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Don’t let is sneak up on you… Halloween that is. Since the holiday is just around the corner, our newest intern Nicolette has designed a Halloween freebie wallpaper that might make some readers’ skin crawl. Nice work Nicolette and happy Halloween everyone!
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The leaves are starting to fall, and now is the time of the year for apple picking, cider, pumpkins, and cool Orange Element desktop wallpaper!
Click a link below for a downloadable image of the Fallpaper ‘09 desktop wallpaper:
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And for last year’s Fallpaper, see this post.
Don’t miss Jasmine Sharp’s latest work at the upcoming Hexagon show.
(She also designed the above promotional graphic!)
October 10 – November 6, 2009: The Hexagon presents: Hexchange, an emerging artist printmaking portfolio with over 40 participants nationwide. Following the exhibition, Hexchange will become a part of the permanent collections at the International Printing Museum in Southern California, and Goya Contemporary and Nudashank Gallery in Baltimore. Hexchange will also travel to Philadelphia for satellite exhibition during the Southern Graphics Council in 2010. There will be prints and full portfolios for sale!
Opening reception October 10th, 6 to 8 p.m.
Andrea, EJ and I decided to take a trip down to Whole Foods yesterday for their “Shopping on a Shoestring” tour. We all felt it was a really cool way to introduce people to Whole Foods’ own 365 Brand and the Whole Foods experience in general. The purpose of the tour was to teach people how to pick out high-quality, nutritious food, while being mindful of their budget.
We were greeted by Beth Laverick, a Whole Foods Marketing Specialist, who guided us through the aisles and gave us tips on how to shop, and what to shop for, when you are trying to save money. At the end of the tour, she gave us a reusable Whole Foods bag, and a $10 credit to fill the bag with as many 365 Brand products we could. Above, you can see what I took home for $9.75–two packages of pasta, a bottle of ketchup, a bag of whole wheat pancake mix, and a soda!
Thank you to Whole Foods in the Inner Harbor for putting this tour together–we all had a great time and thought it was an excellent way to market Whole Foods and their own 365 Brand of more affordable products. You can find out about this and similar events at your local Whole Foods by visiting the Whole Foods Website and searching for your local store.
(Okay, a birdie is fine too.)
Good luck today golfers! Orange Element is a participant and proud sponsor of The Brick Companies’ Seventh Annual Classic Charity Golf Tournament. Today, hundreds of golfers descend upon Queenstown Harbor for a day of play and giving back. TBC supports programs and initiatives that benefit the heritage, residents and environment of surrounding communities. The Brick Companies Foundation involves support for The Boys and Girls Clubs, Children’s National Medical Center, Hospice of the Chesapeake and the Hospice of Queen Anne’s. Thanks TBC! Enjoy a few tips from OE:
Every minute we are inadvertently bombarded by images and marks that represent brands. Just sitting at your desk you can probably count far beyond a dozen around you. Rarely do we think twice about the significance of these marks but we may be taking them into consideration more than we are consciously aware of. According to a recent study from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, we have the tendency to mirror the traits reflected by the logos of the companies we surround ourselves with.
Professors Gavan Fitzsimons and Tanya Chartrand of Duke, and Gráinne Fitzsimons of the University of Waterloo, Canada recently conducted an experiment that tested the effects of brands on behavior. They did this by selecting two competing brands, Apple and IBM, both well respected by consumers, with distinct and well-defined brand personalities, and then asked 341 students to participate in a visual acuity test. One of the two logos was flashed on a screen for 30 milliseconds. Then the participant was asked to list all possible uses for a brick, beyond building a wall, to evaluate their creativity. Participants exposed to the apple logo produced significantly more uses for a brick than those exposed to the IBM logo.
“This is the first clear evidence that subliminal brand exposures can cause people to act in very specific ways,” said Gráinne Fitzsimons. “We’ve performed tests where we’ve offered people $100 to tell us what logo was being flashed on screen, and none of them could do it. But even this imperceptible exposure is enough to spark changes in behavior.”
In an interview with NPR reporter, Susan Stamberg, Fitzsimons suggested that creativity can lend itself to a feeling of happiness. At a non-conscious level, these feelings may result in an increased loyalty to the brands that make us happy.
So the next time you are listening to your ipod, consider the thought, would you feel differently if you were listening to that music on any other mp3 player?
(This study brought up several questions as I was reading that I did not include in this post. Feel free to add your own input in the comments below if you are interested in sharing your thoughts on brand influence.)
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