Great package design - CRISP

Not only are the falafel sandwiches at CRISP delicious, the packages are a great user experience as well. Falafel sandwiches can get a little messy, but these come in a neatly packaged and sealed box, where you pull open the tab to take off the top half of your box so that you have a nice neat place to put your sandwich back into between bites.

Simply Orange Branding

Today Simply Orange setup a tasting bar outside of Grand Central. Not only was it a nice morning treat, but it was a very unique giveaway stand. The stand was complete with banners, logos and a very simple untreated wood counter, designed to look like the crates holding the many fresh oranges surrounding the stand. I thought it was a great touch for the brand promise of natural, simple and fresh.

Then I began to wonder if Simply Orange had managed to implement this brand feeling on other consumer touchpoints - and they did. When I went to the website it had the same image of fresh oranges and an simple untreated natural wood in the foreground serving as a tabletop for the Simply Orange drinks. What a great user experience to continually see reinforcement of the brand promise through visual and design cues. Only problem with the site - the annoying bird chirping that automatically plays on open. Unless you are in the music industry and users are coming to buy your super sweet music, no brand should have music or sound effects autoplaying in the background of their site.

Air New Zealand - Coach Seats

How has no airline thought of this before? Bringing the foot rest all the way up to make a couch. Amazing. If there are other airlines that have this please tell me so I can fly on them!

Convertible clothing -- interesting.

Sidewalk Chalkboard Ads - The good and the bad

There is a flower shop right outside of where I exit the subway every morning that uses a sidewalk blackboard with promotional messages. Recently, the cleverness of the messages and quality of the design has gone down significantly, so I can only assume that the witty copywriter no longer works there. For a brief time, it would really brighten my day after riding that miserable subway and even once convinced me to use their services.

When done well, a sandwich-board-style chalkboard or message board can be a cheap easy way of targeting local customers. Just as with all other marketing messages, you should add your brand's signature touch or flair to this basic promotional medium.

Good use of sidewalk chalkboard ad space from a flower shop:

Questionable use of sidewalk chalkboard ad space from a dive bar: