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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Designing a Unique Holiday Gift

For those of you who have enjoyed our past holiday cards and fun little excursions like HolidayCow.com, we're excited to let you in on a little secret. This year, we're taking a different spin on holiday gifts. We're giving your gift to someone else.

With the roller coaster news from Wall Street this season, we thought this would be a great year to share with those less fortunate. We're still working out the details, but we've decided to use the money we would have spent on you this Christmas to adopt a family in need. And don't worry. We're so excited about what's ahead in this process, we're planning to document our excursion and share in the fun here on our blog.

So stay tuned. There are more good things ahead. And in spite of what the media might have many of us thinking, we're blessed to say, "business is good." And we're lucky to have friends and clients like you. If you have any ideas for our adopt-a-family project, we'd love to hear them.

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Who thinks up that stuff?

Did you by chance see the opening ceremonies of the Olympics? Did you sit there in amazement and awe as the pageantry of events unfolded. The music, the costumes, the choreography. How it all blended together seamlessly bringing traditions of old into the world of new. Spectacular.

As I was sitting there with friends watching this, I overheard one of them say, "Who thinks of this kinda of stuff anyway? It's just mind-boggling."

Who thinks of stuff like this? We do. Isn't it amazing to see what happens when designers are allowed to see their vision through? How they understand the importance of conveying a message to the masses with style and grace. We might be weird at times, but trust us. We know how to push the boundaries and make things well, emotional and best of all memorable.

What was your favorite part of the opening ceremonies? Do share.

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Hand-illustrated typography design in Mexico

I had the privilege of accompanying Oasnet on a recent mission trip this past June. Our group traveled to Tampico, Mexico to meet with local pastors, and help pour concrete floors the old-fashioned way. Among the many amazing thing I was able to experience in Mexico, I was intrigued by the hand-illustrated Typography that was present in some of the smaller towns. In a time when "contemporary" designers are interested in bringing a human element back into our digital work, these local artisans are still doing things 100% by hand. Here's a few of my favorites from a small town, Just West of Tampico, Mexico.

Long before the Photoshop drop shadow, painters were adding depth by hand.

I'm assuming this was a Doctor's office - next to the taco stand.

This illustrator didn't go out of his way to hide the recent price hike on these tacos.

This is a different type of "hand-illustrated type" - I'm guessing this was carved from a mold, and then poured into shape. But you can definitely see the hand-made qualities of these letterforms. Very cool indeed.

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MD Helps Kahn's Rebrand as Vine & Table

It's always fun when a client you've been working closely with gets great press coverage. Especially when they're deserving of it!We'll be writing more about this project soon, but for now, see what Inside Indiana Business had to say about Vine & Table. Click here for the full story. And there's also a nice article this morning on IndyStar.com .

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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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