We were just given a wonderful tour of Bellefontaine Cemetery — a unique combination of historic architectural preservation, history museum, and urban park.

It was a real learning experience, filled with anecdotes (scandalous, heartbreaking, and humorous) about the famous and the forgotten. We spotted this symbol (above) on the side of a tomb not far from the famous Wainwright tomb, and had never seen the wonderful graphic inscription before.

A little Google digging and it turns out to be a three-layer puzzle; the cross at the center is an icon symbolizing Christ. Then, by reading the same cross at a 45 degree angle it becomes an “X”, the symbol for the hard “ch” sound in Greek — a second symbol for Jesus.

The third level of meaning comes from the three coded words that work with the X terminus, all at different reading angles: LUX, DUX, LEX, REX. This turns out to be a second century Christian inscription meaning “My Light, My Leader, My Law, My King”.

The tomb pictured above is Henry Longfellow’s tomb in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the tomb we saw in Bellefontaine a near-perfect match. Which begs the question… was the St. Louis occupant an admirer of Longfellow (or at least his resting place), or did this ancient symbol come with its own Gilded Age brand standards?

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.

BP Oil Spill Protest Graphic by Anonymous Designer

In light of the recent and on-going BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster catastrophe horror, an event that will be a benchmark regarding our use of fossil fuels, I ask you to turn a moment to something else— something paltry in comparison. BP’s brand image.

In the year 2000, and at the cost of over $200 million dollars (a drop of oil in their bucket), British Petroleum launched their new logo and public identity with a well-orchestrated advertising and PR campaign. I remember well how my local Amoco station, with their red, white and blue colors, slowly and methodically began to morph over the period of that year into a new company, a company simply called “BP”. My acceptance of the new brand mark was cautious at first, as the green and yellow sun/flower shape was so dramatically different from anything I had ever seen. As the brand began to unfold that year, from “BP/Amoco” to “BP” to eventually changing the colors of the entire station, I finally came to believe the branding was absolutely brilliant. Metaphorically, the new brand mark just felt global, and it referenced the sun, the earth, flowers and plants—and it was fundamentally different that any other brand in the oil industry. Over the years, I actually came to feel good about buying my gas at BP because little by little, I too, was drinking the Kool-Aid.

BTW, it was branding powerhouse Landor who began the branding work in 1998, and they did it well. Landor designers and strategists worked with Amoco/BP corporate officials to discover a new brand “that would reflect attributes the company aspired to.” Those attributes were performance, environmental leadership, innovation and progressive ideas.”

Just yesterday I found the following on the BP web site: “Safe and reliable operations are integral to BP’s success, and we strive continuously to improve our safety record.” Ri-iight.

When CEO Tony said “I want my life back!” —where was his sensitivity to the 11 men killed on his oil rig? PR gaffe after PR gaffe were to follow, including saying numerous times to Congress that he “could not recall” certain key issues regarding safety. This was after it was revealed that BP went “on the cheap” for safety measures, pushed workers to work faster, and received nearly 800 safety violations in the last three years alone.

Now, the enviro-friendly BP mark that slowly won over this admittedly tough, brand consumer 10 years ago, is as dead in the oil-mucked water as the multitudes of fish, waterfowl, amphibians, shrimp and wetlands his company has killed. Accident? Yes it was an accident. But this was a “world changing” accident that occurred because the company failed to live up to it’s brand promises. Sadly, it has been shown that safety was second or third behind profit.

The beautifully designed BP brand mark now stands for ineptitude, false promises and a preventable environmental disaster that may be biblical in its proportions. BP will never be the same, and may never regain consumer respect. Now the brand mark is being parodied, heckled and vandalized all over the world. I may be wrong, but I say it’s time for BP live up to their commitments to fix this problem, then quietly reemerge as a better, different, and more committed company.

Like many premium product brands of today, cigar box labels of the late 19^th 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.

This is not the first time we’ve seen the creep of txtng into advertising culture. The Arnell Group’s horrid Pepsi campaign (pointing to refresheverything.com) was a few months earlier, and even more widepread. And now we’re seeing the same ideas recycled yet again in an anti-Obama campaign. Pepsi, Obama and the GOP look at the letter “O” and see a void to be filled. Herb Lubalin is LOLing in his grave.

What is it about this one typeface that makes it so ubiquitous in Hollywood? It gets sliced, diced, shattered, drop shadowed, dimensionalized, metallicized, extended, extruded, and lit from behind with holy light, but it’s still just Trajan, over and over and over. Which is why the title for next year’s “Wolfman” looks just like the title from the seven year old “Mothman Prophesies”. That’s either design ignorance or laziness.

Find an example of Trajan in a movie title? Send it to us here and we’ll post it. Maybe we can shame Hollywood into buying a second typeface.