UPDATED: Learning Thankfulness From A Four-Year-Old
Posted By: Tate Linden Updated 11/28 – at the bottom of this post My young son has a best friend that he’s known pretty much from the time he could speak in complete sentences. Just the mention of her...
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Don Draper Tells It Like It Is. And So Should You.
It’s come to the point that I can’t turn on the TV anymore without feeling the need to talk back to the commercials. “No, drinking your product will not make me able to dunk a basketball!” or “IF YOUR...
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The Difference Between Good Designers and Great Designers
Posted by Tate Linden Are you a good designer or a great designer? No… Wait. Don’t answer that until you get to the end. There seems to be a common belief that any designer can become great if they...
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Beautiful Design vs. Pretty Design
Posted by: Tate Linden Pretty Design is timely. Beautiful Design is timeless. Pretty Design is artifice. Beautiful Design is truth. Pretty Design is experienced visually. Beautiful Design is...
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Our Favorite Award, Ever
Posted by: Tate Linden We don’t spend much time pulling together entries for stuff like ADDYs and OBIEs. As a small shop we just don’t have the manpower, and most award programs don’t seem to factor in...
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The Secret to Gaining Approval for Your Designs and Brands
How to gain approval for your designs: For Strategically Focused Clients: Craft your story around how the design reflects or amplifies who they are and how they are unique. Strategic clients want to...
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Three Steps to an Irresistible Brand
I know you may not think of Gandhi as irresistible, but bear with me. It’ll become clear shortly. Irresistible… It may sound impossible, or at least too good to be true. And you’re not alone in...
View ArticleAn Open Letter to the Stewards of the Progressive & Democratic Brands
Hello Stewards, You may not realize it yet, but you need help. I’ve been told by many in politics that there are no well-known (or even proven-effective) brand strategists focused on helping...
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A peek at Stokefire’s latest brand identity work:
One of DARPA’s [Ed: a client] strategic thinkers started up her own firm called Foxfire. We’ll post detailed information and back-story about the project another time – but we figured that given our...
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FAIL: PETCO Thinks We’re Idiots? Yes. Yes they do.
Well, PETCO certainly doesn’t win any points for the creativity of their product name, but when it comes to the art of needlessly clarifying proper use of the product I think I’ve just witnessed...
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The Painful Truth about Working With Stokefire, And How To Fail While Doing It.
Posted by Tate Linden Arthritis Campaign by The Classic Partnership Advertising The truth about working with Stokefire? It often sucks. I mean it. Working with Stokefire is frequently extremely...
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Shelf-Crowding 101 – The obligatory “We Won! We Won!” post.
Though the title of the post and gratuitous statuette shot may have stolen a bit of this introductory sentence’s thunder, we did indeed win. Six times, in fact. In the just announced 2012 MarCom...
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No, You May Not Have This Tasty, Tasty Apple.
I understand that everyone loves the Apple brand for its vibrancy, simplicity, and power. I really do. It’s a kickass brand, so it’s not surprising. But… Please don’t ask me to build you a brand ‘just...
View ArticleThe Promise of Crowdsourced Design is Broken. So Let’s Fix It.
This is a stream-of-consciousness post. Given my history with stuff like this I’m probably about to upset a whole lot of people. So, apologies in advance. And with that… here goes nothing… I’ve long...
View ArticleHappy +1, Us!
Almost exactly eight years ago I was sitting in my basement with a space heater blasting on my bare feet as I went through a stack of mail. It was mostly bills as I recall. But one plump envelope...
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Searching for Steve Jobs’s “Dent In The Universe.”
Posted by: Tate Linden Did Jobs make a dent in the universe? Damned if I know. Frankly, I can’t find a place far enough back to see for sure. “We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why...
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Dearest potential applicant: In our eight year history we’ve never brought on a single intern nor employee who started their cover letter with “Dear Sirs” or “To Whom it May Concern,” and then perhaps...
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The Thingnamer Sleeps With Clients?
No. I don’t. But I’ve been asked if I do with some regularity, and while it’s all in fun (I hope,) I find that when I ask other creatives if they get similar lines of questioning their answer has...
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South Australia Shows The Thingnamer The Door
Yesterday I chatted with Matthew Abraham and David Bevan from ABC Adelaide’s aptly named Breakfast with Matthew Abraham and David Bevan. The topic was the previous evening’s launch of Brand South...
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