You might be surprised to learn one of the biggest art heists occurred in Philadelphia. Quite recently, actually. A new documentary exposes the events and perpetrators (one of them being PA Governor, Ed Rendell) of this $25 billion heist.
One of our designers – the incomparable Mikey Burton – is featured on one of our favorite design blogs, swissmiss. Thanks to Tina Roth Eisenberg for recognizing his work…and making our Thursday morning!
Last night, a bunch of people went to see Ozzy at the Borders below our office… so we went to see a bunch of people.
You: e-mail, iChat, add Greasemonkey to Firefox, send out Google Wave invites, edit code, write macros for Excel, add blog posts in WordPress, tweet, update Facebook, Photoshop images, design, mech layouts, obsessively organize typefaces, tag MP3s, subscribe to RSS feeds, download Breaking Bad torrents, fire up MacTheRipper, run VLC, run sudo, rebuild directories, comment to Gizmodo, snipe ebay auctions, calibrate your 27″, download MAME ROMs, upload to the FTP, and crack with Resourcer.
Your mom, your cousin, and everyone else you know: e-mail, Web sites, iTunes (for music), and photos. Maybe an ebook or film someday. Does Apple have that mall cop movie starring that guy who plays the UPS driver on that show?
Loyola University Maryland hired us to do a whole magilla, top to bottom, rebranding of the entire institution. Early on in our discovery process, we came across a phrase – “Strong truths well lived” – Loyola’s motto. Stirring and profound, and if you’ll excuse the “advertising,” a righteously killer line. It also happened to hold the key to what distinguished Loyola.
It describes a very particular culture: morally engaged, smart, rigorous, passionate, and with a real zest for life. That culture and environment produces a very specific graduate… intellectually supple, sophisticated, ethical, worldly – along w/ something less tangible – this ability to “see the matrix.” That is, to discern the essence of a situation and act on it… that character of the graduate became the essence of the brand. MORE
Branding can be a vague, nebulous concept to folks, particularly clients. We often try to teach them the value of building a strong brand by citing great ones that already exist. Unfortunately, we tend to fall back on a small list of great brand case studies, such as Apple, Nike, Harley Davidson, and a few others.
I hereby submit Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino for entry into this pantheon.
