Over the past year and a half, KA+A has been in league with Indiana's leading minds in the local agriculture and culinary worlds to bring back a revitalized Taste of Indiana, Dig-IN. (Read more about our re-branding process here.)
Set to premiere this August 29th, Dig-IN will take place at the White River State Park, featuring a rockstar lineup of Chefs (Neal Brown, Chris Eley, Greg Hardesty, Regina Mehallick, Eli Anderson, Scott Wise and many more) who are paired up with local producers to masterfully create an all-local dish. In addition, there will be over 20 local wineries and breweries brought together for you by the Indiana Wine Grape Council and Brewers of Indiana Guild. All…
Todd Henry, the founder of Accidental Creative, interviewed Kristian for his regular podcast. The interview covered everything from staying inspired and dealing with clients to getting moving on what’s important. You can listen to it here
There are many uses for Twitter - connecting with people, sharing status updates, promoting events, sharing content, generating support, finding employment - but one of my favorite uses of Twitter is to tell a story. Twitter can be used to engage your audience in your brand, and create a participatory entertainment environment in the service of your brand. Twittering Mad Men, Helen Klein Ross of Brand Fiction Factory (@BettyDraper@AdBroad) and Michael Bissell of Conquent (@Roger_Sterling@Bissell) refer to this as Brand Fiction. Read on to learn how they brought the AMC show Mad Men to life in the world of Twitter (earning them a Shorty Award), by employing Brand Fiction. …
One of the most frequent questions I'm asked is "What have you been reading lately." With increasing frequency, folks are beginning to inquire about what Podcasts I listen to as well. So I thought I'd share a list of my favorite podcasts with our readers. These picks run the gamut from design, to technology, to entrepreneurialism. Some of them are not updated as regularly as I'd like, but they are all thought provoking, interesting, and inspiring. You can find them all on iTunes.
The Accidental CreativeThe Accidental Creative podcast addresses how to thrive in the create-on-demand world by instilling practical, everyday practices that help you stay prolific, brilliant and healthy in your life
During a recent trip to Europe (London, Paris, Florence), I often found myself flummoxed by the inability to make simple consumer decisions - what to buy, where to eat, where to shop. Obviously the "foreign" factor was there, but I was acutely aware that in this sea of new brands, I felt off kilter because I had no conception of their value.
Sure, there were the American giants present - McDonald's and Starbucks. And international fashion stars Chanel, Dior, Prada, YSL, etc., had no problem catching my eye. It was the other 90% (that I could afford) that left me clueless.
Complicating it further was my desire to experience Europe as a local -…
A curated collection of blog posts and web links that address branding, user experience, and interface design.
William Poundstone has written a great book on pricing practices called – Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value. For anyone interested in crafting brand experiences pricing strategies should be an area of deep study and reflection.
Below is a presentation on Personal Branding that I presented at the Notre Dame Campus Communicators Summit on January 7, 2010, in South Bend, Indiana.
Let me come right out and say that I think the term "personal branding" is pretty lame, but there does seem to be some common understanding as to what the term means. So in the interest of fostering continuity and establishing a shared vocabulary, that's what I'm running with. I hope that in 10 years, I will still be using…
Lately we've been talking a lot about the elements of a successful design project. We thought it would be interesting, and helpful to other readers, to hear a bit more about other folk's successes and how they were achieved. Tell us about the client, the challenge, and the solution.
A curated collection of blog posts and web links that address branding, user experience, and interface design.
Check out Mag+, a concept video on the future of digital magazines by BERG. This concept is killer in its own right, but what really impressed me was the quality of the product visualization itself.
Pentagram is hard at work proving that "traditional" design firms can compete in the user experience arena. Check out the work they did for litl.
UserPlus.org has created a pretty cool forum for web designers, developers, information architects, interaction designers, and usability specialists to share their design best practices.
Over the past weekend, I went to a few local shows. It's interesting to see what separates the good bands from the great. The good typically have nailed the melodies and lyrics, but the execution suffers. The lead guitar is loud, the bass is loud, the drums are loud, the vocals are loud. Everything loud doesn't make it better. Rather it's the subtleties of volume and scaling back the supportive harmonies that makes an impact and great bands. Audiences can identify the emotion and story line of the music when the band uses loud and soft, complex and simple, instead of just maxing out every detail.
During the work week I see a similar situation. We frequently hear the request to make things bolder, make them pop, punch them up and…
