Author: paul@kronerdesign.com

Kroner brands Breakthrough Cambridge’s 20th Gala

Post author By paul@kronerdesign.com
Post date November 12, 2012
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For the second year in a row, Kroner Design has had the pleasure of working with Breakthrough Cambridge (now Breakthrough Greater Boston), the only year-round, tuition-free academic program in Cambridge, to brand their annual Gala fundraising event. This year’s event was special, as it marked their 20th year anniversary and the public announcement of the expansion of their mission into Boston.

The goals for the gala were to attract 300 guest and raise $300k, and to do so within a very tight budget, and an even tighter space to work with. At the end of the night, there were over 450 people in attendance, including a a guest appearance by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who delivered a moving off-the-cuff speech endorsing the Breakthrough program with a global perspective. It was a truly memorable and moving night.

Design Fine Arts Photography

“Painting Air” by Spencer Finch

Post author By paul@kronerdesign.com
Post date August 7, 2012
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Painitng-Air — “Painting Air”, by Spencer Finch: Click to see video

I recently saw an installation at the RISD Museum of Art entitled “Painting Air” by Spencer Finch and was mesmerized.

Finch was inspired by his visit to the water gardens created by Claude Monet at his home and studio in Giverny, France. Finch was struck by how the water was always in flux as a result of shifting air currents and conditions of light.

Walking along the perimeter of the room, visitors can see through the dozens of suspended glass panels to the overlapping squares of colors, inspired by the color palette of Monet, painted on the walls along the perimeter of the installation beyond the glass. The air currents created by your movement through the exhibit gently rotate the glass panels causing them to sometimes reflect the colors throughout the room. The effect is both ethereal and sublime. Wow!

Branding Community

Blue Bucket Brigade

I love a good grassroots branding story as much as the next guy. Recently I heard a piece on NPR about a group in Russia called the Blue Bucket Brigade that caught my ear.

The story was about a retired cop in Moscow who got fed up with the abuse of one of the most hated symbols of the privileged in Moscow: The flashing blue siren, or migalka, which empowers the owner to disregard traffic regulations that everyone else has to obey, and in the process endangering everyone else in the turn. Migalka abusers routinely drive down the wrong side of the street at alarming speeds with little regard for the safety of pedestrians or other drivers. So in protest, Alexei Dozorov, who heads the Moscow branch of the Committee to Protect Drivers’ Rights, taped a blue child’s bucket on the roof of his car and ignited a popular revolt against the arrogance of state officials, or those with connection and who can afford the £30,000 bribe to acquire a migalka.

Branding Design

Brand Bonanza

I googled “branding” today and came up with over 143 million hits in less than a second! Seems as though everybody and their uncle either does branding or is being branded nowadays. Heck, even my hometown of Cheviot, Ohio recently looked into a rebranding effort. Who would of thunk they even had a brand to begin with?

The use of the word branding has certainly changed since I entered the design profession in the early 80s. Then “branding” was associated with products like toothpaste, laundry detergent, or toilet paper. Now everyone has a brand, and a company’s brand is so important that it is recognized on the ledger sheets of most Fortune 500 companies. The financial value of Coca Cola brand, for example, is +$71 billion; Google itself is at +$55 billion, which is up $43 billion from 2006.*

Branding Design

Thoughts on Branding

As a kid growing up in Cincinnati, I was a cowboy wanna-be and spent many an afternoon looking at books about the West, dreaming of six-shooters and lassos, and envisioning myself in the cavalry uniform displayed in the back pages of the Sears catalog.

One of the books I remember best was on cattle ranchers and the brand marks they burned into the hindquarters of their herds. There was the Double-R brand, the Lazy-E and Rocking M – I can’t remember them all, but I realize now that it was the first logo book I ever saw.

I was drawn to the simplicity of those designs and their importance. Those symbols were serious business. Get caught on a horse with somebody else’s brand and you could get a belly full of lead!

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