Lea & Perrins Steak Sauce

How does one extend the brand of an iconic staple like Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce? Aw, read on dear blogged, read on...

I had the opportunity recently at Marlin to redesign the existing L&P Steak Sauce bottle (the final is to the right). Now, you might ask yourself, “Steak sauce? I didn’t know Lea & Perrins did a steak sauce?” Well, they do. But they haven’t made great inroads on the category leader, A1. And it’s no wonder. The plastic form factor and bottle dress is apeing grocery store chain's generic packaging big time. And nothing says quality like plastic. Some condiments do fine encased in a synthetic shell, but something that goes on steak…? It must be like drinking champaign from a plastic cup.

To kick off the project, Rob Nelson, AE and account director on Heinz lead us in a product cutting of L&P, A1, and Heinz steak sauces. A1 was the familiar standout, but the L&P tincture surprised us: It was clearly the better steak topper.

The mandatories for the design included parchment, the L&P logotype, the shield, burgundy, and the shape of the label and bottle. Given all this we came up with the expected and several unexpected solutions (my favorite is highlighted as the bigger bottle up top).

We were striving to make the new bottle family with the familiar worcestershire sauce bottle without creating confusion with consumers. In the end, though the design isn’t a compelling re-introduction of the sauce, the final bottle feels like an old friend. Which is to say, it’s been around forever, just misplaced and forgotten in the back of the refrigerator’s throng of condiments.

Hasbro games.com Logo

File this one in the category of DOA.

Hasbro has owned the URL game.com since the beginning of the Cybernet. The time finally came to put the name to work, and as such, contracted Marlin to develop a mark that would lead the brand launch.

The assignment guidelines dictated a logo that was fun (but not goofy), colorful (but not loud), youthful (but appealing to adults). Kind of like the kitchen sink. After several rounds, the Big Tuna, Matt Rose, and myself put together several ideas to hang on a shingle.

Here’s an incomplete sampling of what we presented:


We ended up with the logo at the top of this post. It has a digital kick without being too video game-goofy. The coloring is bright, but the candy-like quality helps it feel more of a form factor than a two-dimensional pastelly Easter egg-like mark.

The logo was approved and ready to ship off to Hasbro’s contracted web firm. We waited anxiously for the go ahead.

We waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

And then...

Finally...

They killed the whole project.

Sweet Street Sample Menus

Every year folks in the foodservice industry gather for the National Restaurant Association’s NRA Show.

Marlin client Sweet Street Desserts always has a significant presence at the show with workshops, samples, and a memorable take-away.

For the 2007 show, art director Gale Venosdel (now with Littlefield), senior copywriter Judith Garson, designers Kendall Schlichting and Stella Kang (now in Chicago), and myself were asked to design restaurant category menus to show possible dessert groupings. We tackled Italian, Brassiere, Tropical, Steakhouse, Cafe, American, and Fusion to round out the categories.

I put together the gate-folded pocket portfolio where the menus nest as well as the Italian, American and Fusion menus.

The booklet is crammed with ideas helping restauranteurs get in the dessert buying mood.

Lej Eyewear Booklet

It's been a while since my last post. The month of July was busy with work, freelance and travel. But, now it's time to catch up...

Local ear surgeon and inventor, Scott Estrem, had great success with the Ototek Loop, a tool to clean impacted earwax (yummy). Overcome with the entrepreneur spirit, Dr. Estrem set about attacking the semi-omnipresent scourge of humanity: The sun.

Lej eyewear seeks to solve the problem of top-down sun glare and brow sweat. The Marlin creative team of Chris Rock, Michael Stelzer, Dan Schultz, and myself set about to name the new product, develop a logo, a brand identity, marketing position, tradeshow presence, and associated collateral. Though the glasses are unconventional, they we’re a big hit with Maria Sharipova’s coach at the SGMA show in Las Vegas.

Flour Power

Mission Tortillas rock! And to to get brokers out in the foodservice world amped, Marlin was asked to develop a campaign to make Mission Foods a rockstar.

The campaign had several components associated with it including three logos: Fresh Fest, Cornzilla, and the featured Flour Power mark seen above.

Creative Director, Matt Rose passed me a rough sketch of a raised fist grasping wheat in a mock "Power-to-the-People" attitude. And from the simple, yet powerful, idea, a (rock)star was born.

Starbucks Sky Cafe Posters

Here at Marlin, Starbucks is the big rooster in our hen house. We had the opportunity to do some retail-side promotion for the Sky Cafe in the landmark Seattle Space Needle. The Sky Cafe is a unique Starbucks retail store that falls in a murky world somewhere between Starbucks retail and the licnesed stores category where we do most of our work.

I was the designer on the project with art director Gale Venosdel (now with Littlefield), copywriter Chris Rock, and account exec Dan Schultz. The idea was to play upon the experience of being in the Space Needle: The view. The assignment had us put together two posters with coordinating counter cards promoting Starbucks summertime drinks: Seattle Chill Mango Melon and Seattle Chill Toffee Nut Lattte.

The illustrations were crafted by Cori Dantini, which captures the hand-crafted world of coffees the Starbuckers roast for each and every one of us. Cori did a fantastic job of commmunicating the spectacular views and the people who see them. Cori is fun to work with and has brought a ton to the table of this project.

Sleep Center Logo Usage

Brashears is a retailer offering medium-tier home furnishings. They are expanding into Springdale, Arkansas home of Tyson Chicken and near neighbor of Wal Mart's headquarters in Bentonville.

Within the new showroom, Brashears is creating a sleep center that is themed around the benefits of sleep. As part of the executional mandatories was the design of a logo to direct bed-buyers to the space. The creative team at Marlin landed on the simple but powerful word of “sleep” to designate the showroom. The idea was to express the benefits of a good night’s sleep through the mark which lead me to use a feather as a metaphor for the feeling a really good mattress offers (and a really good sleep provides).

The big deal on this project, from the standpoint of a designer, was the creation of a logo usage guidelines booklet. Sometimes called a style manual, manual of style, trademark usage or style guide, every brand should have one. But often it’s either overlooked or simply too expensive to produce after the budget was blown on the mark. As a bookend to the Sleep Center logo assignment, I decided to go through the exercise of designing out the guide. The booklet covers the appearance of the logo, color, application, file formats, and a handy guide of usage do's and don'ts.

L-Bird

“It's hard…to believe such a small airplane could cause so much chaos, death and destruction. But it did. It's even harder to understand how such a remarkable story could go untold for half a century.” L-Bird, The Little Plane That Did.

Emmy award winning director Brian Shipman spent nearly a decade producing L-Bird, The Little Plane That Did. Shipman chronicles the untold story of a single-engine tail dragger and the role it played for Allied success.

Brian Shipman’s sister-in-law Katy Kirkman was an assistant account executive at Marlin and knew from working in the business that her sister’s husband needed help. Shipman had already taken the DVD jacket design down the road with another artist but wasn’t happy. And no wonder: It didn’t inspire curiosity or desire to see the film. In fact, it would have only appealed to L-Birders and hardcore propeller heads.

Shipman and I thought of our favorite war flics and observed themes that reflected the content of the films. The obvious solution was to take the star of the movie and make it the star of the case. The plane is flying low onto a field of battle at sunrise reflecting the drama and reality of the L-Bird’s wartime contributions.

After I completed the DVD cover I also designed a website to help generate buzz for the project.

Working on the L-Bird jacket design gave me a glimpse into a small fragment of the big story that was World War II. Shipman sums it up well:

“At the start of World War II many officers thought the little planes were a joke. But before the war was half over field officers wouldn't go anywhere without them. Using L birds as spotters the US Army was able to place it's artillery with pinpoint accuracy. Anything that moved under the watchful eye of an L bird Pilot was immediately blown away. A remarkable landing device was developed so the planes could be used at sea on transport ships. With the Brodie System planes could land, refuel and take off again without their wheels ever touching the ground! This documentary reveals the only film in existence of the Brodie System and the incredible story of the men who flew these cloth covered planes into battle.”

Despite the terrible subtitle to the movie, “The Little Plane That Did”, the cover is a great lead-in to a story worth telling, and one that shouldn’t be forgotten.

The Amazing Chow

Sally Selby and I worked for The Bakersfield Californian for 7 years together (she much longer), and over the course of that time developed a great working realtionship. After I left, she just couldn’t bear it and soon became director of marketing for Klein, DeNatale, Goldner, Cooper, Rosenlieb & Kimball, LLP (whew!). KDG has been a client of mine for a number of years and I had the opportunity to not only work with Sally, but also the office manager, Sam Chow.

Eventually Sam headed to Chevron, so, in an effort to send him packing, KDG charged me to design a farewell poster for the soon-to-be defunct HR guy and firm nanny.

I was given quite a bit of latitude to portray Sam’s time with the firm. So I played up his reputation as being able to work ‘magic’ on any firm problem. ‘The Amazing Chow’ became the alias of which the going away party (or wake) would center. Using photographs, period reference, and a bit of time while I was in my last year at Syracuse, the ’Amazing Chow’ poster appeared out of thin air (yep, just like magic).

Vlasic Prep Pak Direct Mail

Vlasic Prep-Pak Pickles are designed to make food handling easier for foodservice operators. As of June, sales are positive but could always be better. To build on the current momentum in the marketplace, Marlin was asked to concept and produce a direct mail effort that was sent to a targeted audience.

My involvement was rather minimal on this one. The idea was worked out by art director Gale Venosdel (now with Littlefield) and copywriter Chris Rock. Playing off of the Prep Pak Ad, the idea was to use the Prep Pak container as a delivery vehicle for the experiement’s booklet. The recipient is invited to run through a series of 5 experiments that illustrate the power of the Prep Pak. The content is whimsical, but it drives home the point that the simplicity of the Prep Pak idea makes lots of pickle-sense.

Pickle Productivity

As part of an overall new product launch for the Vlasic Prep Pak, Marlin developed an ad for foodservice publications to tout the wonders of pre-packaged pickle packs.

Art director Gale Venosdel (now with Littlefield) and copywriter Chris Rock developed a tongue-and-cheek science journal-like ad to expose the oversight of productive time-loss due to inefficient pickle replenishment.

The ad was featured in the January/February 2007 issue of Commmunication Arts. Here’s the cutline that went along with the image:

“A trade ad for a foodservice manufacturer and marketer for retail brands. ‘Foodservice operators are very conscious of margins and numbers,’ said Gale Venosdel and writer Chris Rock. ‘And there was something ridiculous and engaging about the idea that pickles can make you more productive. So we created a pseudoscience out of it. Plus, that let us make pie charts out of pickles, which has always been a goal.’”

Gale did most of the design on this one, utilizing me to tighten it up a bit. So all-in-all, this is mostly Gale's work. But it is a good example of the team nature of things around Marlin.

Aunt Jemima Whole Grain Launch Kit

Pinnacle Foods, a client of Marlin, is introducing a new line of Aunt Jemima Whole Grain items including French toast sticks, French toast and pancakes.

To properly launch the tasty, toasty treats, Pinnacle needed a launch kit to arm brokers and the Pinnacle sales force with information about the products, enabling them to be more comfortable when talking about the new products.

Art director Gale Venosdel (now with Littlefield and copywriter Chris Rock developed a strategy to take the audience back to school, or the "Whole Grain University". The kit is encased in an old school collegiate binder and the content mimics a science text book of the early 20th century.

As an added note of novelty we came up with the "Fighting French Toast Stick" mascot.

Trans Fat Free Logo

After an exhaustive search of the World Wide Web it appears there isn't a standard mark to label a product as artificially trans fat free.

Due to a recent decision Sweet Street Desserts (the site look designed by myself for Marlin), a mark needed to be developed that could be used throughout SSD's product line, branding and promotion.

The idea is a simple representation of a heart shaped dessert on a spinning plate. No spin here.

Buck Owens American Music Foundation Logo

My first real job as a graphic Designer was with The Bakersfield Californian under Glenn Hammett. We were both Cal Poly grads (which helped me land the job) as was another designer in town Mark Ramsey.

Glenn introduced me to Mark shortly after I started and since 1993 we have collaborated on hundreds of projects.

Back in November 0f '06 Mark asked for some logo ideas for the Buck Owens American Music Foundation, a foundation established after the Country music legend's death in 2006.

The idea was simple: Incorporate the iconic red, white and blue guitar into a logo that captures both the music and personality of Buck Owens.

Owens Corning Project Score Poster

Syracuse classmate Laura Britain runs a design firm in Hickory North Carolina and needed a series of posters created for Owens Corning. The posters are to announce the introduction of a new company-wide computer system from SAP. The illustration will depict a mid-century modernist train approaching the viewer over a series of three prints.

The project is ongoing. The next step is to photograph a train at Grant Beach Park for reference. It's been difficult getting the progression right as demonstrated below:



The typography is designed to reflect type treatments from the era. The trick is to avoid the typical cliché type choices so often seen in modern period pieces.