**The theme on this blog has been updated since this post was written…To a WooThemes theme I might add**

With plenty of respect to Jason Schuller who designed the theme upon which this blog is built – and is amazing both as a designer and in the support realm – I will come right out and tell you that I am a WooThemes fan and you should be too. I work in the software industry and have been involved with my share of start up companies so it is not without some experience that I say these guys know what they’re doing. From collaborating with top notch designers (many of whom I’m sure they have never met in person) to outstanding customer support, the company is one that is certainly an example of a Web 2.0 mover and shaker.  Of course it’s not just a feel good story here, I do have some questions on how the brand is being built, so read on. Continue Reading…

I came across this article in Print Magazine and thought it was pretty interesting when you think about the design elements. Basically Print asked four design firms to come up with the design for packaging and branding a pack of dubes. Besides the fact that it is a cool idea in general, when you actually step back and think about it, this is uncharted territory. Nobody has ever really tried to brand Marijuana and so these guys were playing in a completely new ballpark. Of course you can go to Amsterdam where coffee shops have different names for their marijuana but even there almost nobody advertises and the closest you get to branding is the coffee shops themselves becoming chain-like. Therefore, it was interesting to me to see four graphic design firms get a chance at “building a better baggie.”

The four firms chosen for this little task were – Lust, a graphic design practice in Amsterdam established by Thomas Castro, Jeroen Barendse, and Dimitri Nieuwenhuizen; the New York office of Base, which worked with its branches in Europe; the Oslo firm Strømme Throndsen, winner of the 2009 Award for Design Excellence for its flour packaging; and The Heads of State, a two-man operation run by Jason Kernevich and Dustin Summers in Philadelphia.  The brief was simple: What would a legal pack of marijuana cigarettes look like?

Continue Reading…

“Throughout most of the Depression, Americans went assiduously, devotedly, almost compulsively, to the movies…the movies offered a chance to escape the cold, the heat, and loneliness; they brought strangers together, rubbing elbows in the dark of movie palaces and fleapits, sharing in the one social event available to everyone.”

At an average price of $.27 a ticket, movies offered a relatively inexpensive way to vacation from reality. Always popular, this sort of diversion was especially sought-after during the Great Depression. Now fast-forward to today, December 12, 2008 and I read an article that in the month of November video game sales closed in on the $3 billion (US) mark. According to the NPD Group US retail sales of video game hardware, software and accessories jumped 110 per cent last month from a year ago which makes me wonder if in 2008 maybe we have turned to video games in the same way people turned to movies in the 1920′s and 30′s.

The times are not so different, people are losing jobs, money is tight and we are looking for some way to escape in a safe (i.e. not hitting the bottle) manner that still allows us to engage in some social interaction. While people may argue that video games are inherently anti-social, in fact if you look at the facts on the way in which people play these gaming systems they paint a completely different story. Most video game players actually play with another participant either in-person or via the Internet.

In thinking about the above parallels, I did a little research on the gaming industry and so I thought I would present you with 10 industry facts that I found particularly interesting.

• The video game industry (including hardware, software and accessories ) is expected to reach $22 billion in US sales this year.
• The average game player is 35 years old and has been playing games for 13 years
• 65% of US households play computer or video games
• 97% of US Teens (99% male & 94% female) play games
• Nielson Media Research predicts the in-game advertising market to be $1 billion by 2010
• A computer and/or video game is sold every 9 seconds of every day
• 41% of Americans have purchased or plan to purchase one or more games in 2008
• The video game industry is a larger economic generator than the entire motion picture industry
• The video game industry stimulates complimentary product sales of $6.1 billion per year
• $73 million in HDTV sales are directly attributable to the Microsoft Xbox 360