of an every day item. Logo design functionality!

Designing 4 Free?

Attention, Attention:

¡Moleskine seeking crowdsourcing for design!

The design community is in an uproar, and it's understandably so. Or maybe not? Guess it depends on your point of view...

Here is the background story: Moleskine, the Italian brand of notebooks, diaries, planners, & sketch books, has initiated a global competition (in collaboration with Designboom) to source the creation of a logo for their blog titled Moleskinerie. So why all the fuss you ask?

The Act of Crowdsourcing = 

1) Posting a creative project 

2) Watching the world contribute ideas

3) Choosing the one you like best

The major consumer of moleskins are designers, creatives, writers, artists, etc. In essence, crowdsourcing can be viewed as an evil by the creative community. It involves producing and submitting creative work on a speculative basis in order to be considered for acceptance on a project.

But on the other hand, you can argue that this is a great opportunity for independent, young designers to gain exposure within the industry at an international level.

Dear Moleskine lovers, we want free logos.

Designing for free?

What about the below scenario...

Obama is now crowdsourcing a poster, about job creation. Ironic? 

Missoni for Target?

The brand is the most powerful strategic tool. What happens when two brands form a partnership? 

It can work marvelously well or fail terribly and even hurt the brand. In the case of Target and Missioni, it proved quite effective. What made it work? The strategy was implemented correctly. 

Partnership:

Missoni: Is an Italian fashion house known for it's patterns of stripes, geometrics, and abstract florals in a kaleidoscope of colors. 

Target: An American retailing company, the 2nd largest discounted retailer

Strategy: 

Target partnered with Missoni to offer exclusivity on a mass scale. Items included apparel, home accessories, and sporting goods (yes, a bike)-- all Missoni.

On the day of the launch for the collection, items were sold out before noon, and Target's website crashed due to the high volume of traffic generated by the e-commerce. 

With limited access and supply to the collection, people were taking about it non stop. Actually, they still are! That's the success of the limited edition. Missoni most likely wanted to expand it's presence and exposure to the American market. It created a frenzy, supplied a limited amount to the huge demand and thus obtained new consumers of the brand. 

Although, realistically in this economy, the bracket of the market that can purchase haute couture fashion is small. We will probably begin to see more and more initiatives such as the one Missoni rolled out with Target. For example, Karl Lagerfeld launched a product for Macy's Impluse department in August. The next designer to partner up with Macy's will be Giambattista Valli , launch expected in October. 

What are you thoughts on branding and fashion for the future?

via Target

via Target

via Target