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A MOVING EXPERIENCE

Carter's is one of the largest manufacturers and wholesalers of children's apparel in the United States. Under threat from increasing competition from mass retailers and specialty stores, and dependent on wholesale relationships with sometimes ailing department stores, it was time for Carter's to take control of its own destiny and to leverage the 139 3/4 years of trust and equity in their brand.

Carter's had an opportunity to stand out by solving moms' problems in a marketplace characterized by sameness and uninspiring experiences. Shopping should be well organized, easy and fun. Understanding "what really matters to mom" is what makes Carter's special. To deliver on the brand strategy, Wolff Olins worked with retail designers 8 Inc to create a new store design. Wolff Olins also established a fresh, new brand identity, a proprietary language and a mom-friendly packaging system that emphasizes product benefits and key information such as size. The design firm directed integrated quarterly campaigns, creating a common story for all touch points, from store windows and direct mail to a magalogue filled with photography and language that strikes an emotional and rational chord with moms.

Design Firm: Wolff Olins, New York NY; Client: Carter's; Creative Directors: Karl Heiselman, Todd Simmons; Content Strategist: Samantha Wilson; Designers: Lily Williams, Bill Darling, Frank Mueller; Photographer: Luca Zordan (magalogue)

OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS INCLUDED

When Quirk Books tapped them to design and illustrate The Baby Owner's Manual, Headcase Design faced a daunting challenge. The unusual parenting manual, by authors Louis Borgenicht, M.D., and Joe Borgenicht, is written so as to resemble a set of operating instructions. Accordingly, it contains charts, maintenance tips, cautionary call-outs and "tech support" features — all of which had to be made readable and attractive to Quirk's target audience of hip, young parents.

Paul Kepple and Jude Buffum, the brains behind Headcase, explain their solution: "We eschewed the fluffy, cutesy approach typical of baby-care books — which are usually filled with saccharin-sweet photos and soft colors — and instead gave The Baby Owner's Manual an edgy, technical look. A utilitarian design was developed that presents the material clearly and directly, much as an appliance manual would. The instructional illustrations and schematic diagrams combine real, useable information with subtle, satirical humor."

Cost was another challenge that Headcase ably met. "To keep the price low," Kepple and Buffum say, "it was necessary to limit the book to two colors. We took the unexpected route of mixing the two Pantone colors to increase the perceived value. That also expanded the color palette to add more depth and richness to the illustrations."

Design Firm: Headcase Design, Philadelphia PA; Client: Quirk Books; Designers: Paul Kepple, Jude Buffum; Illustrators: Paul Kepple, Jude Buffum

DUCT TAPE AND VALIUM

"Designing children's products is the easy part for me and my partner. We are never short for ideas," says Kelly Friedl of Urban Infant. "However, understanding the dynamics of selling them has proven much harder for us."

Urban Infant makes useful, stylish and fun items for children and parents. The company, founded by Friedl and her brother, Eric Eichhorn, broke out in 2001 with the launch of the Tot Cot, an all-in-one sleeping bag for toddlers. Scads of great products followed. Take the Baking Euro Tote, a carry-all containing special, kid-sized baking tools and ingredients. The package includes the Tin Hand Cookie Cutter and the Urban Sprinkle Tin — also Urban Infant products. That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Urban Infant.

Friedl is a marketing pro. When she's not designing new products for Urban Infant, she is the principal and executive designer at Titanium Design Group in Chicago. But despite her design chops, Friedl and Eichhorn found it difficult to market Urban Infant products. It took several years before they came into their own.

Friedl attributes the trouble to four challenges. First, there's the unruly infant models. "It is nearly impossible to work with babies, unless the parent consents to duct tape and valium!" says Friedl.

Another problem is that Urban Infant's products are truly unique. "This adds a great deal of pressure in photography and copywriting — to help the consumer understand what the heck it is we are selling," says Friedl. "We give them clever names, but we really have to communicate visually how the product works."

The third challenge: "It took us three full years before we had a full understanding of who the purchasing decision-maker was," says Friedl. The answer, it turns out, is both the child and the mother. "The product has to be accepted and desired by the child yet, at the same time, appeal to the mother, who is ultimately the consumer."

The final problem is the most common. Unfortunately, it is also the worst. "New companies lack self-confidence," says Friedl. Consequently, their marketing is excessively cautious. Urban Infant fell for that trap, too.

Everything changed last Thanksgiving. Friedl and Eichhorn, a systems analyst for CIS, were visiting their parents in the Ohio farming town where the siblings grew up. Sitting in a coffee shop, they had an epiphany: Sales were modest because they weren't having fun with Urban Infant. The company's personality didn't reflect their own. It wasn't cool. It wasn't funny. It was bland. They found the confidence to be themselves. The partners immediately set about completely rebranding the company from the ground up. The coffee shop became a satellite office from which they overhauled Urban Infant's website.

Their efforts were a success. Sales took off. According to Friedl, the first few months of 2007 have seen bigger sales for Urban Infant than the whole of 2006.

BABY STEPS

Jack and Lily, a manufacturer of soft-soled baby and infant shoes, has partnered with Exhibit A: Design Group since Exhibit A rebranded the company in 2004. The redesign was an outstanding success. Distribution of Jack and Lily products subsequently went international, and they increased their reach from 100 to 2,000 retail locations. A major factor behind that phenomenal growth is the direct mail campaigns that Exhibit A executes for Jack and Lily twice yearly.

The Spring/Summer 2006 campaign included the brochure featured here. The brochure was concepted with Jack and Lily's tagline — "Discover. Touch. Smile." — in mind. When completely unfolded, the brochure is transformed into both a product catalog and an instore poster. The challenge was to ensure that the brochure made sense when unfolded. The poster's top left-hand corner, which also forms the inside cover of the brochure, had to be visually competent as a single page, as did the entire top row/inside spread.

Exhibit A also faced the common problem of using babies as models. "Babies generally have a limit of a few minutes at a time — all within a one-hour timeframe. It is important that everything is set up before the talent arrives, and once it does, you try to arrange to allow for out-of-shot parent interaction while you take as many photographs as you possibly can," says Cory Ripley, Exhibit A's creative director. "It's basically a game of 'put the baby down, try to get it to do what you want, pick it up before it gets too distracted and repeat — until you get the shot.'"

To meet the challenges of making sense and photographing babies, the image for the Jack and Lily brochure was pieced together from two separate photographs. Technology saved the day. Advances in digital photography even allowed for the image to be roughly pieced together on the set.

Design Firm: Exhibit A: Design Group, Vancouver, British Columbia; Client: Jack and Lily; Title: Jack and Lily 2006 Catalog Mailer; Creative Director: Cory Ripley; Designer: Cory Ripley; Photographer: Clinton Hussey; Copywriters: Dawn K. Brett, Erin Smithson

FILLING IN THE BLANKS

The story behind Baby Updates is the story behind every great idea. Sallie Reynolds Allen saw a need and filled it. The designer explains, "It was my experience that after receiving a birth announcement, I rarely got any updates aside from the occasional email." To Sallie's mind, harried parents require a creative but easy method to appraise friends and relatives of their baby's journey through the first year of life. Now they have one. Baby Updates is the solution she devised.

Sallie enlisted the help of her husband, Elliott Allen, an advertising copywriter. Together, they developed the clever fill-in-the-blank formats of the Baby Updates cards. The various cards correspond to different stages of infant development. The cards assume a playful, entertaining tone, but also one that is sensitive to the concerns of new parents. "The challenge with designing the updates was that a baby's developmental stages are a delicate subject with new parents — and need to be treated carefully. But a baby's first year is also an incredibly fun and messy time," Sallie says.

Design Firm: Reynolds + Allen, Coronado CA; Client: Elum Designs; Title: Baby Updates; Designer: Sallie Reynolds Allen; Copywriter: Elliott Allen;

POTTERY BARN KIDS ADDS CHARACTER

Pottery Barn Kids has collaborated with the design studio Character since 1999, when both companies opened up shop. From its San Francisco base, Character crafted Pottery Barn Kids' logo and identity, and designed and art directed their initial catalog, as well. After launching the catalog, Pottery Barn Kids moved to open retail stores, and the company enlisted Character to develop and design their retail packaging system — including store packaging, hang tags, shopping bags, gift registry collateral and communication materials.

We'll let Character officials tell their own story: "Our first step in designing Pottery Barn Kids' retail system involved studying their competitors' retail stores. We found that the prevailing trend was to use bright primary colors and a jumble of typographic treatments. To set Pottery Barn Kids apart, we created a system that combined upscale, sophisticated design and understated whimsy. The system needed to reflect the tone that the catalog had established, while effectively showcasing the products that the company sold.

"Focusing on that goal, it was time for us to play. We surrounded ourselves with prototype Pottery Barn Kids products and concentrated on certain key pieces: shopping bags, hard goods and soft goods packaging, and hang tags. We set aside our computers and other high-tech equipment. Instead we played with finger paints, watercolors, charcoal and pastels.

"What resulted was a visual style for the brand with a playful tone of voice. The system we created included Norman Rockwell-inspired silhouette illustrations of children playing with Pottery Barn Kids products to provide a distinctive identity for the upscale chain. We designed over 20 of those icons to distinguish each product category, including bath, bed, toys, window treatments and more. The icons were set against the Adobe Garamond logotype and consistently used throughout the retail environment, from store signage to shopping bags and hangtags. The understated color palette, classical typography and playful icons provide an instantly recognizable look that communicates the target customer and extends the Pottery Barn Kids brand."

Design Firm: Character, San Francisco CA; Client: Pottery Barn Kids; Title: Pottery Barn Kids Retail System; Art Directors: Patricia Evangelista, Benjamin Pham, Rishi Shourie; Illustrator: Aaron Gerbich; Photographer: Michael Mundy; &nsp;Copywriters: Heather Bourdaux, Character, Kim Roth

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