New Work :: The Brick Companies Environmental Brochure
We recently completed a piece that I’m really proud of – an environmental stewardship brochure for The Brick Companies, based in Edgewater, Maryland. This project highlights the outstanding efforts that this real estate company makes toward sustainable business, and reinforces their collective commitment to doing work “for good.” This is not your average brochure. As [...]
Branding That Doesn’t Live Up To Brand Experience
As brand marketers, we always seek to find businesses and organizations that have solid business models and a true unique quality that makes them better than the competition – and allows them to deliver a great brand experience. This makes our job much, much easier because we believe that a brand cannot survive on great [...]
Sustainable Promotional Items
Promotional items are notorious for generating useless waste. So if you’re going to buy 20,000 of something to give away, why not do it right? This is a great resource that we’re definitely going to use: http://ecoimprints.logomall.com/default.aspx Thanks, Brandflakes. Garret Ohm http://www.orange-element.com
Someone Challenges Google.com
Have you heard that a group of former Google employees just launched a new ‘revolutionary’ search engine that they claim is better, deeper and more effective than Google? Gutsy, for sure. It’s true, and you can read about it HERE. It’s called Cuil.com (Pronounced “cool”) and the Internet is abuzz with chatter about the product. [...]
Baltimore’s New (Green) Arena
It was announced last week that Baltimore will be getting a new 18,500 seat arena at the site of the current First Mariner Arena. This is big news for the City of Baltimore, as the 1st Mariner Arena has become a bit outdated and lacking over the years. The new venue will be great for [...]
Happy 40th, Cubicle!
Aaron reminded me of something a week or so that I’d be remiss if I didn’t write about. Apparently July marks the 40th anniversary of the cubicle. Originally coined the “Action Office,” the cubicle is meant to isolate workers from the sights and noises of their office–theoretically allowing workers more privacy and helping them to [...]
Freebie Friday :: Not a Wallpaper!
We’re keeping it short, sweet and simple this week. Our version of a freebie today is to direct you to someone else’s glorious freebie. Download some FREE awesome photoshop brushes from misprinted type. Have fun mucking things up! Sarah Rosenthal Orange Element [image from misprintedtype.com]
It’s Coming…Big Brother?
As marketers it’s always our goal to connect a brand with a qualified, highly targeted audience. We do this by focusing our creative concepts in a way that will resonate with the target, as well as defining a media mix that ensures the message is heard by the right demo/psychographic. Technology companies are aiming to [...]
OE Wins MORE Addy Gold
Hi all – I might have mentioned it a while ago but Orange Element recently won a Gold Addy award in the American Advertising Federation’s District 2 regional Addy Competition. District 2 is comprised of ad clubs from DC, Maryland (Balt/Frederick), PA and parts of New York. The competition is fierce, so we’re excited to [...]
Sunk Costs :: Let It Go…
I just read a great post from a blog I often read called Thought Gadgets and the author, Ben Kunz, was talking about a concept called “sunk costs.” He goes on to explain that this is an economic term that refers to past expenses or decisions that can never be recovered. The common logic of [...]
Mmmm Cookies
Thanks to Agency Spy for pointing me to this ad done by DraftFCB for Oreo. It just goes to show you that sometimes design doesn’t even involve fancy graphics or effects. Sometimes it’s all about finding a creative way to use something existing (exposed elevator) to create drama around a product or service. How sweet [...]
Cream of the Crop
Hi all – I’m just getting back from a meeting with a local non-profit that I really hope we’re able to bring on as a new Orange Element client (hopefully more on this later) and I wanted to post about a really cool link that Sarah just shared with me. www.webcreme.com I like this site [...]
Practice Your Copywriting
With the rising popularity of social media and consumer generated media it’s not surprising that even advertisers are getting in on the fun. A new campaign by life insurance giant New York Life has consumers writing their own ads. The Blue Box Challenge encourages customers to go online and enter three short words that express [...]
Freebie Friday: MD Film Fest Edition
Happy Friday! Wahoo! This weekend is Baltimore’s famous Artscape, America’s largest free public arts festival. Garret posted a bit about it earlier this week, if you want to know more. We thought it made sense for this week’s freebie to show off the illustration Andrea did for the screening of Harrod Blank’s Automorphosis: Wild Wheels [...]
Nikes Inspired By ______ .
Nike, one of my own personal favorite brands, has recently taken shoe customization to a whole new level with their Nike PhotoiD application. This application allows users to take a photo of their environment with their cell phone camera and send it to Nike. Nike then analyzes your photo to choose the corresponding color scheme [...]
Love That Chicken
Working with a company that redefines and refocuses brands, I have come to love before and afters. I love the idea of taking something old and stale and making something appealing and desirable out of it. I think that’s exactly what the folks at Pentagram just did with the Popeyes brand. Until recently the brand [...]
One Huge Chicken
Check out this recent work by Leo Burnett Chicago for McDonalds. It’s a billboard shaped like an egg that opens gradually from 6:30am to 10:30am announcing that McDonalds serves “Fresh Eggs Daily” during that time period. When breakfast is over, the egg closes right back up. It was put up just outside of a McDonalds [...]
Md Film Festival @ Artscape
Artscape is coming up this week. In case you don’t know what Artscape is, get out from under your rock and go to their site at www.artscape.org to find out more! It’s billed as the largest free public arts festival in America, and it’s always a great time. Stop on by to check out some [...]
Freebie Friday 7.11 Edition
Happy birthday, mom! Today’s Freebie Friday coincides with the sweet new blog header that we have up at the top of the page, designed by yours truly. We added a sweet little calendar graphic to the woodgrain background. Thanks, Sarah, for putting this together. Click a link below to download the woodgrain desktop wallpaper: 1024×768 [...]
Non-Traditional Advertising For Climate Change
Adfreak (Adweek) alerted me to some pretty cool work that I hadn’t yet seen, and I think it’s worth passing along. Each has to do with climate change and the effect we’re having on the environment, and attempts to resonate with the emotions of the person interacting with the displays. Here’s a cool promotion from [...]
What’s Hot?
If you’re like me and you’re always striving to stay up on the latest trends, there’s a new Web site that just might be your savior. It’s called edopter.com and it bills itself as a social trendcaster. It essentially allows users to upload things they see as trends – but it doesn’t take your word [...]
7 Deadly Sins of Social Media
I ran across a great blog post on Onlinemarketerblog.com about the seven deadly sins of social media (the first five of which came from a Joseph Jaffe speech) and wanted to pass along a quick recap of the sins. I couldn’t agree more with them. Definitely avoid these at all costs when formulating a social [...]
