reactions

We’re pleased to announce that our new packaging and strategic brand development for Wigwam Mills has just been picked-up by Packaging of the World — one of the most prominent packaging design website showcasing the most interesting and creative packaging work worldwide. Its audience includes packaging designers, graphic designers, advertising agencies, students and manufacturers, garnering close to half a million impressions every month.

Check it out now!

In today’s crowded marketplace, consumers and retailers don’t necessarily need another product in their lives. However humans are natural storytellers. We will always have room in our lives and on our shelves for brands that tell us something interesting .

For over 14 years we have helped brands find their voice in today’s crowded market and send that unified message across varied media. We also recognize that today’s busy consumer doesn’t read. Often a picture — or better yet — a movie is worth a thousand words. This 90 second reel of our work in fashion and beauty showcases a few of the stories we’ve created.
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MSLK just went live with the sixth in an ongoing series of videos to showcase what we do best: create 360° branding solutions for our clients. The video demonstrates how we guided performance sock manufacturer, Wigwam Mills, towards a refined market position, redesigned their packaging and came up with a new graphic language that they are utilizing in all of their promotional efforts.

If you are designer, you’ve probably already read Paula Scher’s opinion piece, ”AIGA: Unjustified“ in the online journal Imprint, decrying the AIGA‘s decision to forgo other competitions in favor of just one, “Justified.” It has generated an unprecedented amount of comments for the publication, and has polarized the design community. What you may not know is that my agency, MSLK, helped the AIGA in bringing Justified to life.

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MSLK Creative Director and Co-Founder Marc S Levitt was quoted in a recent Atlantic article, speaking about the design profession’s critical — yet largely unsung — role. The article aims to draw parallels between wide-ranging professions from fact-checkers to anesthesiologists, describing them the “Invisibles.”

Citing examples ranging from book design to the now-infamous Palm Beach County “butterfly ballot” in the 2000 presidential election, Levitt describes the careful role designers play in shaping others’ content:

While some may think that the best design always grabs our attention, Levitt counters that great design often shouldn’t call attention to itself. “I’m not as concerned with prettying things up as I am with the end user being engaged in the right way.”

The article seeks to draw a connection between various professions, finding common traits:

Meticulousness, savoring great responsibility, and seeking only internal satisfaction are a trifecta of traits—a near antithesis of our societal ethos of insouciant attention-cravers—as a culture we’d all do well to follow.

Full article, by David Zweig, can be read here: http://mslk.co/zFPIm2

Over the years MSLK has had some truly gifted, inspired, and inspiring interns work in our studio. We find the experience to be rewarding and in many senses a way of giving back, showing others what we’ve learned over the years that has helped make our work award-winning.

Some of our best interns have been the youngest, and last year was no exception. We hosted a summer internship with a young gentleman named Leon Robinson as part of the Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum’s 2011 Design Prep Scholar’s program. He worked with us to develop Read the Label, a self-initiated awareness campaign/eco-art project about the harmful ingredients found in everyday products.

The video above features Mr. Robinson recounting his experience here along with many other bright designers of tomorrow telling about their experiences. Congrats to all!

We are honored that the AIGA approached us to create the branding program for their new one and only design competition, Justified. Justified seeks examples of great design with proven track records vis a vis case studies that demonstrate how design has created value for clients and/or society. The landscape of design competitions has changed, and the AIGA is at the forefront, awarding those projects where design has produced measurable results. Read more to get a behind the scenes of our process in crafting this identity.
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We are thrilled to officially announce that our new packaging for Wigwam just won an American Packaging Design Award!

According to the letter of congratulations:

“For nearly five decades, Graphic Design USA has sponsored national design competitions that spotlight areas of excellence and opportunity for creative professionals. Of these, the American Package Design Awards is the fast growing. The reason is simple but profound: marketers are challenged as never before to convey their message. Package design — along with the related disciplines of POP and instore graphics — are increasingly the difference-makers in the consumer’s purchasing decision. This competition celebrates well-designed graphics, of course, but also the power of design to advance the brand promise and forge an emotional connection with the buyer at the moment of truth.”

Making this even better is that we were able to top ourselves… having won the same award for our soon-to-be-the-old packaging in 2008. Lightning has definitely struck twice, and it feels even better than it did the first time! Congrats to all at MSLK and Wigwam who helped make this as great as it could be.

Look for the new packaging as it arrives in stores this spring!

Steve Jobs was not a designer, at least not in the traditional sense. In fact, there was little he did do that was traditional, in any sense of the word. Having just finished his biography, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, I have a new-found respect for the man who transformed not only the world of computers, consumer  electronics, music, movies, etc… but also had a profound effect of the lives of creative professionals — graphic designers in particular.
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MSLK is honored and humbled to have received two of the nine AIGA Making the Case Awards for our projects, Watershed and Figment 360° Branding. Beyond the mere beauty pageant that is the average design competition, “Making the Case” selects case studies that “demonstrate the value of design in a clear, compelling and accessible way” to clients and society. Given recent economic trends, now more than ever it is important for non-designers to understand how great design leads to business growth and/or positive societal change.
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