If you need further proof that American culture is at the saturation point, check out Steve Schofield’s personal photo collection “Land of the Free.” The collection features British citizens taking their love of American icons to extreme measures. References to Star Trek, Star Wars, Native Americans, and even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are personified in full costume by what appear to be mostly normal folks. There are tons of great photos, but this one has a special place in my heart:

»See all the photos in the series here
Thanks to Very Short List for the tip.

Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve… You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

This to me is what customer service is really about. It’s not about the technology solution, the process documentation, the design comps. It’s about serving people. Customer service. Serving the customer doesn’t take a huge budget. It takes a willing attitude. Have a great week!

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The Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics was jaw dropping. Sure there are questions about human rights. Yes there are protests. I’ve heard all the stories about blocked web sites. I even heard over the weekend that the firework display was partially computer generated. I think all that static has drowned out the real story here. This is a country emerging from the shadows. Millions and millions of people have come together to put on a state sponsored presentation that belongs in the same category as the pyramids. I disagree with the some parts of the Chinese state and I’m struggling to understand aspects of their culture, but I have the deepest respect for what they accomplished Friday night. If you missed it, I’ve included a few photos that try to do it justice:

See a larger group of pictures here.
Thanks to Boston.com for the photos.

The guys at Pulp Branding publish a great comic strip on branding. The current issue speaks to choosing the right firm for your creative needs. I think they hit on a great set of points to remember. 

1. Meet with firms that interests you

While portfolios and marketing brochures are important, they do not give the whole picture. They speak only to the capabilities, but don’t say anything about how they treat people or whether they will listen to what you have to say.

2. Insist on meeting the creative team

The sales and executive teams are great facilitators of the sales process, but it will be the creative team that will be responsible for developing your work. The same rules apply from #1 above. You are attempting to determine the character and culture of the actual team that will be working with you.

3. Request and call their client references

This will help you see how well they do what they say they are going to do and any other challenges that could arise. See what past clients have to say about their work.

4. Have the creative team explain their thoughts on a past project

This gives you insight on whether the team creates pretty pictures or creates pretty pictures that have meaning and relevance to the brands they represent. The ATT globe is a great logo, but not for Baskin & Robbins. The globe means something to what ATT stands for as a company. Make sure the creative team understands that.

5. Have the team explain past failures and how they got back on track

No project is completely without trouble. It’s the firm that can identify these challenges and adjust both their own and client expectations that shows the signs of a great firm. How did they react when things went wrong? What steps got them back on schedule? How well did they keep the client informed?

Pulp Branding had some great thoughts. What else do you think clients should ask potential firms before hiring them?

It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones.

—Niccolo Machiavelli on Adversity

This quote reminded me of the critical importance of user adoption on projects. The executive team is the one who hires the team, but the public at large is the one that matters. They need to be included and sold on the new website, CRM system, blog, etc. The rise and fall of any new system is whether the people out there will care enough about it to give it a second glance. Without that you are just entertaining your own personal desires.

Have a great week!

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Here in Marblehead country, the old thermometer is tipping past 100 way more than we’d like. Some days its all we can do just to stay out of the sun and keep our drinks cold. No doubt the heat can really put a drain on energy and moral.

Even in the face of a Texas August, the design must go on. To help us push forward, we found a great site called Visual Evasion with 100 big bold pictures of outstanding book cover art. The site is in French so we have no idea what they are saying. But if I had to guess, I’d assume it’s something along the lines of “check out all these bad ass book covers.”

You can see the whole collection here, but I added a few of my favorites below for those who are too exhausted by heat to click on links. Stay cool people!

Thanks to Quipsologies for the tip.

I’m that guy who never out grew my geeky teenage love of cars. I love the design, I love the innovation, and I love the racing. Within this fan-boy obsession, one of my favorite car makers has always been Lotus. So a few years back when I heard that a group of engineers from Silicon Valley were making a fully electric sports car based on the Lotus Elise, I was really excited. The car is called the Tesla. It is an electric rear wheel drive 2 speed convertible that does 0-60 in less than 4 seconds and can go about 300 miles on a full charge. (you read that right) I love the idea of testing new technology in high end designs, and I love the idea of sticking it to Detroit for being so dumb and slow for so long. Anyway, at long last, they are starting to ship the Tesla to lucky (and stupid rich) buyers. Inevitably… this happened:

The thing that whips me more than anything else about this story is that the other cars in the collision were a fat mid-level Mercedes and, my evil arch nemesis: a f—ing Toyota Camry. Maybe the most exciting car in the last 30 years, crushed between two of the least exciting cars in history.

»Read the whole story in Wired.

Last week, the owners of Steak & Ale and Bennigans unexpectedly announced that their restaurants would be shutting down for good. These pioneers in casual dining have had close ties to the Dallas design community for over 30 years.

For three decades, Steak & Ale and Bennigan’s have been a reliable source of suburbia decor across the country. These two strip mall landmarks made the ideas of franchised casual dining and themed concept restaurants mainstream. It seems impossible to imagine now, but there was a time when every restaurant was actually built and run by people that represented the culture of the food and drinks being served. We affectionately refer to that time as “the good old days.”

Dallas Icons

Through their long reign as champions of convenient mid-priced dining and faux cultural experiences, these two restaurants were tied in one way or another to the Dallas area. As they expanded, they presented an interesting opportunity to the local design community. Because they commanded an empire of locations, they were able to deliver something few other restaurants ever had: a big budget.

The Rise to Power

When the ball started rolling in the late 70s, the ownership group wisely decided that if they were going to sell these restaurants made from cookie cutters they needed to make the cookies look great. The logos look dated now, but up against main stream restaurants of the time, they were extremely polished and had an unmistakable air of professionalism. Even today, you can see they have a great sense of balance and excellent craft in typography. After the parent company for the restaurants moved to the Dallas area, much of the additional design work was done by The Richards Group and their design boutique RBMM.

It didn’t take long for the word to get out that manufacturing restaurants on a mass scale was a great way to make a ton of money, even if you didn’t know much about cooking or culture. All you needed was a unique concept, and herds of wide-eyed masses would come running. All of these restaurants hired their own high-end designers and the arms race was on.

The Free Market Strikes Back

In the spirit of free market Darwinism, Bennigan’s and Steak & Ale again turned to our local design community for a fresh identity that would muscle them back on the gravy train. This time, Dallas design firm Dennard and Lacy were asked to make these old thoroughbreds race worthy again. The task was much tougher this time. In the 70’s simply looking professional made them a lone superpower. Now, every chain restaurant concept had their own army of designers working to make them look like the prettiest girl at the ball. I think the updated identities look pretty good, especially considering the challenge they faced. The fact is, high-end design for concept restaurants had become a zero-sum gain. It’s simply something you have to do to stay even with everyone else. In that regard, the new identities put them back in the game.

The Denary and Lacy redesign for Bennigans is a noble effort, but with so much competition, updating the existing brand could only hope to achieve a level playing field with similar resturants. Ultimately, it’s tough for a typical customer to see much difference in the new look, so the overall impression of Bennigans is left unchanged.

The new identity for Steak & Ale was much fresher. They abandoned most of the design, color, and architecture from the previous concept. Ordinarily, completely changing a brand is risky business. However, Denard and Lacy wisely recognized that in the chain restaurant game, newer is better. In fact, it would be easy to mistake the new Steak & Ale as a completely different restaurant. I really like the strategy behind the brand, and I love the design. This is one of the only restaurant logos that is truly memorable and still classy. Unfortunately, this was just a concept store. Most Steak & Ale locations stayed the same. This resturant had some many forces mounted against them, I’m not sure this design could have saved them. But it certianly would have been a big plus in their column.

The End of An Era

Alas, times are tough, and Gen X is getting older. This generation values authenticity above all other things when they make purchasing decisions. The idea of fake culture worked great for the leisure loving baby boomers, but it doesn’t play so well now. So expansion, a bad economy, and a dwindling customer base led to bankruptcy. Despite the Dallas design communities best efforts, these two mighty empires have taken their last trip to the salad bar.

It is not enough to begin; continuance is necessary. Mere enrollment will not make one a scholar; the pupil must continue in the school through the long course, until he masters every branch. Success depends upon staying power. The reason for failure in most cases is lack of perseverance.

—J.R. Miller on Persistence

Writing a blog is not about how it looks.  It has nothing to do with a getting it developed and launched. It’s all about content (I believe someone said it’s king). It’s not just about starting a conversation, but continuing it. Most blogs fail for the simple reason that a good blog takes work. Ongoing work. We at Marblehead are learning that lesson the hard way. Look for our post frequency to be back up to 4-5 posts per week again. Have a great Monday!

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Hey did you guys know a new iPhone came out a couple of weeks ago? Along with that Apple launched the AppStore so you can now install third party applications on the iPhone. One of the great applications that was recently released is WordPress for the iPhone. This is an application with some great features that allows you to write for your blog on the go. In fact I’m writing this post on my iPhone right now!

Setting up the app to use with your blog is quite simple. It is a matter of giving it your blog URL and your login information. After it logs into your blog it shows all of your current posts and you have the ability to edit any of those and create new ones.

Creating new posts is where this application comes in real handy. While it isn’t that great to type on for long posts (my thumbs are already tired) it’s great for quick posts and it even gives you some great features like being able to add photos from your library or camera very easily. Posts are automatically saved as local drafts on the iPhone and you have options to save as a draft on the blog, published, private, or pending review. You can also assign categories and tags to the post. Syncing with your blog works very well too as soon as a post is saved on the iPhone it the changes show up on the blog.

While this is a great tool for writing blog posts it has no tools for administration you have no access to disable or enable plugins and there is no way to administer comments at all. Overall I think it is a great app for the iPhone that makes posting on the go easy and fun.