Our friend and client Dave Bailey, the brains behind St. Louis’s “Chocolate Bar”, “Bridge” and “Rooster“, alerted us to this Mexican doppleganger.
Apparently some enterprising restauranteurs wanted to open a breakfast place in Isla Mujeres this year, but didn’t want to go through the hassle of actually having to work with a design company. Instead, they nicked Rooster’s name, logo, and signage. Pollo loco.
This week we’re celebrating the launch of FEAST Magazine, the new publication from the suddenly very profitable Lee Enterprises. For the last three and a half months, the TOKY team has been eating and drinking FEAST layouts, all in secret as the mag prepared its launch.
Above are a couple of spreads from the 8-page White Barn feature story we designed around Tuan Lee’s wonderful photo essay (we also did the logo, grid system, all look and feel, many of the section story designs and the website design and CSS… but more on that later…). The White Barn is a cult destination for foodies and junk food aficionados in St. Louis. It’s the heart and soul of a 75 year old fireball named Rich Robson, who says “I love the people, and I love to work — and I like to flirt with the ladies.”
Our spreads have been pretty much unchanged from our final turn-over files to printed pieces. The only real changes we noted are that all the captions have mysteriously vanished, leaving empty little undesigned white pockets of space. Ah, well… I’m certain Roger Black has disappointments, too.
By the way, at FEAST’s debut party we spotted Mr. Robson standing quietly in a corner, and Katy and Liz from our team asked him for a photo. He’s kind of a hero around TOKY. He still loves the ladies. Looks like the ladies love him back.
We attended the debut launch party of Catherine Neville’s new FEAST Magazine last night, and finally got our hands on a copy of the real thing.
After 100 days of immersing ourselves in the design of everything FEAST — from the new logo to the grid structure to the look and feel of the publication to the CMS-driven web site design — as well as final design of the magazine’s two main feature stories — it was nice to see the first issue printed and looking, well… pretty OK.
There were a lot of changes that we noticed in the magazine from our original files, but that’s to be expected as magazine designers turn over templates to internal art directors (kudos to Lisa Triefenbach, the magazine’s new AD, for getting this issue to the finish line!).
So we’re going to make this week a full-on feast of “FEAST” on our blog. We think this will be a nice way to present the reality of how designs can change from the designer’s hands to final execution, and to celebrate the arrival of a long-expected labor of love for Katy, Liz, Kirsten, and Becky on our team.
Today, a before and after of the first issue’s cover. The TOKY team designed this WEEKS ago (and were asked to keep the subject on the hush-hush) and finally saw the printed copies for the first time last night. The changes that we noted are subtle but interesting for students of design: the red FEAST logo has gone yellow and lost it’s shading behind Tuan Lee’s monumental burger, our more understated white type headline has been boxed in honkin’ white bars, and the lack of yellow highlights in the above-the-logo teasers. Otherwise… pretty much what we designed.
Tomorrow: the White Barn Burgers feature story — before and after.
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.
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
TOKY’s work will be prominently featured in Rockport Books’ new “1000 More Graphic Elements.“ The book will feature our work for The Private Residences at the Chase Park Plaza, the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, The Saint Louis Public Library Foundation, EcoUrban Homes, The Laurel condominiums (oh, the rumors flying around about that project!!) and Art Fix for Rebuilding Together St. Louis.
Two of TOKY’s brand identities have been selected for HOW Magazine’s 2010 International Design Awards. TOKY’s senior designer Travis Brown designed the logos for 100 Woodfire Grille and Art The Vote; both will be published in the 2010 Annual, on magazine stands worldwide in April. HOW awesome!
Coasters, posters and POP displays were created by Toky Branding + Design to promote Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ Spirits of Versailles. This event brings together star mixologists to create exotic cocktails inspired by Opera Theatre’s production of John Corigliano and William M. Hoffman’s The Ghosts of Versailles. Cocktails will be followed by the opera.
Log onto ExperienceOpera.org or the Facebook event page for more details about the June 19th event.
We have 8 pages in the recently released Graphis Branding USA 3 publication, a showcase for the nation’s leading branding and design firms. A few samples follow below, or download all of the pages as a pdf.
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