March 2010
Like many premium product brands of today, cigar box labels of the late 19th century were designed to express something of the highest quality. Cigar manufacturer’s wished to express two things to potential buyers—great taste and high-quality tobacco. Cigar smoking was at the height of popularity at the turn of the century, so naturally competition to influence a potential consumer was fierce. Given that every cigar manufacturer said their tobacco leaf and finely rolled cigars provided exceptional taste and the highest quality, how did they express that to the consumer? They did it by sparing no expense with the latest printing, embossing, foil stamping and highest quality graphic design they could find.
The label shown at top, for Ninus brand cigars, was no exception. The colors are still rich and beautiful, and the gold foil and embossing would make any buyer of this product feel as if they were opening something rare and expensive— lessons that continue today with so many consumer products across many categories. I contend that the very act of just opening a box of cigars, the process of breaking the seal, lifting the lid, and witnessing the tight and perfect arrangement of the cigars inside was, in effect, like the distant memory of opening a special gift in childhood. Dr. Freud would be all over this theory.
For Bank Note cigars, their branding strategy led them towards the look of a finely engraved monetary bank note—certainly an expensive look in the marketing war to win the hearts, minds (and taste) of the cigar smoking gentlemen of the day.
Images found on eBay.
March 2010
Calligraphic fonts bedevil me. So, when I saw this ad I thought it was an example of what I like to call a “can’t see the forest for the trees” font. But, no, it was a typo in a Wall Street Journal ad! I feel the company’s pain on many levels (we’ve concealed their name to protect the innocent) – as a copywriter, as an unofficial proofreader who lives in fear of a “can’t see the forest for the trees” typo, as a marketer who imagines how much revenue this ad was supposed to generate, and as someone of Italian descent. So, designers and writers: be careful out there!
February 2010
Pecha Kucha Night once again made an appearance in St. Louis last Saturday, February 20th. This time the night was a bit unique, because the theme of the night was to highlight “creativity in light of tragedy” while also showcasing some of the lesser-known creative charitable organizations in the region. The evening was part of a greater global Pecha-Kucha night where over 50 cities participated. All proceeds from the evening went to Architecture for Humanity’s rebuilding efforts in Haiti.
It’s great to see a night where so many people can share ideas and inspire others. There’s a lot of great talent, good ideas, and people doing interesting things in this town to have these events more often than not, and we’re looking forward to the next PK night later this spring.
TOKY Associate Creative Director and Photographer Geoff Story volunteered his time and talent that night to capture the event, below are some highlights from the night. More can be found at Flickr.com
Donate to the PechaKucha for Haiti Fund from the PKSTL.com site. All proceeds go directly to Architecture for Humanity 501(c) and will be used solely to build buildings. Design work has already been paid for by donations.
February 2010
TOKY had a great night at this year’s ADDY awards, our best ever. We took home Best of Show for Print and the Judge’s Special Citation for Excellence — in addition to eight other ADDYs in categories from video to brochures, from posters to marketing for museums. We also took eight certificates of excellence, which is the runner-up prize.
Here’s the complete list:
Best of Show, Print: St. Louis Public Library Foundation Holiday Cards
Judge’s Special Citation for Excellence: Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts “Staging Old Masters” Photography
ADDY Award: Thinking Cap Identity
ADDY Award: Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts “Staging Old Masters” Inserts
ADDY Award: Chaminade College Prep View Book
ADDY Award: Stranger Than Fiction Gala Invitation
ADDY Award: St. Louis Public Library Foundation Holiday Cards
ADDY Award: Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts “Staging Old Masters” Photography
ADDY Award: Dr. Barry Singer “Carrolle’s Story” video
ADDY Award: Unconscious Poster
Addy Certificate: McCarthy Building Companies Web Site
Addy Certificate: Mississippi Bluffs Brand Identity
Addy Certificate: St. Louis Public Library Foundation Logo
Addy Certificate: JJCA Architects Website
Addy Certificate: Grahawk Properties Website
Addy Certificate: Chaminade College Preparatory School Viewbook Photography
Addy Certificate: Opera Theatre of Saint Louis Spring Gala Invitation
Addy Certificate: Susan and David Sherman Birthday Invitation
Congratulations to our clients and the TOKY teams responsible for this great showing!
February 2010
Last week, TOKY launched the final phase of the Transformation website for The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. It’s a website that ties in the public programs aspect of the Urban Alchemy/Gordon Matta-Clark exhibition that is currently on display at The Pulitzer.
At TOKY, we always try to push ourselves design wise and development wise. On the web, it seems like there is always something that everyone is talking about. For the past six months, that something was Typekit. It’s a web service that enables designers and developers to use fonts outside of the 15 or so ’safe’ fonts that are available across all platforms. Their website states that they will “change the way you design websites.” It’s a lofty goal.
We decided to give it a try on the Transformation website. We used Pill Gothic 300mg by Betatype. Pill was used in the print materials for the the exhibition, and we hoped to use the font to tie in the web aspect as well.
We were a little skeptical when originally researching Typekit. Primarily because we don’t believe it is the ideal solution for bringing new fonts to the web. It’s a javascript solution. So, in essence it’s a hack. However, browser makers along with the type foundry legal teams can’t seem to agree on a way to bring fonts to the web en masse. So, for the time being this is one of the few options we have available.
Overall, it’s a nice service with an easy to use interface. And all that is needed to bring Typekit to your site is one line of code. So I think it will have a very nice future. But in the present, we just ran into too many quirks and issues.
Some of the issues in particular:
- All the weights were not available on Windows. It was regular or bold only.
- Bold in PC Firefox was virtually unreadable.
- We disabled Typekit in some browsers. All PC Firefox, all Safari versions and Firefox 3.0 on all platforms don’t get served Typekit. Instead they get a separate css file to make Arial look proper.
- Download speed. Typkit makes it possible to use many fonts on one site. This site is only using one font. And it has to download over 200kb just for one font. This causes a bit of a delay, so you see Arial for a second or two, and then it snaps to Pill. I can’t imagine the delay when using multiple fonts.
- The biggest problem for us is that it doesn’t consistently work. It doesn’t matter the browser and it doesn’t matter the operating system. Sometimes the fonts just don’t show up in the page — even though we could see that the browser did in fact download the fonts from Typekit.
Here is a screen capture of the weights across browsers and platforms:
While we were able to work around most of these issues, I don’t think we will make it a habit of recommending Typekit in the near future.
February 2010
We got a look at the new Design Review from the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), and we’re proud to see our “Dan Flavin” and “Light Project” websites for The Pulitzer Foundation looking so good. The AIGA Design Review is one of the top awards in the design profession, and we’re humbled and honored to be the only St. Louis area firm included this year.
Winning this award means the Pulitzer sites will become part of the permanent collection of the Denver Art Museum, where the AIGA Archives are housed. It will join several other AIGA winners the TOKY team has, going all the way back to 1990. Search the AIGA Archives online here.
February 2010
TOKY and long-time client HOK launched the newest in a long line of projects last week — and this one’s been a long time coming. We started conceptual work on the HOK History & Lore site way back in 2007. Since then the TOKY team has been working with HOK’s great archivists, writers, technologists, and project managers to build a comprehensive timeline of their major projects, people and events. Even cooler, the site encourages others to add their memories to the timeline through interactive tools.
February 2010
The site we developed for Saint Louis University’s Parks College of Engineering went live Friday. Following on the heels of our well-received Parks view book, we worked hand in hand with the SLU Parks team pulling off one of the largest, most complex sites we’ve ever designed and developed. And it’s all the better that, like McCarthy.com, it’s built on TOKY’s proprietary MYOS Content Management System, making it faster and easier for the SLU team to update. Great work by Jay, Tyler, Melissa, Kathy, Jacob, and the rest of the TOKY web team!
February 2010
Mary and I are still buzzed about making ALIVE Magazine’s BUZZ list for Midtown Alley, our not-quite-downtown urban neighborhood. We’ve been lucky to find a part of our city that’s ready for rebirth as that most elusive of alchemies: the residential/creative/dining destination that still manages to be free of pretension, over-investment by love-em-and-leave-em investors, or suburban chains. Mary and I, along with our friend Jassen Johnson and many of our neighbors, were wined and dined Friday night at ALIVE’s Buzz-fete. Join us in the neighborhood that’s been called St. Louis best restaurant district!
February 2010
On a recent trip to Portland Oregon, I was fortunate to have a personal tour of the new Mercy Corps world headquarters building (designed by THA Architecture) from a good friend who was then dispatched to Haiti within the next few days. The Cooper-Hewitt Design for the Other 90% exhibit was on display at the MC Action Center, and it reminded me how some design CAN change and is in fact changing the world. Innovative thoughtful products like the Bamboo Treadle Pump and the LifeStraw help the poor in a multitude of developing countries gain access to safe water for farming and drinking.
WorldBike brings a new meaning to what hipsters would call artbikes, designing low-cost load-carrying bicycles capable of carrying hundreds of pounds of cargo for entrepreneurs and consumers in developing countries.
Good old humble graphic design wasn’t represented among the high impact life-changing products on display, beyond the beautifully designed catalogue and award-winning website. My tour guide however did mention that Mercy Corps is trying to make the new Action Center a more friendly and welcoming experience. Hopefully they will move away from the cold typography, stark banners and way-finding, and make their interactive stations more comfortable. I think they can achieve a sense of urgency and seriousness about changing the world without feeling and looking like a bank.
February 2010
Recently the National AIGA updated its massive Design Archives web site. Now the site makes it easier to sort, search and create your own collection from over 20,000 selections in the last 80+ years. While at first glance some may think it may have lost a little sex appeal, when digging a bit deeper the tools built into this make up for it.
It’s nice to see such a large archive of works move away from the previous all Flash experience. The new site has much smarter search and sort methods, resizable thumbnails, its easier to share and easier to find specific works online.
AIGA Design Archives is one of the richest online resources available to those who practice, study and appreciate great design. It represents the quality of work being created, as well as shifting aesthetics and sensibilities of the designers of the day. Included in this resource are more than 20,000 selections from AIGA’s annual juried design competitions dating from 1924 through the present.
A look back at TOKY in the AIGA Design Archives
2008 Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts: Dan Flavin Web Catalogue
2004 FK Photo
1990 Demo Tape Label, “Street of Dreams”
1990 Stroube
1990 Wedding Invitation Pairs
February 2010
From ABC News:
St. Louis, the city of red-brick, 19th century architectural jewels and diverse neighborhoods, has been named one of this year’s Dozen Distinctive Destinations by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The National Trust announced the winners of the annual contest Wednesday, but for the first time, the organization also invited the public to pick a “fan favorite” by voting online through Feb. 28 at http://www.PreservationNation.org/ddd.
Communities are chosen on the basis of their ability to “offer cultural and recreational experiences different from those found at the typical vacation destination,” the organization said. Dynamic downtowns, stunning architecture, cultural diversity and a commitment to historic preservation are among the criteria.
February 2010
We recently launched the online catalogue for the current Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts exhibit Urban Alchemy: Gordon Matta-Clark. This site serves as a permanent archive of the exhibition and how it relates to the space designed by Tadao Ando. TOKY designed and developed the site, outdoor pole banners, and some promotional materials for the event.
Visit the site: http://mattaclark.pulitzerarts.org/
