Pantone Turquoise

A greener shade of cyan.   Turquoise.  The colour of serenity, creativity and, most notably communication.  So, what will you and your brand communicate in 2010?

Pantone’s announcement of the official colour for the new year (Pantone 15-5519) seems to have pleased many – both guys and girls love it, it’s fresh, positive and adaptable for home, fashion and marketing communications.

Think clear, tropical seas; think a spring or summer sky.  Think tranquility and transformation with turquoise as we enter a new year to feel good about.

10 Online Tools

10 of the Best Websites to Take You Where You Want to Go

1. ipadio

   – streams your phonecall live on the web for phonecasts and ‘phlogs’

2. digg

   – global news, videos and pictures voted the best of the web by users

3. knowem

   – checks your chosen brand name or username over 350 social media sites to see if it’s available and also allows you to secure it before someone else does!

   Continue reading 10 Top, Interesting and Useful Online Tools

Step inside a wondrous place…immerse yourself in enchanting landscapes…imbibe sublime and visionary art.  If you appreciate captivating, modern art and design then this is a book for you – or someone you know.

Lamassu "Though popular since ancient times, this custom is not supported by logic"

I first came across the ‘Beasts! Book 2’ in a magazine article when I was living in Canada, and thought it would be a sound choice for a present for my beau.  Following incredible success with ‘Beasts!’ Fantagraphics first published the sequel in 2008.  The inspired book, edited by Jacob Covey, embodies over 90 artists’ creative representations of mythological beasts from across the world.  Each beast is given a two page gamut – one page for the creative illustration and the other for a humorous, but nonetheless, downright curiously interesting synopsis.

The level of quality means that as soon as the book is in your hands you know you have been lucky enough to find something very special.  The use of embossing on the hardback cover, handpicked fonts and detailed design on every page is a welcome rarity and sure to become an instant favourite.

Reptoid "While others say they are gods, decadent humans, or even intelligent dinosaur survivors"

This is my first post, in a series of regular articles, with tips and ideas for online marketing campaigns. I’m starting this series with strategies to optimise newsletters.  In this blog you will find some of the components that we look at when designing email marketing campaigns for ourselves and our clients.

Many businesses, big and small, understand the power of email marketing communications to keep their clients engaged with their brand. Whilst many businesses have newsletters, they aren’t yet getting the most from their email marketing campaigns by employing best practices. An often missing element is considering how the newsletter appears once it reaches your subscribers inbox.

Continue reading Email Marketing: Optimising for the Preview Pane

There’s nothing quite like 3D art. Whilst in the Netherlands I perused the open air sculpture park ‘Landgoed Anningahof’ in Zwolle (try saying that if you don’t speak Dutch).

I’m familiar with the tall, wooden, rounded animal faced totems of North America and the intricate bronze and stone deity forms of Asia but in Holland the design was quite different.

My Favourite Sculpture at the Park

The raw, expansive garden embraced an assortment of around 100 modern sculptures. Some communicated the fluidity and grace of Barbara Hepworth’ s work, some the quiet, rustic presence of Andy Goldsworthy’s land art. Others were quite strange in their design. Creative? Yes. Beautiful? Not always. I’d certainly like to meet the owner. Eccentric? Definitely.

MPH Top Gear Show Live

With an avid (possibly unhealthy) love for high performance cars my son and I went to the MPH show at Earls Court in London last week.  Having watched just about every Top Gear on Dave, it was great to see the famous Clarkson, Hammond and May trio in person.  The crowd gathered and the mysterious Stig appeared who proceeded to do a massive loop the loop in a 30ft mouse wheel along with the TG guys racing each other with garden equipment – classic TG behaviour.

It was an all-round amazing show for petrolheads.  There were all the performance cars you could wish for on display, including the Bugatti Veyron and Pagani Zonda, Ferrari galore and more Porsches than you could shake a stick at.  My son was particularly pleased with the American muscle cars, the Transformers (Autobot) yellow Chevrolet Camaro in particular.

We came away hoping to win the Saturday lottery…oh well, maybe next week…

Pagani Zonda

The Art of Streamlining: How Social, Historical and Technological Changes have Transformed the World.

'Scooter Skippy-Racer' by Harold L. Van Doren & John Gordon Redeout 1933. Vroom Vroom!

Sultry beaches, luxury yachts and plenty of Porsches, Lamborghinis and Bentleys…earlier this year Michael and I visited Cuba’s neighbour, Miami. We went for MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit and managed to sneak in a trip to the ‘American Streamlined Design: The World for Tomorrow’ exhibition at the trendy Wolfsonian Museum which is devoted to late 19^th and early 20^th century design.

‘Streamlining’ emerged during the Depression when industrial design was at the pinnacle of American development and Roosevelt spoke of the New Deal.  The art of streamlining evolved from scientific research in to designing transportation with the least amount of wind or water resistance. Teardrop and bullet shapes met this challenge and resulted in greater speed and efficiency.

Glossy streamlined products became synonymous with progress and economic recovery, suggesting the hope of the future. Fascinated by the dynamic quality of the resultant parabolic, artists and designers used the sweeping curvilinear style first in kitchen and bathroom attire, later extending the stylised design in to other areas of the home and general lifestyle.

The exhibition featured 180 examples of furniture, packaging and graphic design, addressing the glamorous scope and impact of streamlining as a design style.  Bullet-shaped soda siphons, torpedo-like power drills and juke boxes and radios were just some of the iconic appliances on display.

‘The World of Tomorrow’ was the rather decorous name of the 1939 New York fair which promoted the vision of a sophisticated, scientific world to come.  Although streamlining is primarily associated with the 1930s, the style persisted in to the 1950s and returned at the end of the twentieth century with the general nostalgia for past styles – in this case, designs that transformed traditional rectilinear rooms into the sleek modern spaces of today.

A classic ‘50s beast of a car I couldn’t resist shooting on the way to breakfast one morning!

Welcome to the Evoke blog.  We’ll be posting all sorts of content here from case studies to latest projects, design inspiration to tales from the team.

Enjoy!

Best wishes, the Evoke team