Blog Envy – Colossal: Flickr Finds

I thought I’d share one of my favorite parts of my favorite art and design blogs with you today. Colossal is a well-curated art and design blog from the mind of Christopher Jobson in Chicago. The blog is a continual wealth of visual inspiration, but one of my favorite parts is the recurring Flickr Finds that culls the best recent images on Flickr from around the world. Some are simple, organic and striking; some feature great examples of refined editing techniques. The best part is everything is linked to its source so you can continue exploring that artist or subject matter.

Where do you find inspiration on the ole interwebs these days?

Cheers,
Robyn

20|20 Nabs Some ADDYS

Last week we were honored to learn that, in addition to serving our clients, some of the work we’ve done over the past year has been recognized and awarded by the American Advertising Federation (AAF). Each year, the Santa Barbara chapter of the AAF holds the ADDY Awards to recognize the top regional advertising campaigns and individual pieces of work across various digital and print media channels.

This year 20|20 is honored to bring home an ADDY for our own website redesign, as well as ADDYs for the ongoing Pacific Eye campaign, Promega‘s corporate responsibility posters, and Bazomb‘s logo.

We want to thank Santa Barbara AAF for their work in compiling and reviewing the advertising work throughout the region. Most of all, we want to thank all of our clients for believing in us and working with us to create truly great marketing and advertising.

Thank you all.
-The 20|20 Team

You Pin Some, You Lose Some

Hello, my name is Robyn, and I’m a Pin-aholic. For the past six months or so, I’ve developed a love affair with Pinterest. The concept is fairly simple: Pinterest allows users to create and organize visual collections of their favorite things online (fashion, architecture, crafts, music, jokes, links to relevant articles, etc.). The result is a “pin board” that lets you visualize your collection and share it with others. Yes, simple, but oh so deliciously addicting.

But at least I know I’m far from alone in my dependence. Pinterest is garnering over 11 million unique visitors each month in the US alone, which doesn’t count its UK and worldwide following. It’s felt a massive explosion in popularity in the past several months, and it continues to trend steeply upward.

The great thing was that once I got past the overwhelming amount of pretty things to look at, it be came obvious that I could leverage my obsession to pin into something quasi-useful. 20|20 now has Pinterest boards where we collect inspirations we see online and want to remember for future design projects.

It fits that Pinterest would work for other businesses looking to reach target audiences by creating their own boards with relevant images for people to share. Think local scenery shots for hospitality or tourism; think new products for a retailer with links to its e-commerce site; think drool-worthy food photos of new dishes for restaurants. Oreck, yes the vacuum company, has already mastered this new platform with boards on their products, user photos, cleaning tips, and even a “Furry Friends” with shots of the cute yet hirsute animals that necessitate its product. Genius, people.

The possibilities are as endless as my obsession.

Happy Pinning,
Robyn

RRM Design Group launches new website

For the past few months, we’ve had the amazing opportunity to work with one of the top architectural design firms on the West Coast. As a multi-disciplined group with focus areas in Architecture, Planning, Landscape Architecture, Engineering & Surveying, and Sustainable Services, RRM’s process and capabilities provide a unique and powerful solution for its clients.

RRM Came to 20|20 to help them create a new website that accurately reflects the company, its people, its culture, and its work. 20|20 is proud to announce the launch of that website, and would like to thank everyone at RRM Design Group for the wonderful experience. It’s been such a fun and rewarding project.

Thank you.
-The 20|20 Team

The power of simplicity

This is about six years old now, but it’s still my all time favorite commercial. I’ve seen it copied by different organizations but the simplicity and power of the original is perfect.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s well worth the 2 minutes!

-Alec

The curious power of the mind

It is a personal passion of mine to understand how we take in information and what we choose to do with it…how our thoughts and beliefs shape our reality.

This short video is mind-blowingly simple in demonstrating the point.

Enjoy!
Lynne

2012 Pantone Color of the Year!

As the new fresh air of a new year washes over us this January, we look toward what this fresh start has to offer. Economic recovery? Political unity? Possible apocalypse?

It’s quite a mystery, but the folks at Pantone, the authority on everything color, tell us we should at least make a splash in the new year. That’s because Pantone has named the 2012 color of the year Tangerine Tango (Pantone 17-1463 for all those curious creatives out there).

I look forward to this annual announcement, not just because I’m an enormous geek, but because I love the reasoning they come up with for each color selection and the implications it has within the economy, fashion, pop culture and our social consciousness.

By comparison, the 2011 shade (Pantone 10-2120 “Honeysuckle”) was a saccharine pink that symbolized an optimism and surge of energy necessary as we confront some of life’s not-so-fun challenges (economic recession; political stalemates; possible “Rapture”). It looks like Tangerine Tango maintains that sort of “shot in the arm” mentality with a little more playfulness and edge. It feels like we’re slowly regaining our confidence, and this color is armor we should wear as we continue the long road ahead.

2012 could be our springboard toward something great, that is unless you’re banking on the apocalypse in December, in which case, at least you’ll go out with some pizzazz!

Cheers,
Robyn

The Civil War: A Fun and Interactive Look at History

From 1861-1865 a civil war was fought in the United Stated of America, and 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of that war. In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against expanding slavery beyond the states in which it already existed. The Republicans strongly advocated nationalism, and in their 1860 platform they denounced threats of disunion as avowals of treason.

After a Republican victory, but before the new administration took office on March 4, 1861, seven cotton states declared their secession and joined to form the Confederate States of America. Both the outgoing administration of President James Buchanan and the incoming administration rejected the legality of secession, considering it rebellion. The other eight slave states rejected calls for secession at this point. Hostilities began on April 12, 1861 when blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah…

Did I already lose you? Oh forget it, just visit history.com for a beautifully designed interactive infographic that could probably explain things better than I could while making it fun in the process.

Happy learning,

Matt

SLOtheSTIGMA Nominated for Cause/Effect Awards!

Some of you may be familiar with SLOtheSTIGMA, a documentary and campaign produced by 20|20 for Transitions Mental Health Association, to reduce the stigmas associated with mental illness in San Luis Obispo County. If you haven’t seen it, please watch SLOtheSTIGMA. Both the documentary and accompanying advertising campaign were entered into AIGA San Francisco’s (AIGA is the professional association for design) 2011 Cause/Effect Awards.

The Cause/Effect Awards were created to highlight branding, marketing, and design projects that advance the well-being of our environment, our society, or both. 20|20 was honored to learn that SLOtheSTIGMA had been nominated alongside so many amazing projects for a shot at the People’s Choice awards.

An online gallery and voting system is currently up and in progress, and will be available until October 31st. If you wish to vote, or to simply view these campaigns, check out the Cause/Effect website, get inspired, and get involved!

Design Seeds

Life at 20|20 is a constant adventure. As we go about our daily work building awesome brands (of course) and helping our clients grow, we happen upon an incredible amount of online thoughts and resources. While many of these tidbits will go without mentioning, there are some that get us so excited we feel an insurmountable desire to share.

Design Seeds is one of those sites. This awesome color-centric site is for the designer in all of us. Design Seeds takes an interesting and traditionally backward approach to gathering color palettes.

First, they find or capture all sorts of fun photos. Then they pull a five-color spectrum from each image to create fresh, one-of-a-kind color palettes. The end result is a massive supply of photo-inspired palettes, ready to be used in cool new artwork by anyone who wants them!

It’s color: inspired by the world to inspire the world. Awesome!