Sol LeWitt

Janice Pedley
August 26, 2011

The Public Art Fund has turned our beloved City Hall Park into an outdoor museum exhibit featuring one of the world’s greatest modern artists, the late Sol LeWitt. The park is storing a collection of LeWitt’s most famous pieces throughout his career.

“For the first time, audiences will get a sense of Sol LeWitt’s whole body of work, with 27 pieces together in one location,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at the opening.

LeWitt was a leader in the Minimalism and Conceptualism movements, with mediums ranging from works on paper to wall drawings, and 3-dimensional structures that explore different geometric forms such as pyramids and cubes. The show, called “Sol LeWitt: Structures, 1965-2006,” traces the evolution of LeWitt’s ideas about sculpture over the 40 years.

Visit the Public Art Fund’s website for more information and a free smartphone app.

Posted in Urban Finds.

Tastes of Lunigiana

Janice Pedley
August 26, 2011

One of my favorite places in the world is Lunigiana in Northern Tuscany.
Set between the Apennine Mountains and the Mediterranean coastline of Italy, this is a beautiful land of chestnut covered hills and medieval villages.
Food is at the heart of life, with annual village festivals celebrating everything from apples to chestnuts to potatoes to goats!
Local cooking is simple and seasonal, and luckily for us home grown vegetables, wine and produce are shared freely between neighbors.

Posted in Uncategorized.

a cardboard apartment

Janice Pedley
November 30, 2010

An innovative fundraising effort appeared at City Hall Park around Thanksgiving. Instead of the traditional holiday gift drive boxes, SUS (Serving the UnderServed) used cardboard to create a full-scale replica of an apartment, showing what the 3500 people who benefit from their services really need.

The cardboard cutouts were created by set designer Mark Borow, with lovely details such as a cardboard chicken dinner on a cardboard plate.

SUS is an organization that provides housing and other services to for New Yorkers in need, helping them live with dignity in the community, direct their own lives and attain personal fulfillment.

www.susinc.org


Posted in Urban Finds.

Stonyfield’s Gary Hirshberg on steps for success

Janice Pedley
November 16, 2010

Gary Hirshberg has led Stonyfield from a small farming school to a $365mm yogurt company all while giving 10% of profits back to the planet. Here Gary talks to Pause for Thought about sustainability and what it takes to launch a new brand today.

PFT: Stonyfield has been driven by a sense of purpose from the beginning. How would you define your purpose today?

GH: When we first started in 1983 our goal was modest – to close the gap between consumers and where their food came from. We were on a mission to show how food is something that’s good for us, not just less bad for us. We started our little organic farming school with what we thought was a naïve idea at the time: a business model that benefits consumers and farmers alike.

Today we’re the #3 yogurt brand in the U.S. with 1850 dairy farmers who are all profitable. It’s been a 27-year overnight success where everyone wins: cows live twice as long, farmers don’t lose profits, consumers eat nutritious and delicious foods and the planet’s precious resources are sustained.

PFT: Purpose-driven marketing is now the norm for many traditional food companies, yet some of their products fall short on the health and sustainability scale. How do we encourage companies to not only market with purpose, but to create products with purpose?

GH: The notion that we have to be all or nothing is unrealistic. Many companies can’t make the kind of leaps that are truly needed right away. We have to try to persuade them that they can take small steps like converting their ingredients to organic, impacting the supply chain.

It takes activism. I’m on a number of boards and have exposure to senior decision-makers, with opportunities to influence I never imagined way back when. The only real way to persuade these decision-makers is to show them how transitioning to organic does not impact the P&L negatively-it can be profitable as well as positive for their image.

read more >

Posted in Packaging, Purpose.

Is purpose more than a trend?

Alan McNear
October 27, 2010

Purpose is certainly the buzzword of the moment in the marketing world. But like many marketing trends the meaning of the word “Purpose” has evolved with and because of the buzz.

Gone are the days when a brand’s purpose was purely functional. Poland Spring’s purpose is no longer mere hydration, and Suave is much more than clean hair.

Purpose is also more than separating paper and plastic, although it certainly plays a role–remember when Reduce, Reuse, Recycle was a big idea? Now it’s engrained in our lives and we wouldn’t think about doing otherwise.

Purpose today goes well beyond function and recycling, and brand owners are realizing that defining a distinct purpose is now an integral part of their overall Brand Language right along with Color Palettes and Tone of Voice.

But to truly resonate, a brand’s purpose should not be something that changes like seasonal colors. True purpose comes from the heart and is at the core of the brand’s actions. Purpose informs branding initiatives and becomes a metric for evaluating success, rather than a filter for determining whom to sell to or associate with.

read more >

Posted in Purpose.

Digging in

Alan McNear
October 25, 2010

If you live in or around New York City you’ll be familiar with the city’s evolution over the past few years to a safer, cleaner place to live and work. For me, New York City is an example of re-branding at it’s best. Yes, there is a new look and feel–including a contemporary graphic language that speaks to the urban populace, but at the heart of the re-brand are many amazing initiatives that are more than just image-driven campaigns.

One such example is MillionTreesNYC. On Saturday I had the pleasure of taking part in one of the city’s great projects to plant one million trees across New York City over 10 years. Currently, I believe the count is at about 400,000.

Trees play such an important role in our quality of life–they clean the air, they provide shade and protection, and they connect us with the great outdoors.

In Pelham Bay Park, in The Bronx, I joined other volunteers on Saturday to pitch in and help with this awesome transformation.

To learn more about MillionTreesNYC check out their website– www.milliontreesnyc.org.

Posted in Urban Finds.

A full serving of vegetables

Alan McNear
October 11, 2010

Examples of food packaging making nutrition-related claims

Nutrition claims are pretty common in food packaging. I’ve designed and delivered literally hundreds of them for America’s food industry over the past 20 years. Some of them are good, others are laughable. Many are making claims that are deceptive because they present a perceived benefit while masking the food’s lack of nutrition or ingredients that are potentially damaging to your health.

Today, with a more socially-responsible eye, and living in a time when corporate companies are realizing their own responsibility in giving back to the community, I have to question why food companies are still making claims that are deceptive, and often untruthful. Are food companies somehow exempt from owning up to the social problem of obesity we face in America? With some two-thirds of Americans overweight or obese, I would think that food companies, and the people who work for them, would feel some obligation to at least tell the truth about the products they are selling.

It’s no accident that many of the products that make deceptive claims are marketed to children. Mothers in their effort to feed children desirable foods and to deliver healthy meals are inevitably searching for the panacea that will magically deliver on this dialectic. It’s not entirely the mother’s fault to think that “A full serving of vegetables”, or “A good source of fiber”, or “A good source of vitamin D”, or one of my favorites “May promote brain development” are highlighting foods that are good for their children.

read more >

Posted in Packaging.

Shining creativity

Janice Pedley
October 11, 2010

In October 2009 the industrial waterfront of Greenpoint Brooklyn was transformed into a spectacular festival with more than 50 artists exploring the magic of light trough installations on street corners, rooftops, vacant lots and buildings.

It was great to see such an amazing collaboration between artists, neighborhood businesses and the city. Installations ranged from massive projected light rooms on the side of disused building to a walking illumination and many of the pieces provided an interactive experience for the thousands of people visiting the event. A fantastic blend of technology, art and community.

Beyond Brooklyn, ‘Nuit Blanche’ is a global public art festival that begun in 1997 in Paris, Berlin and St. Petersburg that has spread to cities across the world. www.bringtolightnyc.org/

Congratulations to Andrei Severny for the launch of Minamo - abstract and mysterious images slowly move in the dark sometimes taking shapes of japanese calligraphy www.SyncFilm.com


Posted in Urban Finds.