Daily Brad, the blog

Back in early April of 2001 I went out with Morgan Lynch. I had known Morgan from when I worked at Studeo and he worked at Insurquote and used Studeo’s graphic design services. Morgan had this idea for a company that would design logos on a fixed budget and fixed time frame. I remember thinking that the market already had a couple players, and as an occasional freelance designer myself, I wondered how could he do it? And then I saw his business plan. It was flawless. He asked me if I would come up with a couple sketches for his logo, the company’s name was Logoworks.

I watched Morgan as he grew Logoworks from its small office on Mountain Way Drive with 1 employee to the office on Center Street near the freeway with a couple employees to their current location in the Center 7 Building in Lindon. It has been quite a ride I’m sure. The company has not been immune to controversy with some Internet discussions claiming their designers “borrow” from other logos because of “sweat shop” payment for their services. They respond to these claims the way a business should and move on. The growth and the creations of Logoworks has been phenomenal, and they’ve produced some fabulous creative.

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Did you know that our little Utah Valley State College here in Orem Utah is growing up? Yes folks, the school is getting big. Since I’ve attended many classes there, I was surprised to hear recently from a student that goes there that they now offer a BFA in Art and Visual Communications. Wow!

Here’s the link to the Requirements for the BFA in Art and Visual Communications at Utah Valley State College.

Currently, UVSC serves more than 23,000 students; 13,877 are Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs). UVSC offers 51 baccalaureate degrees and a wide variety of associate degrees. In a recent press release (last week) it was announced that the State Board of Regents has reviewed UVSC’s Proposal for University Status but no formal action has been taken regarding the proposal other than some recommendations.

UVSC is a great value for your education dollar as the tuition for 2006-2007 is $1,654.00 for residents of Utah and $5,169.00 for non-residents. (PDF showing Tuition costs broken down)

In a feature article from connect magazine, there was a story about a new Salt Lake City Utah based promotion agency called MINDWISE. It took me a couple searches to find their website, which currently isn’t built out, though the article says they have officially opened for business and “…already engineered a slew of promotions locally and is in talks with various companies to handle upcoming events, promotions and sponsorships next year.”

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Dock Porn

Originally uploaded by The Iconfactory.

So I was browsing the blog of my favorite icon geniuses, the iconfactory, and ran across a posting that read

Our Chief Typist, quite by accident, discovered that the icons in his dock spelled out ”$eXy” and wondered what other words he could make from all the various app icons on his HD.

so I went over and checked out the flickr page they created to add more of these little jewels. There’s only 20 there right now, but you’re welcome to add your own.

I’ve never been much of a gadget person, nor have I been one who likes to chat, but for goodness sakes it’s nice to hear that I’m not alone. In a recent survey of 1,013 adults and 500 teens conducted online by Knowledge Networks from Nov. 30-Dec. 4., it was discovered that teens use Instant Message or “IM” twice as much as adults.

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JupiterResearch released a report in June 6, 2006 that shows 35 percent of large companies plan to institute corporate Weblogs this year. Combined at the time with the deployed base of 34 percent, nearly 70 percent of all corporate website operators will have implemented corporate blogs by the end of 2006.

Not to question the analysts at JupiterResearch, but I think that their numbers might be bloated (coupled with the fact I now have the 20-20 hind-site at the years end). While I think some companies are on the forefront of web technology, others are asking “why do I need a blog?” It’s a tricky question to consider until you’ve actually got one going and see how you use it and how your customers respond. From a retail standpoint, the corporate blog seems to be part newsletter, part customer support, part message board and part press release. But I still think it has yet to prove its position in the marketing mix.

With blogging I’m seeing a little deja-vu of the early to mid 90’s where the world was buzzing about Web 1.0. Those were the good-old-days when some corporations asked the question “why do I need a website” and then sat back while other visionary companies innovated and showed them. Now building a website for your company is as necessary as having a 1-800 number. Will Web 2.0 have the same impact? What will be the Web 2.0 Corporate Blog effect?

Let’s look at a couple corporations who are using blogs. (more…)

AIGA just announced their next event here for the Salt Lake area chapter:

Nate Morley, Deutsch Inc.
THE ART OF CREATIVE OPPORTUNITY

Date:
Wednesday, December 13th, 2006

Time:
6:30-7:00 pm - Mingle
7:00-8:00 pm - Presentation
8:00-8:30 pm - Q&A

Admission:
AIGA Students - Free
Non-member Students - $5
AIGA Members - $10
Non-Members - $15

Location:
Salt Lake Art Center
20 South West Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
www.slartcenter.org

Directions and Parking info:
The Salt Lake Arts Center is located in downtown Salt Lake just south of the Abravanel Symphony Hall. Please carpool and arrive early. Parking validations are available at the ticket table for parking at Crossroads Mall across the street.

Nate Morely
Nate Morley is Group Creative Director at Deutsch, Los Angeles. Nate began his career at Abercrombie & Fitch where he launched the award winning series, A&FTV. In 2000, Nate joined Peterson, Milla Hooks in Minneapolis where he helped define the Target brand for nearly five years. In 2005, Nate moved to Deutsch/LA where he has been working to revamp the Old Navy brand. His most recent projects include the national launch of Helio, a new mobile service from SK Telecom and Earthlink Wireless.

Nate’s work as been recognized at Cannes and in nearly every professional advertising journal including Archive, Communication Arts, AdAge, Adweek, Creativity, Director’s World, Shoot, Animation World, Boards Magazine, MediaWeek, and more. Several of Nate’s projects have been listed among AdAge’s Top 10 Best Web Films. OddsAgainstSeven, a series of short films created for Target, was named Creativity Interactive Work of the Year. Nate was recently featured in the People and Players section of Madison + Vine
from AdAge.

So you know you’ve got a little bit of perfectionism in you when something like this bugs you. But no matter how I try to find the time to fix it, it just isn’t high on the list on priorities. So I thought I’d take a picture and see if anyone felt heavenly about their cord situation as well.

Welcome to Cord Heaven:

Believe it or not, I use to have this all organized with my previous desk. I had purchased a cord trunking cage from IKEA that screwed to the bottom of my desk and held everything in place. I only had a problem once which resulted in a massive shut off as a result of my organization (my dog bumped the trunk cage, an adapter smashed the “off” switch for the surge protector and everything turned off in an instant).

But the cable trunking cage doesn’t work on my new desk - a big fancy drawer and cabinet paradise that says “I must be a professional now”. I even have a dedicated cabinet for my CPU, but my cords aren’t long enough to reach the monitor from it. So it sits on the floor where I kick it a couple times a day.

Does anyone else have a little cord heaven in their home or office? I’d love to see a picture. (send to imcre8tive[at]yahoo.com) or send me the flickr link. If I get enough pictures, I’ll make a blog post - and the winner will get a cord trunking cage from IKEA! All wrapped up for the holidays. This handy little item will be yours. (Design and Quality of IKEA of Sweden, Made in People’s Republic of China).

Oh and suggestions to fix this are welcome (but of course).

I recently got an email from one of my friends that announced the launch of his latest venture called Scribble Art (located at http://www.scribbleonwalls.com). Scribble turns any blank wall, mirror, window, ceiling, tabletop or even a low traffic floor into a giant canvas to create your design masterpiece.

Other than being a big fan of their logo (way to go Chris!) I am a big fan of the product. Removable wall art is not a brand new concept, I remember first reading in Business 2.0 about Blik who also produces designer surface graphics. They’ve been 2 years in development and received plenty attention from press and the art worlds. This is a good thing - as Scribble has a proven model to emulate - and yet the challenge is that they have to differentiate their product and design in the eye of the consumer.

Their website just launched a few days ago, and so there’s still a few technical glitches. (I had trouble using it in Safari, which is a known bug). But it’s well organized, fun, and for a company just launching - they’ve got a lot of great designs which will only continue to build. They’ve made an good effort to be playful with their copy such as the following:

The point is, we’re design geeks who get off on creating self-adhesive art for your walls. We’re not hip, Swedish people. In fact, we don’t even know any hip OR Swedish people. We are garden-variety art and design geeks. And we’re precisely the sort of people you’d want in your house creating cool designs for your walls. As long as we promised to leave at a decent time.

Could those “Swedish people” the website refers to be my sweet IKEA folks?

For the Therty Brand headquarters (I blogged about this company a couple days ago) I think it would be fun to do large spots with different designs to reflect their product and logo. What great ideas can you think of to do with Scribble art?

Congratulations on the launch! Happy Scribbling!

My friends think it a little funny that every time we pass the IKEA being built in Draper that I get a little excited. Why’s that you ask? Well duh, it’s the big Okland Construction logo hanging from the side - another Brad McCall design.

There is a fair amount of excitement in Utah that we’re finally getting our own IKEA. They officially broke ground just south of Salt Lake City, in the City of Draper back in early April of this year. (Near 1-15 and the Bangerter Highway) The 310,000 square-foot Draper location will open in Spring 2007 and will be the first of its kind in Utah. (There are 230 IKEA stores in 33 countries, including 27 in the U.S., where IKEA plans to open three to five stores a year.) For those unfamiliar with IKEA, there’s always IKEA.com where I personally have ordered plenty of things and had them shipped. But for those of us in-the-know, we knew that the 63 year-old Swedish store would eventually make a grand appearance in Utah. We’ll swoop in and grab from their range of home furnishings and accessories all with “good design” and function, at low prices. (Utahans LOVE a good deal.)

But as for now, the sweet spot for me is this:

See that? It’s my logo hanging on the side of the concrete structure going up. Call it a “sighting” if you will. It’s one of two logos of mine that can be spotted from the freeway.

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