David, as our most active RC participant, is back at it again with some interesting reads to finish off your workweek with! First up is the American Institute of Graphic Arts' recent trend-spot dubbed "Liquid Metal", and why designers are so obsessed with it. Then, in creative marketing news, Mastercard becomes one of the first brands (outside of the food industry) to add "taste" to their brand experience. Lastly, David shares a UNC (his alma mater) podcast featuring one of his college alumni's (Danny Rosin - original founder of "Brand Fuel" in Cary) first entrepreneurial endeavors, a T-shirt he designed back in college containing a list of the top 25 things you need to do before you graduate from UNC.

The Futuristic Gleam of “Liquid Metal” is Everywhere Right Now—Here’s Why

Source: AIGA Eye on Design

Takeaway: Is the age of flat design here to stay, or may it soon be eclipsed by the throwback “liquid metal” design style that seems to be taking off? Liz Stinson addresses the 3-D metal look in her latest post for the AIGA blog, covering the trend’s style, origins, and trendsetters. Is it a fad? Maybe, but even if it is, it hasn’t run its course, so may be worth a look, if you haven’t explored it already.

Tags: #Design

Custard apple and yuzu: Why Mastercard is adding taste to its brand experience

Source: MarketingWeek

Takeaway: What does a brand taste like? It’s not hard to imagine in food and beverage industries, but what about financial services? It’s a question someone at financial juggernaught MasterCard thought was worth answering. To this end, they commissioned Kreëmart, which dubs itself ‘artistic collaborators in the medium of sugar’, to translate Mastercard’s brand identity into taste. In case you are curious, that taste was distilled into a pair a macarons, mimicking the color and shape of MasterCard’s iconic logo, in custard apple (the red macaron) and Japanese fruit yuzu (the yellow macaron). If you want to Indulge in “Priceless by Ladurée” macarons, a box of six will set you back $21 USD, available for pickup from October 7, 2019 through January 31, 2020 at the Ladurée shop in Soho in NYC..

Tags: #Marketing, #Random

Episode 15: Been There, Done That, Bought the T-shirt

Source: Hark the Sounds

Takeaway: A t-shirt featuring a list of “25 Things You Need To Do Before You Graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill” recently blew up on social media . When I read Danny Rosin, as the creator of the iconic t-shirt, was being interviewed for Hark the Sounds, the podcast of the UNC-Chapel Hill General Alumni Association, I had to stop and listen. For those who somehow don’t know Danny, he is the American Marketing Association (Triangle Chapter) Vice President of Partnerships, as well as co-founder of Brand Fuel , a nationally recognized, full-service promotional products agency that helps its clients increase sales and raise brand awareness. He is also someone I would like to consider a friend ever since we first met as underclassmen in Avery dorm, back in 1986. In the interview Danny reminisces on his earliest entrepreneurial activities, selling t-shirts door-to-door in Chapel Hill to pay his way through college, and how this laid the foundation for his amazing story building a successful business. As an added coincidence, the interviewer, Grant Halverson, was one of my staff photographers back in 1988 when I was Photo Editor of the Daily Tar Heel, the UNC student daily newspaper. All roads in life eventually lead back to Chapel Hill.

Tags: #Random

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