Recently about Branding

We just launched the initial materials for the New Aging Conference organized by the University of Pennsylvania and our good friend Matthias Hollwich of HWKN and Architizer fame. Assembling a world-class roster of provocative speakers from various industries, and culminating in a manifesto to reinvigorate the industry, it aspires to spark a new era of elder care. With that in mind, we developed a logo that imagines a "New & Improved!" aging experience and asked participants to imagine "How do you want to live when you are old?" through the brochure and web site. All with the goal of getting society to think beyond the current options; to imagine - and create - our own better future.

We've been busy at work on a number of projects for the elder care industry. One of the most interesting is the upcoming New Aging Conference in April, put together by our friends at UPenn. Examining Architecture and Aging, it will present exciting advances in the industry and hopes to develop a manifesto for the future of elder care. We just put up a holding page for the web site, and have some exciting materials in the works.

We've been working overtime on a complete branding package for the Virgil nursing home in Los Angeles. And the first web page is now public. It's just a holding page for the moment, but we're working furiously on the full public site. Keep on eye on this facility. They're just getting started with a visionary new management and an innovative team of affiliates, and are reshaping the elder care industry. If you're interested in getting notified when the full web site is live, just sign up on the holding page, or contact us and we'll keep you in the loop on progress throughout.

I just got back from reviewing midterm research projects at a seminar at UPenn about Transforming the Nursing Home. There is a large number of organizations and facilities that are rethinking elder care, such as the Green House and (taking an entirely different tack) Kildegaarden in Denmark. All (okay maybe not all) of which will be informing the New Nursing Home we are branding in LA. Stay tuned.

A lesson in brand equity: Freshening up a dated design is often a good idea. But if you have one of the most identifiable images in your industry (like Tropicana's straw-in-the-orange) don't dump it. Your consumers do care. p.s. To designers: After communicating what the product is, the most important challenge in packaging design is differentiation: stand out from the competition and clarify distinctions within the product line.