Obsession
This image is a chalkboard at Barrington Coffee Roasting Company that represents a tiny slice of the vast knowledge, experience and passion that our client has for their product. What a telling image! Most of us think of coffee as…
Outsource
We just received the first 5 advance copies of my book “Imagining Shakespeare” via UPS from Hong Kong. It’s very exciting to see them and realize that 2 pallettes of books are on their way here via freighter. The decision to print these overseas was not an easy one – we prefer to work as…
Shakespeare 2010
It’s a new year at Shakespeare & Company and we’ve just sent the 2010 brochure off to press – it should be hitting mailboxes in about 10 days. In the meantime, check out this preview :
Creativity is a Muscle
Rita Sue Siegel, an important thinker and writer about all things Design, contributes a column to Communication Arts, the bible of the design community, in which she discusses the topic “What Else can you do with a Design Education?”, an article that I found very topical and open-minded to the role of designers in the world at large.
New platforms = New ideas
There’s a new camera platform that is out and hitting its stride – micro 4/3d’s. We’ve been playing with the Panasonic GF1, a great little camera that you can change lenses on, but which has the profile of a rangefinder – very small and quiet. A whole new industry is starting to percolate around this…
Brand is Business
I met with a potential new client recently for an extended conversation about what we (studio two) might be able to do for them but also as a follow-up to our initial meeting. What’s interesting about this business (lets call them Smith Co.) is that the question of “brand” is pervasive to the entire business.…
ROI
Design is often placed on second-tier status by businesses seeking to verify and justify their expenses. Historically, Return on Investment for design and marketing has been difficult to measure accurately, especially for smaller organizations like many of our clients. As designers and brand strategists, we are as guilty as anyone of not placing ROI at…
GDUSA09 Winners
The Studio just won 2 Graphic Design USA awards for Packaging. The winning entries were new labels for Berkshire Mountain Distillers (BMD) Ethereal Gin and new labels and packaging elements for Barrington Coffee Roasting Company (BCRC). Senior Designer Heather Rose worked her magic on these two projects, bringing together an elegant sense of typography and…
Strange activities
It’s that time of year when we are working on summer theatre concepts. I’m not going to tell you what these are about at present – suffice it to say that the play is not a comedy – but I finally had a reason to bust out that army surplus gas mask I picked up…
Radioactivity at QPC
We were on-press today at Quality Printing for the IS183 Radioactive Bodega invitation. This beauty is going to be hitting mailboxes all over the region in about a week or so, and you won’ be able to miss it! Studio Two Designer Amanda Bettis (the talent behind everything BIFF) has been crafting this piece with…