Can 'green' brands work together for one cause?

Why do we need more green stuff?
The last thing the world needs right now is another product, we don't need more stuff. We need less.

If you really care then don't buy needless new products, re-use what you have and give money direct to charities who can more efficiently make some real change. Don't feel the need to get a 'thing' in return for your charity, that's just a selfish way of giving.

It seems like there are so many 'green' products out there, but the problem is, they are still products which are made in factories and have a carbon footprint. They're not helping anything.

How many excess canvas bags are there now in the world, because some genius decided to produce tons of them, poorly produced, probably made in china somewhere. They only last a few months, but definitely not a lifetime. A decent quality rucksack would be a better choice and was already on sale.

Come on, all of these (a small sample from Google) can't be needed, they cancel eachother out. which is my problem with most 'green' products:

In the UK there used to be lots of cancer charities that all competed for donations and did separate reseach, especially the two major ones. Then they decided that they had a common aim and should merge and share their research and work together, they formed Cancer Research UK funnelling more funding to one charity would help them all work to cure cancer. Now they are the world's leading cancer charity and do great work.

The same idea should happen with green products. One organisation curating green products, making sure they are truly green and produced in the best possible way. They should only sell the bare minimum number of products with the aim of reducing emissions with all money going to verified good causes.

A competitive capitalist market is really the enemy of the green ideal, we don't need lots of choice, just one good option. The 'green industry' is one market that would be improved by limited choices and less competition. A coalition with the same aims would be so much better.

So, nice bags, t-shirts, water bottles etc but I won't be buying, I have enough tshirts. I may donate to the gulf cleanup and other causes directly. Just remember that every product you buy announcing to the world that you are 'green' is still manufactured and will probably become tomorrow's rubbish.

Saul Bass on the cost of aesthetics

Saul Bass, couldn't have put it better myself.

Hand painted advertising murals

Recently the iconic DKNY mural in NYC's SoHo distract was removed :



Some don't realise that murals like this are still painted by hand in a minority of cases.
What used to be the main method for applying large-scale advertising is now a small industry of a few remaining practitioners.

This great documentary interviews a few of these painters and reveals how it's all done:

UP THERE from Jon on Vimeo.

Edit: here's a great site from the History of Advertising Trust called Ghostsigns, it's an archive of photos of old and fading hand-painted signs from around the UK. I'm glad someone is taking stock of the huge number of these old adverts that are still visible before they fade away completely.

http://www.hatads.org.uk/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=33

Haiku

Rebranding Playboy (theoretically)

This exercise in rebranding by San Francisco based designer Alex Cornell is a great piece of thinking.
He decided to give Playboy a new more upmarket positioning, more in line with Monocle magazine as opposed to Maxim magazine.

He gives a very detailed outline to the process of his design, and I think the finished article is just great. The perfect balance of humour and heritage, keeping just enough from the original mark, whilst signaling change.

You can read his overview on ISO50 blog:
http://blog.iso50.com/2009/11/24/rebranding-playboy/

and here's Alex's own site:
http://www.alexcornell.com/

When to use imagery

Some brands use imagery to great effect. Some brands such as First Direct are almost purely typographic. But sometimes people need to learn when words will work more powerfully than imagery – especially when the imagery you have at hand isn't, shall we say, the most appealing.
Maybe whoever made this poster should learn such a lesson

Independent brand champion: Soda fanatic John Nese

John Nese is a soda pop fanatic. In his store Galco's Soda Pop Stop he sells over 500 different brands or soda. Independent brands from all around the world. He is passionate about soda but more than that he is passionate about championing the unsung small businesses who would otherwise be put out of business by the power and size of the giants of the industry.
He sells cola of all flavours, root beer, floral sodas, even a cucumber soda. He despises the way soda is made these days, with high fructose corn syrup instead of natural cane sugar. He champions glass bottles because they hold the carbonation better than plastic bottles.

Watch this great interview with him:



This is a man who cuts through most of the marketing noise that superbrands make and looks through to the quality and authenticity of a brand. At the heart of the brands he loves is a good quality product that doesn't need dressing up. Brands need to listen to people like Nese more, his enthusiasm and passion for his trade are a better endorsement of a product than any advertising campaign could ever be.