Designing a Unique Holiday Gift2nd Annual Adopt-A-Family

Our second annual Miles Design adopt-a-family was a success, and we are so thankful for the opportunity to participate again this year. We learned quite a bit about the process and strategy from our experiences last year, and this year went off without a hitch--it was truly a team effort from start to finish.

This year, we adopted a family of five. Besides mom, there were two girls (one and fifteen) and two boys (nine and seventeen). After talking with them, we learned that they lost their home to a fire last year at Christmas, and they've been working to rebuild their lives over the last year. Their lists had everything from pots and pans, dinnerware, and clothing to a basketball, games, and movie passes.

With lists in hand, the entire team took over Walmart on Friday morning, Dec. 4--dividing and conquering. Josh, Eric, Brian, and Cookie shopped for the boys' gifts and toys while April, Lauren, Meg, and I worked on the household items and girls' gifts. It was a great time, and I was impressed with our efficiency--although I'm positive we could have spent all morning putting together cute outfits and shopping for toys! When it was all said and done, we managed to get everything on our list in one stop, and we came out on budget!

Here are some photos from our shopping adventure:













The afternoon of Dec. 10th was dedicated to wrapping all of the gifts (and Eric's cell phone). The finished stack of presents was an awesome sight and took up most of the conference room table--very impressive!







Now, what to do with all that leftover paper? Any ideas? Hmm…



The entire office made the trip to deliver the gifts, and the family was very kind (and probably overwhelmed) as we all piled in their living room! It was such a rewarding experience to participate in this program during the holidays. It can be such an overwhelming season, and it feels really good knowing that we were able to ease the burden of providing for a family of five at Christmas. And, most importantly, we worked together and had fun doing it!

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Help Us Give Back - Holiday Gift Drive

We all know that the holidays can be a particularly stressful time of year--especially when the pressure to provide everyday necessities can be overwhelming or even impossible. Miles Design has been blessed with a year of growth, and our focus this holiday season is on sharing and giving back. And, we have a hunch that many of you, our clients and friends, will want to join us in our efforts.

"How?" you ask.
Miles Design will be supporting The Shepherd Community Center and their Annual Christmas Gift Drive. The Shepherd Community Center has been serving children and families on the Near East Side of Indianapolis for twenty-five years, and their Christmas Shop is a great opportunity for area parents and children alike to select both gifts and essentials for their loved ones. The shop relies on donations--toys, gift items, clothing and money--and we're confident that, with your help, we can fill it with a lot of great things.

Click here for a Needs List. All items should be new and unwrapped.

We'll gladly accept any donations at our office through December 14th, so if a) you'll be in the area, b) we have a meeting planned, or c) you just want to stop for a visit, we hope you will consider contributing to this worthwhile cause!

Happy Holidays, and thank you all for a great year!

Note: If it's more convenient, you can certainly drop off directly at the Shepherd Community. Click here for more information.

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PRIME: Celebrating Design Excellence in Indianapolis

Good things are happening for the Indianapolis design community and Miles Design! PRIME--the first annual AIGA Indy Design Awards Show--is opening to the public this Friday, and we're excited to share that four of our entries were chosen to be included in the show.

For those of you not familiar with PRIME, or AIGA Indy for that matter, here's a quick background on both. AIGA, the professional association for design, is the oldest and largest professional design organization consisting of more than 22,000 members and 64 local chapters across the country. Our local Indianapolis chapter represents design students, professionals, and educators all across Indiana--providing a mix of events, initiatives, outreach programs, and more.

This is the first year for PRIME, and it's been a long time coming! The pieces honored this year were selected for their visual excellence and demonstration of strong design processes and real-world, measurable results for the client. The judges, no doubt, had some very tough decisions to make, and I don't envy them one bit! Accepted work will be on display until Thanksgiving at Dean Johnson Gallery in downtown Indianapolis. After that, a book showcasing the work will be created and distributed both locally and to AIGA chapters across the country.

Miles Design is honored to be recognized among our peers, and we're even more excited that we can be a part of a show that celebrates the great design happening in and around Indy. There's a lot of talent here, and we're thrilled to be a part of it! If you're free Friday, November 6th, we hope you'll have a chance to mix and mingle with us at the show opening. And, if you find yourself downtown before Thanksgiving, take some time to stop by the gallery. We promise you won't be disappointed!

PRIME - First Friday Opening
Friday, November 6
5:00-9:00 pm
Dean Johnson Gallery - 646 Massachusetts Avenue

Accepted entries from Miles Design include:
1. Knozone - www.knozone.com
2. Miles Design - 2009 New Year's Card
3. Kevin Kennedy Associates - Identity System
4. BRAND PHOTODESIGN - Identity System

Congratulations to all the designers with work on display and to all of the companies, clients, and individuals being recognized along with them.

For more information on PRIME and AIGA Indy, visit www.indianapolis.aiga.org

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Miles Design - Summer Updates

I wanted to note a few announcements, links and other things you may not have seen this summer (unless you're following us on Twitter). In fact, I didn't catch a few of these links until earlier this week. (Thanks Melissa!)

Miles Design launched a few website designs this past month. We've also found a few articles posted online about our clients and our Indianapolis design firm. So check out the stories below, and keep us posted if you find any others. Enjoy!

Chalet Landscape was featured in Today's Garden Center as a "Next Generation" marketing website design. Congratulations to Chalet and their team!

In case you missed it, the new Knozone.com and flash game Zoneout launched in June. The game is getting a ridiculous amount of traffic - great to see that! These projects were in partnership with The Basement and Fat Atom. We have seen several web articles on the project. In fact, here's one now. We're currently working on a few other Knozone initiatives which should launch later this summer.

We were proud to hear that our letterhead design package for Brand Photodesign won a Silver award in the Neenah Paperworks Letterhead Contest.

A freelance writer for Anderson University did a great story on Cookie, our graphic design intern from AU.

And last, but certainly not least, we launched a major corporate rebranding initiative for Kevin Kennedy Associates Inc., beginning last week. You'll be seeing more of them on our new website later this Fall, but for now you can check out the new KevinKennedyAssociates.com

That's it for now... stay tuned for more.

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Miles Design Identities Selected for Logo Lounge "Master Library" Series

We were very excited to learn that Logo Lounge had selected three of our recent brand identities for their inaugural Master Library Series book, Initials & Crests.

What is the Master Library series? We had the same question. Here's what Logo Lounge had to say, "Like our existing (and continuing) LogoLounge book series, the new Master Library books will bring you plenty of exemplary logo design work from creatives around the world.

Unlike our original series, though, each book in the Master Library series will focus on a very specific logo design category..."

Sounds good to us. The book should be published "in the next year." Until then, to see what was selected, continue reading.



More on 12 Gauge.


Check out the wheeltags site. More Wheeltags.



Check out the new Brand Photodesign studio.

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Miles Design book club discussions

Since my last "book club" post I've wrapped up my book for January: The Designful Company: How to build a culture of nonstop innovation by Marty Neumeier. And if you're a brand fanatic like myself, I can't recommend a better use of two hours of your day. Marty has some spot-on insights regarding design thinking, and manages to make it neither over-simplified, nor ridiculously cerebral.

I also recently wrapped up Tribes by Seth Godin in December. Like most of Seth's books you could probably read the first few pages and get the point of the entire book, but there are some great examples, and some interesting Godin wit. There are times when I think even Godin is confused about whether he's speaking of actual faith vs. religion, metaphorical faith vs. religion, or both. Knowing Seth, it's probably both. Either way, it's an interesting perspective. Anyone from a business owner to a volunteer in an organization should find this book both interesting and practical. Seth's Blog is always worth your time as well.

Finally, I wanted to remind all of our new book club comrades that our next book was up for vote. And since I already have Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam in my possession, (and I'm in charge) unless there are any dissenting votes, we'll be moving along with that one. I've got a non-biz book to wrap up before I get started on "Napkin", but I should be hitting it early February. There's no rush, and no time limit, so whenever you've finished with one of our selections, please share your thoughts - happy reading!

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Announcing the Miles Design Book Club

In theory, I'm a part of the Smaller Indiana Business Book Club, which I think is a great concept. In reality, I have my own stack of books that I'm cruising through and haven't actually made it to a Smaller Indiana Book Club meeting, or even picked up all that many books from SI's list.

I may not have had much success reading from the other list, but I am reading, so I thought I'd share what I actually am reading to see who would like to join me in the official Miles Design Book Club.

As you may (or may not) have noticed, I've posted a few of my favorite design, marketing and branding books on the homepage of our blog. I'll post a new book every month (that I actually will read) and hopefully you'll join me in reading a few of these titles.

I'm looking forward to your feedback.

December: Tribes by Seth Godin

January: The Designful Company: How to build a culture of nonstop innovation by Marty Neumeier

And a few others I have in the hopper for February, March and April (any votes?):

Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcom Gladwell

Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

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Final Update - Designing a Unique Holiday Gift

We're pleased to report that we have successfully shopped, wrapped, and delivered all of the gifts over the past week. Here's a little of the "evidence" shall we say? If you want to see the photos, you're going to have to click to read more!

To close out our 2008 Christmas Shopping Odyssey, here's a few photos from our adventures:


Nothing brings the office together like the holidays...


Surveying all of our great finds, and it only took two shopping carts... at this store.


Getting ready to brave the weather...


Our second stack of goodies.


One of our families made us paper cranes!

I'd like to give a special thanks to Amanda for heading up all of our shopping activities this year. Great job, and we're looking forward to doing it again next year!

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Update #2 - Designing a Unique Holiday Gift

We've been holding off to share our latest updates... mostly because a few of the details were still up in the air. So as of this week, Miles Design is officially adopting two families this Christmas. And today is our shopping day!

Both families appear to be single mothers. Our first family listed the mother and two boys (eight and twelve). Our second family listed the mother, two girls (eight and fourteen) and a twelve-year-old son.

Their Christmas lists are mostly just the basics: warm clothes, undergarments, school clothes, and a few toys. It's yet another reminder of how blessed we all are.

We're still working on the strategy for shopping this afternoon. There has been talk of splitting into teams for each family - or even splitting up the lists into categories and dividing and conquering in that fashion. Either way, I think we'll figure it out.

We'll be hitting some combination of Old Navy, Kohl's, Meijer, Target, and maybe even Castleton Mall after lunch today. And as requested, we'll take photos of our shopping trip to share with everyone here on the MD News blog. Watch out Castelton!

Our plan is still to keep the afternoon of December 12th as our wrapping day, and December 18th is when we plan to make our deliveries. And as before, if anyone is interested in joining in on the holiday cheer, drop us a line.

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Summer 2008 - MD News updates

Once again, I've been too busy to blog... So in the interest of catching everyone up quickly (again), here's a fresh recap in bullet point format:

02.29.08 - Driving Miss Debbie Millman (to the airport) after her great AIGA presentation on Leap Day.

03.15.08 - MD awarded RatioArchitects.com redesign.

04.01.08 - MD begins rebranding for BRAND PHOTODESIGN.

04.10.08 - MD has nine business card designs published in new book: "Best of Business Card Design 8".

04.16.08 - Josh begins 12-week business course: REACH.

04.25.08 - Josh moves his desk to window. Rumors around great 4th floor view determined to be true.

05.01.08 - MD starts rebranding work with AIT Laboratories (aka CSI: Indianapolis).

05.12.08 - Adam Siurek joins MD from IUPUI/Art Institute fame, as project manager / lots of other things.

06.01.08 - MD (in partnership with The Basement and Plan B) is awarded the KNOZONE account!

06.05.08 - Josh goes to Mexico on OasNet mission trip; makes new friends, meets Montezuma.

06.24.08 - MD team including: Ben Seal, Thom Zimmerman, and CMGI win two Silver Addy Awards for Pulte Homes television commercial series.

06.26.08 - Josh's dad has a heart attack, complete with a quadruple bypass surgery. He's recovering nicely at home in Granger, IN. I'm proud of you Dad.

07.01.08 - MD celebrates one year anniversary in our "new" offices at the Precedent... 365 days without a goose-related incident (or open house... it's coming).

07.02.08 - Intern Erin M. begins work @ MD. Josh graduates from REACH.

07.07.08 - Brian finally gets his Pantone color bridge book, and is happy. We think.

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MD News updates

Much has happened in the past four months. A new office, new baby, etc... So in the interest of catching everyone up quickly, here's a recap in bullet point format:

07.01.07 - MD moves into new offices at the Precedent, complete with a fourth floor view of "Lake Precedent." (To date, no geese have chased Josh into the new office. Stand by for further updates.)

07.01.07 - Long time MD collaborators, Wired Ground, agree to share office space with MD.

08.15.07 - Meg Taylor Miles
Born 1:37 am
7 pounds, 10 ounces
19.75 inches long
Eyes - grayish... maybe blue, but too close to call.
Hair - short brown
Hands and toes - long and thin

09.01.07 - Two MD entries have been selected to appear in Graphic Design USA's design annual, due to hit newsstands in January. The selected pieces were the redesigned brand identity for Surroundings, and MD's own holiday card from 2006.

10.01.07 - After much delay, MD finally settled on printing new business cards on plastic. Cool stuff.

10.22 - Brand identity design specialist Brian K. Gray joins the team at MD.

10.27.07 - MD designer Amanda celebrates her nuptials with husband Joe, in quaint New Harmony IN.

11.01.07 - MD remembers blog, updates past four months.

11.04.07 - Did anybody catch all of that?

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Why blog?

It's funny. It's been over a year since we added our first (albeit brief) entry to the Miles Design blog. Although my original vision for our blog was to have a venue to talk about branding and share all of the interesting things around me, here we sat nearly 15 months later, with just one entry.

Ironically, as I have been procrastinating over writing new entries, I've had several clients asking me about blogs. Among our clients, there are those who are considering starting blogs, those who are a little slow to add content to existing blogs, and of course the clients who seem to be getting the hang of it. Just the other day at lunch, blogging came up again. This time it was a potential client who asked us a very straightforward question, "Why would our business even want a blog?"

Our group all chimed in to share their perspectives... A blog is an opportunity for an organization to show it's personal side. If a brand is the total perception of a company, what a great way to build "personality." It's a great chance to express opinions, discuss trends, dig deeper into the details of a project, or have the ability to go deeper than the company's 'capabilities' or 'client list.' It's an opportunity to showcase their best team members as thought leaders, or even express the CEO's sense of humor. It's a place to link to interesting sites or stories. And some business leaders find blogs less intimidating to add to, versus updating the "about us" page on their website.

Thankfully, I'm taking our table's advice. As a part of our impending re-launch of MilesDesign.com, we're re-committing to maintaining our blog, not just updating our samples and client list.

So why would Miles Design want a blog? First of all, our previous website was launched in February of 2006. Our single "news" page listed our all of our "newsworthy" items over the past few months. While that seemed adequate at the time, it forced our "news" to be reduced down to headlines, such as:

08.06 - MD launches smart new ad campaign for The Heart Center of Indiana.
07.06 - MD begins work with Sensory Technologies.
07.06 - MD (and team) win Telly Awards for The Heart Center TV commercials.

You get the idea...

So for us, a blog is a great opportunity to expand our "news" into full stories. It's a chance for us to share more about what is happening in our office, as well as outside. And let's face it... I like to talk about us, almost as much as I like the BBQ chips from Jimmy John's.

Secondly, our blog allows Miles Design to be a better example for our clients. If branding experts can't demonstrate the marketing benefits of a blog, why would their clients show interest?

Finally, let's not downplay the fun factor. It's a chance for us to share the cool things we experience all around us. Our shop maintains strong ties to culture, and it's something our principals encourage. As design thinkers, we're constantly looking at the trends going on around us: in business, music, fashion, all types of design, and (of course) branding... all topics we'll likely be exploring. And when you have a such a simple, fun, brand-building forum as a blog, who wouldn't want to share?

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