Design Rangers Camp Blog

When you think of the Disney empire, creative is a word you already associate with the brand. Typically, the mention of Uncle Walt conjures up images of the all-mighty mouse or one of the many animated splendors that come out of the magic castle.

It’s doubtful however that many would envision a talking wine bottle looking for a date with food (a campaign for Epcot’s International Food and Wine festival). Or an ad showing Yoda, using the force at luggage claim (in a campaign for Star Wars Weekends). Yet these are exactly the kind of fun (and funny) ideas and campaigns coming out of Disney’s “Yellow Shoes” in-house creative department.

(more…)

Happy almost end of the week! I apologize for not getting to the round-up last week, the excuse is we have been busy! That’s good, right? But, unfortunately I wasn’t able to make time for the blog…

So, better late than never, here are the fun, cool, smart, great things we saw or did over the past 2 weeks:

1. We were honored and excited to be asked to design a bookmark for the “No Impact Man” book. Colin Beavan, the author, will hand out the book mark at his books signings. After we designed the bookmark they also asked us to create a on-line ad from the bookmark design – we were happy to do it. The book is quite amazing and the blog also has a lot of information.
2. After working with the “No Impact Man” we decided to follow him on Twitter. One of his recent tweets was regarding the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. As you know (or are just now learning we are big advocates of bikes, bike trails, and SAFE routes for kids to walk or ride their bike to school.) Remember when you were a kid – there was nothing better than the freedom you felt while riding your bike. Consider sending a letter to Congress asking for their support of the Safe Routes campaign.
3. Have you been to Mule Design’s Feed Store? If you love a good T-shirt there are plenty here!
4. We are recent members of the National Parks Conservation Association. Their mission is to protect and enhance America’s National Parks for present and future generations. We love our National Parks and wanted to be a part of assuring their future.
5. Finally, something to make you smile. What a great project!

Please check back for a blog dedicated to the No Impact Man and the work we did for him. We also have quite a few exciting projects in the final stages of completion. We are looking forward to posting them as soon as they are approved and ready for the public eye.

Happy Trails!

TGIF Readers and Happy 3-Day Weekend!

Here are a few things that caught our eye this week:

1. Yes, we are procrastinators… but at least we are self-aware. Check out The Now Habit, maybe we can overcome procrastination together. But, we’ll have to put it off until mid-October.
2. On the same note – we came across this site on a great blog we follow. Yes, life is busy and we are still learning to keep it under control. But it’s always nice to know you have lots of company.
3. Well, enough of that – let’s get to the fun stuff! We LOVE logos. We love to look at logos. We love to read about logos. We love to design logos. As designers we do lots of logo research, always wanting to be hip to the newest trends – good or bad. We learned a lot from logo trends of 2009. We are looking forward to 2010!
4. Design Rangers love boy scout merit badges. I wonder if you can just buy the entire set for like 50 bucks? They are all great, but I think this is my favorite!
5. You know that song you love – well, you know how you REALLY love minutes 1:38 – 1:52. These guys feel the same way! It’s about a 30 minute podcast – make sure you hear the first 6 1/2 minutes and the last 1 1/2 minutes (the remaining minutes in the middle are for more mature ears – parents out there with young ones, be warned). This is the spin off site from that podcast – songparts.biz where you can buy you favorite song parts – for cheap! Hear the song part before you buy it if you click on the gray “click to play” bar. Joni Mitchell spazzes out and fake laughs(?) at the end of “Big Yellow Taxi” $.04 - DEAL!
   
6. On a more serious note – our hearts go out to our friends in California. All the talk about the forest fires there reminds us of our good friend, Smokey Bear. What a great guy! (A blog devoted to Smoky and his 65 year campaign coming soon…) Remember, Only YOU can prevent forest fires.

Hope you have a great weekend and as always, Happy Trails!

I’ve been feeling pretty guilty about something lately.

I know we (as in all of us) are not supposed to be spending money right now. “We” should be stockpiling it, eating ramen for every meal and by no means drinking Starbucks or eating amazing Thai Food. So when Chris and I decided that we (as in our family) were going to take a 12 day vacation to the Hawaiian Islands in October I felt like a really bad person. I was actually nauseous for a few days after buying the plane tickets – millions of terrible thoughts running through my head… “What if all our clients decide they hate us and take their design jobs elsewhere?” “What if one of the kids comes down with the Swine Flu the day before we are supposed to leave and we have to cancel our trip and lose all that money?”

(more…)