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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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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Bond, Brand Bond.

Culture has a lot to teach us about brands and can give us a glimpse into what consumers are looking for. As I wait for my fresh copy of Casino Royale to arrive in the mail, I rhetorically wonder... why would Hollywood reinvent a cultural icon like James Bond? The answer to me is simple: relevance.

In an age dominated by the likes of Jack Bauer (of TV's "24"), heroes are under more and more pressure to be "real." The "goody two shoes" heros of days gone by aren't resonating with the year 2007. Audiences expect a hero to have real problems. They don't expect their heroes to be perfect, and more importantly, they don't want them to be.

Casino Royale provides a much needed kick start to the James Bond brand. It's generally grittier, edgier, and shows Bond to be (above all other things) human. He makes mistakes. He gets hurt (poisoned, shot, bleeds, and nearly dies). The high sheen that actors (such as Pierce Brosnan) have provided to the Bond role in the past appears to be gone. Here to stay is the new Daniel Craig version. He's out of control. Psychologically unstable. And unmistakably real.

For me, I take this James Bond lesson and apply it to other issues we encounter. Whether we're launching a new consumer product, or introducing a political candidate, today's customer isn't interested in make believe. They want something that feels unmistakably real.

BONUS QUESTION: As we watch the James Bond brand go through the "real filter" it makes me wonder, who's next? What Hollywood franchise is most due for an update, and why?

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