As a consumer, I can spot an “organic” or “green” product from a mile away. The packaging is usually plain, some off-beige color - just falling short of being wrapped in a brown paper bag - with a green colored font (or even a leaf, I guess to signify its friendliness to the environment). This is the maker’s way of letting us know the product fits within the parameters of our desire to be considerate of the environment as we purchase our household products. But how did it come about that green had to be so not sexy?
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On vacation in Vegas this Christmas I spotted this sign (a) at a CVS near our hotel which bears a striking resemblance to the Battery Plus logo (b). Both of them are national brands so the questions I have are…

• Is this just a case of great minds think alike?
• Could this be a simple cautionary tale of the dangers of using stock vector art?
• Which came first?

Christmas came early for us at Paragon since we recently designed a Christmas album for the Mississippi Mass Choir. It’s hopefully one in a long line of albums we’ll get to do for the Malaco Gospel Label.

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Alpha Dogs by Donna Fenn.

The thought (or maybe fantasy) of opening your own studio has probably crossed your mind a time or two. Maybe you’ve even bitten the bullet like my friends and I actually followed through on that fantasy. If so then you’ve probably experienced what I call “artists’ brain freeze” when you try to wrap your head around some of those business advice books. This book, however, has the benefit of being both informative and inspirational. It doesn’t scrimp on the fact based bullet points about what it takes to dominate in your field as a small business. But through honest case studies it shows that even though it’s hard work to elevate your practice above the rest, it’s very possible.

So even though it doesn’t specifically cover any design-related businesses in it’s case studies, the fact that I was actually able to read it , digest it and leave it feeling smarter than I did when I first cracked it open says volumes for Mrs. Fenn’s writing skills.

Why a Designer should read it:

1. Obviously this book has more relevance to Designers who own/run their own firms or freelancers. However, I believe that any strategy for business success is a vital addition to the arsenal of value-added services any good designer can offer their clients.

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I was having lunch with the wife yesterday at a local bakery and this little item caught my eye. It’s for a local home accessories store called @home.
Taking a cue from Elbow Room and their Design around Calgary series, I thought it was worth giving props for a bit of local Savannah design work. (Or at least design work done for a local Savannah company.)
@home’s tag line evidently is “Vintage General” and I think the piece captures that aesthetic nicely by combining the vintage patterns with modern sans serif fonts. What I like about it also is it’s simplicity. I think it’s a perfect branding item since it tells me the style of the items they carry as well as all the pertinent location and store hours info without shouting it at me.

I’m not sure who designed it but kudos to whoever you are for proving that good design is just as good as an attention getter as big yellow starbursts, even at the local level.

Every marketer, merchandiser, brand specialist or anyone involved in the art (or science) of convincing people to part with their money needs to read this book by Paco Underhill. Mr. Underhill’s the founder, CEO and President of Envirosell, a company that basically watches people shop and then makes recommendations on fine-tuning the retail experience around them.

Why Designers should read this book:
Even if you’re not involved in merchandising, in-store display design or retail interior design there are some principles and ideas that I found useful:

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Still trying to parse the myriad of concepts thrown out at the DJ Spooky lecture ( and inspired by the great diagrams of David Armano) I started to scribble. I was trying to tie together the thoughts Paul presented with some of the stuff I’ve been reading about the “Conversation Economy”. The following diagram is what I came up with along with the help of the rest of Paragon and our friendly neighborhood futurist Frank Spencer.

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Like Susan said, we recently went to a DJ Spooky lecture. Although it’ll take more than this simple post (and this simple mind) to digest the volume of information he dropped that night, I thought he brought up a bunch of interesting and relevant thoughts about the convergence (or collision) of the individual and the corporate, art and artifact, content and context. I’ll try and condense it all as much as possible but he was deep and I might get lost somewhere in the middle here.

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Phil got this email from a friend of his about an underwater restaurant in the Maldives.

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Just found this gem of a pilot from the creators of Acceptable TV and Ben Stiller. It’s a star studded cast and a crazy premise.
Just not too keen on their interpretation of the origins of Paragon. Though we did get our super human powers from an electrical shock through a vintage radio, the rest of the details are a bit exaggerated.