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SAVING PLANET IS ALL ABOUT WE
 
NEW YORK, NY AND RICHMOND, VA Can two simple letters form a logo that makes millions stop and think and perhaps help save the planet too? That’s the thought behind the recently unveiled WE campaign devised for the advocacy group founded by Al Gore to prevent further global warming. The logo—a visual play on the words We and Me—is the centerpiece of a three-year, $300 million promotional blitz by Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection that kicked off with a tv advertisement. The Martin Agency in Richmond VA, best known for the catchy talking gecko ads for US insurer Geico, was commissioned for the campaign and enlisted Brian Collins, whose new strategic branding firm in New York, Collins, created the identity and overall design program for the Alliance. When the logo is turned upside down, you see the Me in We. It’s a kind of word game that urges the reader to look more closely and decipher, and once accomplished, aims to make the logo a memorable tool in lobbying the US and eventually the rest of the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The circle which encases the logo is of course in environmentally-friendly lime green and was chosen to symbolize that the climate crisis affects everyone on the planet. There are plans for a series of tv ads on shows, from American Idol to the morning news, and in magazines. The first ad is posted online at the Alliance’s website.
 
Click on the image to visit www.wecansolveit.org

NEW INDIAN CHANNEL GETS BRANDED
 
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA Steinbranding Design Studios, an entertainment and design company with bases in New York, Miami and Buenos Aires, is the creative force behind a new Indian television channel Firangi. The newest channel for SaharaOne Media plans to air global soap operas dubbed in Hindi, with the goal of giving Indian audiences a global TV programming option in Hindi. The image for Firangi is based in lines and takes that converge to and from the logo and generate the rest of the visual content. The concept is strengthened by the use of a magnetic palette of yellow, green and red. “If you see the channel, even for a brief second, you know immediately it is Firangi,” says Juana Irigoyen the art director who led the project from Buenos Aires.
 
Click on the image to visit www.steinbranding.com

BULB HERO BORN TO SAVE
 
NEW YORK, NY
Creative studio Thornberg & Forester has completed a series of animated 30-second spots for Efficiency Vermont, a nonprofit organization providing energy-saving advice to households and businesses across the state. The campaign, created through Kelliher Samets Volk, introduces Jessie “Fewer” Watts, a compact fluorescent light bulb-as-hero character who saves the day (and energy) in a series of humorous vignettes. T&F Creative Director Scott Matz invokes a visually compelling CGI Wild West environment for each spot while underscoring the green message. “We imbued each light bulb with a unique personality and also capitalized on the other bulbs not being as intelligent as Jessie,” said Matz. The characters will be incorporated into the dedicated Efficiency Vermont website at www.newbulbintown.com/meetJesseWatts as well as a print campaign.
 
Click on the image to visit www.thornbergandforester.com

POPUP BOOK BRINGS ALIVE LEXUS TV AD
 
EL SEGUNDO, CA
A new Team One Advertising commercial for its primary client, Lexus, presents the safety story of its family SUV. To develop a compelling printed sales support piece that brings the tv ad to life at the dealer level, Team One led by Chief Creative Officer Chris Graves conceptualized a pop-up book with four fully dimensional spreads — with moving parts that mimic and simulate the actions of the commercial. With the help of print producer, Connecticut-based Structural Graphics, 2,000 pop-up books were delivered to car dealerships nationwide to use for sales support.
 
Click on the image to visit www.structuralgraphics.com

SPRINT CALLS ON SUPERFAD
 
LOS ANGELES, CA
Production and animation firm Superfad has produced two new animated web films for wireless company Sprint. Agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners looked to Superfad to demonstrate how real people use the Sprint Nextel Direct Connect system to help them out. One film uses humor to show how a man and his dog could use Sprint to flee the eminent danger of being stranded near a hungry bear; the other showcases how Sprint jumped in after Hurricane Katrina to quickly restore cell phone coverage to its customers. Creative credits include EP Kevin Batten, CD Justin Leibow and art directors Kevin Lau and Will Johnson.
 
Click on the image to visit www.superfad.com

ICONIC RED CROSS GETS A MAKEOVER
 
NEW YORK, NY
The American Red Cross hired IridiumGroup to give it a makeover, including the iconic red cross that identifies the aid group. “We deconstructed the visual brand to review separate studies of typography, color, imagery, composition and secondary brand elements,” said Dwayne Flinchum, president of the New York-based advertising and communications group. A system of publication design was created, along with standards for usage of all brand elements.
 
Click on the image to visit www.iridiumgroup.com

AND PARTNERS MOVING ON UP
 
NEW YORK, NY
And Partners and its principal David Schimmel continue to cultivate a portfolio of real estate, with work underway on some eight New York City buildings. Among recent programs is an exclusive landmark address at Madison Avenue and 66th Street and another on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The work encompasses the development of the core identity in print, online and 3-D, the last including space marketing, permanent signage and sales office design. With the Madison Avenue address, perhaps the last of the Rosario Candela condominium conversions in NY, Schimmel said the challenge was to capture the essence of the building’s past and future through the design and choice of materials. Along with Creative Director Schimmel, creative credit goes to Art Director Roberto de Vico de Cumptich and Illustrator Izaak.
 
Click on the image to visit www.andpartnersny.com

PARALLEL STROKES
 
NEW YORK, NY
Parallel Strokes is a new collection of interviews with 20-plus contemporary typeface designers, graffiti writers and lettering artists around the world. The 244-page book was compiled by Ian Lynam, a one-time music reviewer who jumped ship to open a Tokyo based design studio that boasts Nike, MTV and NEC among its big name clients. The book, published by Wordshape — a boutique foundry operating in Tokyo — is the result of six years of research in the combined arts of lettering graffiti and typeface design. Among the interviews, Chaz Bojorquez talks about the origins of barrio graffiti in Los Angeles and famed Japanese type designer Akira Kobayashi discusses Roman and Japanese letterforms while showcasing a lifetime of type design work.
 
Click on the image to visit www.parallelstrokes.com