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.MSLK does our best work when we’re helping brands creatively bring clarity to their stories — from overall brand positioning, to identity, packaging, retail experience, websites, and social media campaigns. We find this variety of media invigorating. Today’s multichannel environment is what keeps our perspective fresh, and our creative exciting. We view each medium as simply another tool to help us reveal additional components of the story and unique brand voice.

What is most important is that we understand the level of customer engagement with each medium and reveal your stories within stories as the interest of the customer intensifies. Fashion and beauty brands rely heavily on these stories. Beyond practical needs, a clothing or accessory purchase also fulfills an emotional need.

Shopping is therapeutic, and the process of finding and obtaining the perfect item should be as gratifying as actually wearing it. When women purchase beauty products, they look beyond the quality of the merchandise and evaluate the all-encompassing aura of the brand. This includes the entire brand identity — the product itself, the packaging, the retail environment, and even the website’s online shopping experience. Beauty is part of our daily regimen and today’s conscientious consumers want performance, health and beauty from the inside out, without harm to others or the planet.

We would love to help your brand tell your unique story.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=D84AH-_EQco

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.

To clarify, the AIGA had already decided to host only one competition when they came to us. The competition would be an extension of last year’s “Making the Case” competition where work was evaluated not just as a beauty competition, but based on the case study and impact of the work created.

Our role was simply to bring light to the competition by promoting the value and benefits of entering and winning to designers and clients alike. We felt that the name and the promotion of the competition itself must establish some gravitas and the word “Justified” seemed to do just that. Finally, there was a place where great thinking and results beyond just graphics could receive merit and justification. “Get Justified” could become a phrase to aspire to. Contrary to Paula’s opinion, great, innovative design is still a part of that equation, too. The term justified has just as many connotations within design the design field.

Yet Paula is clearly asking for things to remain the same, rather than change. Not surprisingly, many of her contemporaries’ echoed similar sentiments in the comments that followed. I can’t blame them, since things were easier than they are today. Yet today’s designer — especially those who have not realized their full potential — faces a much different reality than designers in the past.

Can Work That’s Merely “Cool Looking” Be  Justifiable?
We at MSLK believe this is what separates design from art. Art can be purely inspiring without the need for any justification whatsoever. (“If you don’t get my art, well, you simply don’t get my art!”) However, design should communicate, resonate, and be effective in the task it was created for. In no way should this preclude it from being visually interesting — or even groundbreaking.

Designers, Then and Now
Paula came of age as a designer at a time when one needed to be practiced at your craft. Cutting rubylith, spec’ing type, adept draftsmanship: these were not easy skills for a novice to come by. Yet the prevalence of today’s personal computer along with readily-available sophisticated software has had a profound impact on ALL creative professionals resulting in a perceived democratization of the creative process.

The positives are very easy to see: now everyone with a Mac can be a writer, musician, photographer, moviemaker, and designer. The big negative of this democratization is a large majority of clients feel as though their familiarity with tools of the trade (namely software) counts as a complete understanding of the creative’s process. This fallacy totally discounts the years of training (and perhaps even innate talent) that designers have gone through to become practitioners.

Aesthetics vs. Effectiveness
This seismic shift in society’s perception of design is reason enough for a 100-year old organization to want to change with the times. Yet, the computer is only one factor in the equation. Paula’s points are well-taken, yet her arguments are not sustainable. The reality is that today’s designer’s cannot survive by creativity alone. Passion, drive, talent, and hard work alone is not a point of difference anymore. Doing “Great Work” should not be seen as the end goal, it should be seen as the given.

What separates the good from the great designers today is whose work is relevant. Who can innovate, yet make a living. Who can lead clients to great solutions while wowing their peers. Which designers who market themselves as problem solvers are actually solving problems? These are measures of design’s effectiveness.

Today’s Designer Must Justify Their Existence Amid:

• the digital democratization of design

• a glut of unemployed designers underbidding each other on a race to the bottom

• a historically high numbers of graphic design students graduating, also competing for projects

• royalty-free (and often just plain free) artwork accessible from any computer

• heavily-edited reality shows where contestants compete to design projects in one day

• prevalence of websites offering rock-bottom priced logos ($19!) with endless rounds of revisions  included crowd-sourced solutions

• a global marketplace where clients no longer need to be constrained by any geographical boundaries

• a litigious society where tight contracts have replaced handshakes

• the ability for clients to alter artwork in ways never seen before

• social media providing instant opinion generation and crowd-sourced approval/disapproval

• the ability to make changes to projects at later and later points in the process

• fewer opportunities for studios to earn income on the handling and supervision of printing, photography, comps, etc

I mean not to paint too sanguine a view of the design profession from 1970s onwards. As a third-generation graphic designer, I am well aware of many long recessions throughout my family had to contend with. Yet, when one considers the list of today’s challenges above, re-read Paula’s article and ask yourself whether she’s accounted for  all of these factors. Do you feel she’s looking out for today’s generation, or merely yesterday’s generation?

Justifiably So
As an owner of a small studio, we grapple with these issues on a daily basis is the environment in which great work must rise above. Personally, I feel that it’s perfectly justifiable to have a design competition which takes these factors into account.

Paula’s main thesis is that this competition will breed sub-par, yet well-argued work. I’d rather have her make that comment after the judges have had their say. I can’t imagine why submitting rationale behind the creative hurt.

Marc S Levitt
Co-Founder, Creative Director
MSLK

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

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaxDTtl1D6M

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!

Challenge
After MSLK won two “Making the Case” Awards in 2011, AIGA, the Professional Association for Design, felt we were uniquely qualified to create a new identity for this year’s competition. Upon receiving the design brief, we found ourselves questioning the fundamental theme of “Making the Case,” down to the name itself. In order for the AIGA to gain the widest recognition for this competition, it was crucial that the theme resonate not only with designers, but with clients. MSLK redefined the challenge by elevating the competition to that of an Emmy or Oscar.

Strategy
We began by researching a variety of awards and competitions, categorizing them, and developing viable names within each category. This exercise was crucial in helping the AIGA determine the competition’s positioning. After a thorough investigation, we decided that it would be most effective to use a common industry term, “Justified.”  As a word, Justified has a number of connotations, all relevant:
1. Entrants would need to justify their work through a written case study
2. Entrants seeking justification from your peers and by the AIGA
3. Justified type, which refers to the alignment of words in a column of text.

Initial Studies

Design
There were numerous requirements to satisfy. The design would have to stand among other attention-getting visuals in design magazines and on design websites. In addition, the identity would need to be flexible, able to accommodate a variety of different formats — from vertical magazine ads to horizontal web banners and small icons. Our solution is a modern take on the graphic work that came out of the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshop) at the turn of the 20th century.  Brightly colored, force-justified type stacks in between bars on a black background, creating a bold presence on the page. The shorthand identity is the 9 letters of “Justified” broken into three rows in between bars.

Success
The identity has made its way into design publications such as HOW and Print, and across the web on Creative Hotlist, Communication Arts, and of course on the AIGA website itself. Our solution was cost-effective, as the AIGA will no longer have to rebrand their competitions each year as they’ve done in the past. They now have the tools, as will clients and designers, to brand their award-winning work with the Justified logo in years to come.

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.

The book has countless tales of Steve Jobs’s quirks, tantrums, and various eccentricities (I stopped counting the number of crying tantrums somewhere around 10…), but what it makes clear is that he knew what what he wanted and would stop at nothing to get it. He demanded the best of everyone, and showed people the impossible could be done… while always staying ahead of the curve.

Much has been said of Jobs before and since his untimely death on October 5th, 2011. I would like to take a moment and write a few thoughts about what I’ve learned from Steve Jobs:

Work with the best people
Throughout the course of his career, Jobs noted that poor performers drag the whole team down. There’s simply no point dealing with sub-par players. As an employer, surround yourself with the best… you’ll benefit, as will they. For us, this can also be applied to clients. No use spending time trying to convince the brilliance of your design if they’re incapable of appreciating it. Working with the best led Jobs to seek out legendary designer Paul Rand to design the NeXT logo.

Follow your passion
There’s no point working on things that don’t interest you. Period. This goes for designers as well as clients. There’s nothing worse for a designer than to work hard for something when you know the client doesn’t place much value on it.

Every detail matters — even the ones you can’t see.
Years ago, I remember buying a G5 Tower and adding RAM to it myself, marveling at the innards of the machine. I called over Sheri to show her the inside of a computer, and we were both transfixed. I have no idea how computers work, really, but was awestruck at the organization of the circuit boards, processors, the way that the fans could be slid in and out, and such. This turns out to be a classic Jobsian trait: everything matters. Design is not a surface affair, it’s the compete integration of inside to outside, hardware to software, etc. As designers, we understand this intrinsically from the detailed proposals we write at the outset of a job, to the care that we take in preparing files to send off to the printers and developers. Every detail counts, and the craft you put into things shows through.

Form over function.
This is actually completely counter-intuitive, especially for a maker of gizmos… why wouldn’t you simply build the best product, who cares what it looks like? Yet that’s not the way it works. The very first Macintosh — which was gorgeous to look at and intuitive to use — was woefully underpowered. Jobs knew that if something is not intriguing, it’s never going to garner the attention to pick it up in the first place. This applies to graphic design and advertising: if it’s not compelling, no one will notice you. Of course, if the content isn’t good, it won’t succeed. Jobs rarely disappointed in this regard. (The original Mac was in fact underpowered and had poor sales — a catastrophic mistake that Jobs would never make again).

Focus is the most important thing a company can have.
When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he was baffled at how engineers had run amuck with endless variations of mediocre Macs. He finally asked people, “What would I tell my mother to buy?” a question no one there could answer. Then he drew a grid on a white board with 4 quadrants: Consumer/Professional/Desktop/Portable. He forced the company to simply focus on the best product for each of these, which produced the iMac.

For us, focus is equally important. We must balance the right mix of clients to take on. We need to maintain our promotional efforts with the same vigor and enthusiasm as our client work. We set yearly goals by which we measure our progress. We know which projects are best to take on, and which to pass on. We’ve seen how colleagues try and take on the world and do it all, only to implode due to their lack of focus.

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
I love this quote, and think I will use it to tell all our new hires what to expect at MSLK. We definitely embrace the notion that great work is not a far-off thing in the distance, but something that is expected.

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
This is MSLK to a “T” — we spend countless hours stripping away the superfluous in order to get to the essence of any message we’re communicating, whether visually or in creating a campaign message. Jobs understood that making things appear simple and easy takes complex and hard work.

Figment Annual Art Festival 360° Rebranding
Learn how our design solutions for this event helped increase submissions by 200% and attendance by 30% from previous years. View Case Study >>

Watershed Eco-Art Installation
Discover how our installation was instrumental in raising public awareness about plastic consumption by reaching over 1 million people in over 63 countries. View Case Study >>

As these case studies demonstrate, the effectiveness of design solutions should be measured not just by client happiness, but by seeing precisely how the intended objectives are accomplished over time. Richard Grefé, executive director of the AIGA, provides a great summary on this new responsibility designers should be taking: “Designers should absolutely be asking these questions and continuing to follow up with clients after a project is implemented. Through challenges like ‘Making the Case’ we can begin coaching designers on how to measure their success—what questions to ask, what metrics to track, and how doing all of this can help prove the effectiveness of their work to existing and prospective clients.”