A CLEAR BRAND MESSAGE

ADVERTISING - In a time of 'brand blandness', it is even more important for brands to step up. American Apparel has a pedigree of doing this, although its efforts are sometimes over shadowed by it founder's [Dov Charney] somewhat questionable behaviour.

For this advertising campaign American Apparel gets eleven out of ten. It takes courage for brands to take the lead and it can leave them somewhat vulnerable to the press if their credentials don't stand up to scrutiny. If the brand can withstand the pressure, why not step up, be counted and make an impression?

joes[a]fiend

SUPERMARKET FASHION

SPOTTED - The term ‘fast fashion’ has become common in recent times, as of last week it gained a whole new meaning for me. I found myself with half an hour to spare before a meeting near Topshop [Oxford Street, London], so thought why not pop in have a little look around to kill some time?

Whilst loitering in the store, observing what people were picking up and generally being nosy I heard a familiar voice. Not the voice of a friend, family member or celebrity, but the voice of Tesco. When I say this I don’t mean from an advert, I mean the voice that summons you to a vacant cash register to pay for your uninspiring lunchtime sandwich. This provoked a whiplash inducing double take. I moved closer to the till to confirm my initial hunch. To my shock it was the automated voice of lunchtime doom, moonlighting by beckoning the followers of fashion to ‘till number 4’.

In my line of work we talk about the ‘Theatre of Retail’, this includes the level of detail required to ensure the physical retail experience is a memorable one. TopShop offers a great retail experience. They just need to remove the voice of the supermarket from their store. Why not use the voice of an employee? Wouldn’t it be nice to be served by the voice that came over the loudspeaker?

joes[a]fiend

FANCY DESIGNING THE COVER OF WALLPAPER* MAGAZINE?

PUBLISHING - Wallpaper*, the home of wonky legged chairs and expensive 'lifestyle' items is inviting readers to design their very own cover for its August Handmade issue [on sale in July].

Budding designers can access the application at Wallpaper.com where they can create a cover. On the site you can select and manipulate images, graphics and patterns by James Joyce, Nigel Robinson, Anthony Burrill and Kam Tang.

Each reader’s cover will front their own copy of the Wallpaper* Handmade special issue.

Editor-in-chief Tony Chambers says, 'Wallpaper* readers are a very creative bunch and they are going to love this. After all, they’ll be joining the ranks of Philippe Starck, Zaha Hadid, Anish Kapoor and Karl Lagerfeld – all of whom are previous Wallpaper* cover artists.'

joes[a]fiend

30 YEARS OF ALLY CAPELLINO @ THE WAPPING PROJECT

EXHIBITION - We finally got down to the Wapping Project to see the 30 Years Of Ally Capellino exhibition and were throughly impressed with the retrospective of British designers work. The exhibition runs until the 6th June, if you're in the area it's worth a look.

joes[a]fiend

Images via Akira Chatani

MANYSTUFF #1: ONE POSSIBLE CATALYST

PUBLISHING - Graphic design blog Many Stuff have just unveiled their beautiful printed publication 'One Possible Catalyst'.

Many Stuff explain the publication as 'A graphic design publication with the objective to use the printed support, paper, to fix a laboratory of experiments and meditations released from formal and theoretical prejudices.'

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