I’m proud to write this morning that one very influential blogger, Brand Identity Guru, recently chose Orange Element Insights as one of his picks for the “top 44 branding RSS feeds in the world.” Wow - the whole world. I’m not sure we deserve that credit, but THANKS, we’ll take it!

And on top of that, I find out that Alltop has Orange Element’s feed on their Alltop branding page, right next to Brandweek. That’s a huge honor for myself and the rest of the team here that works so hard to make this blog worth reading. In case you don’t know about Alltop, it’s one of the best blog aggregators out there because they scour the Web to gather all the best blogs on a number of topics, one of which is branding.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-blog.com

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 have been able to compete and win amongst all of the entries that were submitted.

The trophy has arrived, and we captured a quick shot of it standing proud next to the work that garnered the award (Matt Mendelsohn Photography promotional kit). Like proud parents, we wanted to share the photograph with you as we again bask in the glory:

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

We just had our most recent version of Font Hour here at OE and I wanted to share the news. Those of you who don’t recall Font Hour, can go HERE to check out a recap of the prior Font Hour.

This time, we had some really stiff competition. Among the potential new fonts that we were considering purchasing were:

FP Head
Wrongway
Vista
Gagarin
Goldenbook

This month’s winner: WRONGWAY.  A quick sample is below.

Check out more about this sweet font and the shop that created it HERE.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

Mary Mashburn, our coaster guru, recently received some stellar press in the New York Times. Mary runs Typecast Press, which is where we recently had our sweet Orange Element coasters letterpressed. You can see them here, next to her work for Woodberry Kitchen, which is actually the subject of the Times article.

The article is about designers creating custom typefaces. It’s a great article and worth the read, so please check it out in its entirety HERE. This article really REALLY makes us want to come up with our own Orange Element house font…

Congrats Mary/Typecast - you guys rock!

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

Hi all -

I’m very proud to announce that I have been selected as an interim board member of the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance. I couldn’t be happier about this, both because it’s an extraordinary young organization that has a lot of potential and because it furthers Orange Element’s commitment to operating as a sustainable design + brand communications firm.

In my work with the CSBA, I will be mainly focusing on outreach and social media, including their Chesapeake Sustainable Business Network, a groupsite powered by CollectiveX. The CSBN is a really important resource that helps to create a sense of community among business leaders in this space, as well as allows a free flowing exchange of ideas. I look forward to making it a hub for sustainability in this region.

I will keep everyone posted on my progress with the organization. In the meantime, if you are in some way related to sustainability or environmental causes and are doing business in Maryland, I encourage you to consider joining this organization. The benefits you will receive far outweigh the cost to join. Click here for more information: http://www.csballiance.org/pages/memJoin.html.

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

Today we’re very excited to welcome Sarah Rosenthal to the OE team. Sarah is fantastic. We’ve had our eye on her for several months now and the timing was finally right for her to join us. She’s a perfect addition to our team, both because she’s a super awesome designer, but also because she clicked from a personality perspective right from the start.

If you’d like to learn more about Sarah, you can check out her personal Web site at www.sarahrosenthal.com or her sweet blog at http://sarerinthal.blogspot.com.

Welcome, Sarah. We’re so glad to have you here!

Garret Ohm
www.orange-element.com