The U.S. Postal Service Is Dying. Why Not Radically Rebrand It?

Could a new identity save the United States Postal Service? The idea is not so far–fetched: The postal services in Belgium and other countries have taken on rebrands that better reflect their new capabilities as they compete against commercial shopping competitors.

And is retro the way to go?

Snail mail use keeps dropping, and now the U.S. Postal Service wants to save a bunch of cash by slashing Saturday delivery. Will a new look help rescue the agency? D.C. designer Matt Chase has a wacky proposal: Rebrand the USPS to evoke the very anachronisms that are costing it billions.

read more

Illustrating The World Cup

The South African illustration house, Am I Collective, scored a creative coup when it was commissioned to create 32 murals for ESPN's 2010 FIFA World Cup campaign via Wieden+Kennedy. The 32 murals celebrate each of the 32 teams that will be competing in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. ESPN owns the broadcasting rights to the event in a number of territories including the USA. See them all in one place at... 9 Gag

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

Romania untangles logo path

Despite the fact that its new tourism logo is under a possible infringement charge and it has not yet paid the designer for the logo, Romania will continue to use its new mark as the controversy reigns.

The design contains a leaf that bears a striking resemblance to a logo that is currently for sale on the internet that was originally created for a transport company. The company that created the new Romania logo has offered to share all of its on–paper drawings and intermediary designs and has even offered to produce supplementary design work on the project. Discussions continue.

SOURCE: Romainia Insider

Family Dollar revamps brand




As the budget continues to be depressed, more and more people shop at "dollar" stores. Capitalizing on that trend, Family Dollar has hired the ad agency Bernstein–Rein and has released a new logo to help freshen its identity and create a presence that further lessens the stigma of shopping at a dollar–type store.

Family Dollar, which operates about 6,700 stores, is also using social media like Facebook and is even texting customers with news special prices.

SOURCE: wfae.org

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

NEW CHEVROLET BRAND

Chevrolet has introduced a new mini–car brand, Baojun, to China. Baojun is the Chinese word for "treasured horse."

SOURCE: Logo Lounge

WHY THE Y MADE THE SWITCH

Catching up on the public's common parlance of many years, the YMCA has ma

de the formal brand change to the Y. From the organization’s web site:

"This new brand announcement represents a transition in the correct way to refer to the Y in writing. "The Y" should be used whenever referring to the collective organization. "The" should be lowercase unless it is used at the beginning of a sentence. YMCA should be used when referring to a specific location, i.e., "The YMCA of Greater Louisville."

With this switch comes a new logo—part arrow, part letter, part icon—and a bright color scheme, all courtesy of Siegel+Gale. It's the sixth logo since the group’s inception, and its first revise since 1967. The new design is grounded in the Y's (yes, it's a bit odd) new trifold focus on youth development, healthy living, and social responsibility.

SOURCE: ymca.net

HISTORY OF THE Y'S LOGO

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

CBX Refashions Tampon Packaging

Black packaging accented with bright colors presents new look for U by Kotex, a brand of feminine products that recently hit store shelves. With CBX at the design helm, tge product line, which includes tampons, liners and pads for 14-22 year olds, banishes staid floral patterns and pastel hues. "The black package is attention-grabbing on the shelf, yet discreet when sitting in the shopping cart, purse or home," says Rick Barrack, Chief Creative Officer at CBX. The letter "U" stands out on the box, he says, as an icon for the brand. "Contemporary, straightforward, clean fonts are used to call out brand, product type and form," Barrack continues. He says CBX drastically altered the visual landscape of the feminine health aisle by "creating a graphic vocabulary for U by Kotex that leverages color palettes and abstract patterns from the fashion world.

SOURCE: GD USA

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

Protect Your Health

Try to find health insurance. I know that, depending on where you live, health insurance might be hard to find. Freelancers are notorious for not having health coverage. But, if you don’t have adequate coverage, you’re more likely to avoid getting the treatment that you really need when you’re sick.

Get enough rest. It’s important to schedule regular breaks and time off. While working lots of hours may seem like a really good idea at first and may even lead to more income at first, no one can sustain a crazy pace forever. Eventually all of those extra hours will lead to stress, burnout, or illness.

Eat properly. Business Owners often take trips to the local coffee shop to provide them with a change of pace, meet a client, etc. While getting out and about from time to time is a good idea, unfortunately the fare found at your local coffee shop is not always the healthiest. If this is a problem for you, try to identify a few healthy food choices at your coffee shop and stick to those.

Engage in exercise. Most business owners work on the computer to provide some sort of service to their clients. This means that most of us are fairly sedentary. Unless we make a special effort, we won’t get any exercise. Unfortunately, studies have shown that a sedentary lifestyle is not healthy, so make that effort to get enough exercise.

Take steps to manage your stress. Owning your own business can be stressful, and continued stress can leave you feeling run down and make you more susceptible to illnesses. Take the time to identify what causes stress for you. Find ways to reduce your stressors.

SOURCE: Freelance Folder

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

Starbucks BYOC

Bring your own cup. This concept was the big winner of a competition sponsored by Starbucks to gather ideas for reducing non-recyclable paper cup. The idea, using an in store chalkboard, would encourage customers to bring their own cups for possible free drinks. The three honorable mentions are also ideas that encourage customer reuse, but one did includes a rice-based reusable cup, and the five "community picks" are a mix of biodegradable, recyclable and collapsible cups.

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

The Green Cup

The Brazilian President Lula, upon unveiling 2014 World Cup Logo, stated that the games will be dedicated to the environment: "We will make a green World Cup, green as our forests. Environmental sustainability will be a trademark of Brazil and the next World Cup. We want to leave a legacy to improve the quality of life of our people. We are sure that we will charm the world, like South Africa charmed us this year."

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

UPS Green Label

Companies that meet UPS standards can now ship their goods with a label that attests to their "greenness." Called the Eco Responsible Packaging Program, UPS evaluates a customer's shipment packaging processes on three levels — damage prevention, right-sizing, and packaging materials — and authorizes the UPS logo use when approved. The company uses the Sustainable Packaging Coalition Compass software in its new program to evaluate the life cycle impacts of package design.

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

Mapquest Seeks New Logo

Wolff Olins has developed a new logo and identity for MapQuest. It's clean and modern and was designed to take the emphasis off of simple online mapping. Instead, the new identity is meant to stress the service as an integral part of your life.

People see different things in the new logo—a little animal, map–to–the–power–of –your–quest, or simply a much–needed modern revamp. The purple and bright green mark is just part of the revamp: The site itself is more user–friendly and certainly more flexible.

new.mapquest.com

SOURCE: Logo Lounge

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

PUMA thinks out of the {shoe}box

PUMA has unveiled the next step in its long-term sustainability program, introducing a sustainable packaging and distribution system by renowned industrial designer Yves Behar. Behar, of San Francisco based fuseproject, designed a "Clever Little Bag" to replace the ever present cardboard shoebox with a reusable shoe bag that protects each pair from damage. As a result of the 65% paper reduction though the "Clever Little Bag" concept, PUMA claims it will cut water, energy and diesel consumption on the manufacturing level by more than 60% a year.

SOURCE: www.fuseproject.com

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

3 Proposal Follow-up Tips

Before you submit a proposal, you’re in an ongoing dialog with your prospects, e-mailing back and forth. Then, with some, as soon as you submit the proposal, silence reigns and you never hear from them again. That’s the “black hole.” If this happens to you, know that you’re not alone.

People are so busy these days that they rarely take the time to let you know what happened. It’s discourteous and unprofessional, but it’s becoming the norm. Whether there was a shift in their priorities or they awarded the project to someone else, you may never find out. Sometimes you have to accept that fact.

However, don’t disappear into that black hole yourself. Stay in the game. Here are three ways to do that:

1. Leave a final message. If it’s clear that the project isn’t going to happen within the time frame you’d anticipated, don’t just slink away. Put some closure to the process by leaving a final voice mail message along these lines: “I haven’t heard from you, so I don’t know what happened with the proposal we sent, but it looks like it’s not going to happen within the time frame we discussed. So I just wanted to let you know that we’re still interested in pursuing this if and when you are. I will touch base again in a month.” Then send that same message via e-mail, so they have it in writing (and because they just may respond to it).

2. Check in to see how it’s going. This is especially important if they did award the project to someone else. Let some time go by, then call to see how it’s going. They may have chosen the low bidder and are paying for it now with low-quality work. If you happen to call and things aren’t going well, you might be the perfect solution to their problems.

3. Stay in touch. Obviously, you shouldn’t stalk your prospects, but you also mustn’t drop out of sight. Let your marketing kick in by staying in touch via an e-mail newsletter or regular postcard mailings to stay top of mind.

SOURCE: HOW Design

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

TCBY reveals logo in prototype store

TCBY has revealed its new logo, which will replace its original 30–year–old design.

There are various versions of the new logo in the rumor mills at present, and photos of the prototype store, to be opened in Salt Lake City, do not show the same logo as what is reported to be released. In any case, the new identity is sleeker and simpler.

If the new store design, created by Salt Lake City-based StruckAxiom, proves successful in two corporate-owned prototype stores, it will be offered to franchisers.

SOURCE: QSR Magazine

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

Bike Sharing Rolls Out

Denver's bike sharing initiative, B-Cycle, was rolled out on Earth Day. The bike-sharing program, developed by Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Trek Bicycles and Humana, includes 500 B-Cycles at 50 B-stations available throughout the city as an alternative to cars for short trips. Each bike is outfitted with computers that track mileage, calories burned and amount of carbon offset. Users register at the B-Cycle website to check out bikes. There, they can montior their own fitness and see their contributions to the city's greening efforts. The newly formed nonprofit Denver Bike Sharing will manage the program.

SOURCE: www.bcycle.com

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

Passing with Flying Colors

Pantone's New iPhone App

Everyone from graphic designer's to industrial designers can now have access to all the PANTONE Color Libraries without carrying around bulky guides, and users can easily create harmonious color palettes by finding complementary, analogous and triadic combinations for slected colors. And not only that, colors can also be extracted from images taken by the iPhone's built in camera and matched to the closest Pantone color.

Palettes can be share with other iPhone users or emailed as color patches or application-ready swatch files for the Adobe Creative Suite, etc. Visit www.mypantone.com for more info.

SOURCE: Layers Digital Magazine

www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com

"Win As One" - I want a racing theme!

A couple of months ago I had a new client ask me if I could take her theme "Win As One" and create a manly, yet cool, graphic in a racing theme without being really cheesy. The goal was to use the logo on tshirts. The company's divisions are all unrelated and the parent company wanted to tie everything together for an annual sales and training conference. With that said, I pulled the above design from somewhere in my brain, it hit home with what the client was looking for and ALL of the employees were excited about it.

So excited that they also ordered matching clocks for the employees to have in their cubicles.


www.tashaleedesign.com • tasha@tashaleedesign.com