Firebrand

This is a rendering that I did in Solidwork’s new rendering tool Photoview 360 for FX Displays.

Photoview 360 is a tool that I have been using since day 1, and it really increases the quality of the renderings and has a more inuitive workflow. It is using the “Studio Room Shadow” environment with 3.5 F Stop depth of field, and 50% 10% bloom. The counter display show was modeled in Solidworks 2010.

If you like it please give me a 5 star rating on Solidworks’ rendering gallery.

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By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an award winning industrial designer who works with large multinational brands everyday designing retail displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.

Interact with the Firebrand community – Please Comment or Email.

The views expressed on this weblog are mine alone and do not necessairly reflect the views of my employer, FX Displays.

Some people clearly get what brand associations are all about. A tip of my hat to Mercedes demonstrating it’s knowledge of brand association with their hallway lounge areas in high end malls. I came across one while going through Sherway Gardens, a upper end mall here in the west end of Toronto. What Mercedes had done was put out these very comfortable leather lounge chairs in the hallway of the mall with Mercedes symbols on custom furniture all around, even embossed into the leather of the seat. This allowed exhausted holiday shoppers to rest in Mercedes’ big comfortable chairs and breath a sigh of relief on Mercedes behalf.

What does this do for Mercedes? More traditionally, it puts the Mercedes logo in front of it’s exact target audience: well to do people who buy high end items. But the real value is in the brand associations created. People will associate that feeling of relief and comfort with the Mercedes brand. Plopping down into that comfortable seat after long hours of shopping might just as well be climbing into the leather seat in your C-Class after a long day at the office. The neural connection between Mercedes and comfort is made. Perception is reality. That experience the customer has in the lounge at the mall will actually make the future Mercedes seem more comfortable.

Cheers to you, Mercedes!

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By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an award winning industrial designer who works with large multinational brands everyday designing retail displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.

Interact with the Firebrand community – Please Comment or Email.

The views expressed on this weblog are mine alone and do not necessairly reflect the views of my employer, FX Displays.

Over the last year, Design Critique: Products for People podcast has worked with Firebrand Creative to redesign the blog page for the podcast. It was found that the vast majority of people were getting the content directly from the website, and not iTunes as the metrics originally indicated. To make sure the podcast audience had the best experience possible, we redesigned the page to keep in character with Tim Kiernan’s vision for the show. We chronicled the process in a set of podcasts, which you can find at DesignCritique.net.

We are proud to unvail the designs that came out of that process:

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By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an award winning industrial designer who works with large multinational brands everyday designing retail displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.

Interact with the Firebrand community – Please Comment or Email.

The views expressed on this weblog are mine alone and do not necessairly reflect the views of my employer, FX Displays.

I delare it: Breast Cancer owns the colour pink.

Watch out Lasenza Girl and the singer Pink. You can’t trademark the entire spectrum of a colour, but the Breast Cancer movement has done as close a job as possible through branding. A quick disclaimer: I worked for the Canadian Cancer Society in the past, and my family has been very involved with them. They are not the Breast Cancer Society, but cancer as a cause is very close to my heart.

It came to me when I was watching the Patriots – Vikings game two weekends ago. There was a breast cancer awareness drive with the NFL where players and coaches were wearing various apparel that had colours changed to pink: shoes, gloves, brims of hats. College sports and Major League Baseball are running other pink gear promotions. I was watching the football game with two other young guys; we all knew it was for breast cancer before ever seeing a logo. We are not the typical target audience the Breast Cancer Society targets for their drives, and as far as I know, none of us had any family affected by breast cancer. If people removed from your target audience recognize an entire colour as a symbol of your brand, congratulations, you own that colour.

It speaks to the power of coordinated symbolic branding for decades. Pink would not have become the symbol it is if the Susan G. Komen organization and other organizations had not been so galvanized around using pink consistently. If they had been wishy washy like the majority of companies are and changed to a burgundy 10 years into the movement than it would have half the power it does now.

It makes me wonder about brands that use a combination of colours as their brand symbology. Obviously there is more opportunity for differentiation of branding, the number of colours in the pantone swatch book squared. But I wonder if that combination waters it down the effect of having a colour as a brand symbol. It also shows that it pays to be bold. If breast cancer’s symbolic colours were yellow and blue like that of the Canadian Cancer Society would we have recognized it in that football game. There wasn’t much competition for pink because it is gender specific, hard to print and can be harsh on the eyes if over used. The pink story is akin to the story of the Chrysler muscle cars of the 60s. Lime green and “plum crazy purple” became symbols for Chrysler cars like the Dodge Challenger and the Plymouth Baracuda because not many people wanted to paint their Mustangs and Camaros those bold colours. But those colours became a call to arms for Mopar fans, and have resurfaced recently.

It would be nice if we all could own a colour for our own movements.

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By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an award winning industrial designer who works with large multinational brands everyday designing retail displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.

Interact with the Firebrand community – Please Comment or Email.

The views expressed on this weblog are mine alone and do not necessairly reflect the views of my employer, FX Displays.

In the last few posts we have been talking about the aspects of brand identity as laid out by David Aaker in “Building Strong Brands.” We have been focusing on the interplay of ‘Brand as Organization’ and ‘Brand as Person.’ No organizational policy affect a companies perceived personality more than dress code.

Imagine going into Quicksilver’s office; what clothing are the people wearing in your imagination? Now go into the corporate head office of Bank of America? I doubt people in the two companies are wearing the same thing.

We all know that people’s perceptions of us are effected by our clothes. If we didn’t think that than we wouldn’t take so much time, effort and expense making our own clothing reflect our personality and goals? A company is the aggregate sum of all it’s people, and how those people are dressed are going to effect not only how the company’s personality if perceived, but the actual personality of the company. If a sales person is in a suit and tie with a clean haircut than I am going to expect that person to be all about business and rather stiff. That is going to change my interaction with them, for better and worse. I will ask my question clearly and expect a clear and concise answer. Great for a bank. If the salesperson was dressed more casually, I would be more inclined to have a more casual conversation with them with a better opportunity to develop a relationship. I would also think a more casually dressed sales force would be less knowledgeable, unless it was in certain vertical’s such as Quicksilver’s surf and snow fashions.

This does not only effect the customer facing people in the company. The way the back end people dress will affect their work and decisions. That work and those decisions will effect the personality of the brand down the line. A tight formal dress code is going to influence decisions to be knowledgeable and safe. A more casual workplace will be more free spirited and potentially more creative. This is because dress code is a clear direction from management on how they want the company’s people to be perceived; people will pick up on this and act accordingly if only unconsciously. People will make decisions and behave their way to that desired perception.

Have people dress to the personality you would like your company to have.

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By Colin Finkle. Colin Finkle is an award winning industrial designer who works with large multinational brands everyday designing retail displays for FX Displays in Toronto, Canada. He is the principle designer at Firebrand Creative. He also writes for AMD’s FireUser.com blog.

Interact with the Firebrand community – Please Comment or Email.

The views expressed on this weblog are mine alone and do not necessairly reflect the views of my employer, FX Displays.