Puma's clever little bag.

Puma is taking a step in the sustainable direction as they introduce a new shoe box, which is more like a shoe bag: Clever little bag, designed by Yves Behar. The thinking behind it goes along with the Puma vision: Fair, honest, positive, creative.

The brand aims to save 8 500 tons of paper, 20 million megajoules of electricity and 1 million liters of water, and to reduce carbon dioxide by 10 000 tons. Their goal is to change the industry and eventually the world.

I'd like more of this. How about for tooth paste? Or the fast food meal?

Winds of change.

I mentioned a while ago that I'm searching for a new name for my company. I'm also, as we speak, working on my new website. It will be launched in August/September if everything goes according to plan. In the meantime I am going to start using this space to show a little bit of what I do. For a quick look at a project I have been very involved with, look at GLC:s website.

GLC is short for Göteborgs Lastbilcentral (quick translation: Gothenburg Truck Central), and the transport and logistics company has been central to Western Sweden's business life since 1935. I'll tell you more about the change management process they went through as their new CEO entered the scene (from DHL), and the brand workshops, seminars, brand platform and communications work (where the website is but one small but important part) I did together with advertising agency InTime more thoroughly another time.

The 60's is back.

The good old days is an expression used in all kinds of situations, usually referring to some nostalgic notion that today's world is harsher, colder, more stressful, less happy, you name it. Since Mad Men entered our lives the good old days seem to be here again, at least if you are to believe the less than subtle signs around you.

So here are just some: Which advertising agency today does not want to be compared to the Mad Men team? Any interior design magazine with any sense of self respect is reporting about the new 60's trends in interior and product design.

 Another example is the Museum of Modern Art (Moderna Museet) in Malmö, which opened up a few months ago in the old center for electricity building, which was rebuilt into a 60's pop colour shock in orange and bright yellow (both interior and exterior!) by Tham & Videgård arkitekter. They museum opened up with an exhibition called Spectacular Times, which showcases the museum's collection of art pieces from the 60's (there is also a part of the exhibition called Pierre Leguillion features – Dianne Arbus: A Printed Retrospective, 1960-1971).

I wonder which of these 60's brand markers we'll see more of this summer: Swedes skinny dipping in cold lakes at night, house wives cooking dinner with one hand and cigarette in the other… Finally an ad in the paper last weekend, and an article from the latest issue of Elle Interiör (Swedish Elle Decoration).

How to not buy another gadget.

I've got a small sailboat. It sleeps four but you can't stand upright in it (it's a 24 feet Misil II from 1976 in 1970's yellow, for those of you who might be interested). It's the same type I sort of grew up in, and my dad built, so it's a lot of nostalgia for me. So far all I've used for navigation is the sea chart and the compass. But this year I started thinking about finally getting myselt some sort of GPS plotter (reluctantly, I might add).

After investigating brands like Garmin, Lowrance, Eagle and Humminbird I was still not convinced I should buy yet another gadget. What about my iPhone? Wasn't there some clever application I could buy, that would work not on the 3G network (not very reliable on the ocean) but on satellite?

A few days ago my dad told me he had read about a new app, 88 sea, made by a Gothenburg based company. And it's a fraction of the price of a small, handheld GPS plotter for boating. If it's good I've saved myself another gadget, which is good both for my bank account and for the environment. Perfect!

Finding new interpretors.

I spent my lunch hour today listening to Roberto Verganti – professor at Politecnico di Milano – as he spoke about "Design Driven Innovation" at HDK design school in Göteborg. To be honest, I was a bit distracted during his speech – I am quite preoccupied by thinking about my own company and it's offerings at the moment – but some of the things he spoke of caught my attention.

His main topic discussed the fact that lots of companies today use design as an advantage in driving innovation, which makes it no advantage at all anymore (everybody is doing it). The challenge is instead to give meaning or significance to the products we make, in order to create an advantage. This is something I can relate to in my world of brands where the brand core is not about what a company does but how.

Roberto went on to speak about the importance new interpretors of a product/concept when working with innovation. He used Apple as an example (not very unique but a good example indeed) and how the company not only appointed Ken Segall as Creative Director, but also worked with designers who had never designed computers before. The outcome in 1998: The iMac, looking nothing like our idea of a computer (and the name was long debated too before "i" became the most used prefix in the world of technical devices), and the device "Think different" (it was dreamed up by an art director, Craig Tanimoto). The computer was a radical proposal on a market filled with grey boxes, but became a success, by fitting very well in a home environment, at a time when the Internet was exploding and people started surfing from home. (Read more about the birth of the iMac here.)

Roberto's final call to action was to find the new interpretors to create the advantage. Something to think about in the world of branding indeed.

Read more about Roberto and his new book "Design Driven Innovation" here and here.

The book by Roberto Verganti

The name game

I'm running my own company where I develop brands for different companies. Up until now I've been using my own name (Ida Alfredsson) and added "brand & design consultant". It's worked fairly well, but recently I started a branding process for my own company (I decided to pay someone else to do it for good sports). And needless to say, I was thrown into the name game. So now I'm consulting everybody around me and getting all sorts of suggestions (with varying quality, I might add) as to what the name of my company should be.

The challenge is this: I work with both strategy/analysis AND creativity/design. I work with developing brand strategies, analyzing the souls of brands, visualizing brand cores and personas, helping companies implement brand strategy internally and externally, creating brand identities, and even doing campaigns (advertising if you will). Sometimes alone and sometimes with other specialists. And sometimes in bigger agency teams. I also do brand seminars and workshops. I sometimes teach /visual/ communication to university students and I occasionally write about brands in design magazines. Oh, and I wrote a book about the communication between creatives and their clients. I'm based in Sweden but occasionally do work for companies in other countries.

So if you have any ideas for a name, they are more than welcome!

A brand gathering.

The Swedish Franchise Association gathers franchise companies around Sweden – from Swedish McDonald's to Swedbank – and has been a client of mine for quite some time now. I've helped them mostly with smaller pieces of communication, but a while back the board decided it was time for a new logo, and later on, also a new name for marketing purposes (Svensk Franchise).

After a number of drafts the logo was developed – based on the idea of the dandelion symbolizing a n organic gathering point for numerous individual seeds, or what the association aims to be for its members.

A few days ago the new website was launched, which aims to be a living channel to existing members as well as a window for marketing the organization. The site targets mainly a Swedish audience but a short summary in English is available. The site is maintained and updated by the association.