Where have we been? Where are we going?

July 30, 2011 – 2:27 pm

When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it — Yogi Berra

It has been a very long time since we’ve posted BUT, that doesn’t mean we have had noth­ing to say. Fortunately, we have been very busy work­ing on some great assign­ments, both at Leibowitz and Sugarspun.

At Leibowitz, we:

  • launched new brands and iden­ti­ties for Southeastern Asset Management, Value Line Funds and Paradigm Capital Management
  • designed and pro­duced all con­fer­ence mate­ri­als for Sizing Up The Future, NICSA’s 29th annual con­fer­ence and expo at the Doral. We are already begin­ning work on the 30th anniver­sary event
  • helped Time Warner Cable suc­cess­fully launch their new brand by design­ing print and dig­i­tal mate­ri­als tar­geted to both inter­nal and exter­nal audi­ences, work­ing in con­junc­tion with their brand­ing and ad agencies
  • con­tinue to work closely with long­time clients The Royce Funds, First Eagle, Standard & Poor’s, TIAA-CREF, Cooney Waters, sanofi pas­teur, American Lung Association, Healthy Home Energy and Consulting, Alain L. Locke Elementary School and the Public Prep net­work of char­ter schools
  • are work­ing with new client, StoneCastle Partners to redesign their fact sheets
  • are also work­ing on a new brand strat­egy and iden­tity for Hatteras Funds, NICSA, Osterweis Capital Management, Profit Capital Management and some other excit­ing projects that are not far enough along to dis­cuss, yet…

At Sugarspun, we:

Rebrand Ahead

In addi­tion to all this great work, we have been focus­ing some very good energy on stream­lin­ing our process and refin­ing our brand promise. You may have noticed but the cobbler’s kids have no shoes, the Leibowitz and Sugarspun sites have been neglected.

We are excited to announce that we are rebrand­ing the two com­pa­nies. Our new mes­sag­ing and iden­tity will rein­force that Leibowitz and Sugarspun work side by side to pro­vide strate­gic and cre­ative cross-media solu­tions for all our clients. Be on the look­out in the Fall. The web­site, in a word, is FANTASTIC.

By Paul | Posted in Leibowitz | Comments (0)

Vintage Vinyl

November 4, 2010 – 8:00 am

Recently I hap­pened upon Project Thirty-Three, a blog devoted to col­lect­ing, scan­ning, and archiv­ing vin­tage record jack­ets. The site has a won­der­ful vari­ety, despite its focus on sim­ple shapes and type. I sim­ply love the flat graphic qual­ity of some of these. I’m always amazed at how vary­ing forms of cir­cles, squares, and tri­an­gles can con­vey such a dif­fer­ent look and feel. There are cer­tainly a mul­ti­tude of color palettes too! The fol­low­ing are a few of my favorites. Enjoy!

Sonata For Unaccompanied Violin (Dover, 1962)

Trumpet Concerti (Westminster)

Jazz & Swinging Percussion (Directional Sound)

Your Keys To Success (Olivetti, 1968)

Opus ’73 (Radio Nederland, 1973)

Persistent Percussion (Kent)

Perspective For The Seventies (RCA, 1969)

Shostakovitch (Command Classics, 1972)

Poems and Choruses (Caedmon)

By Amanda | Posted in Art & Design, Entertainment | Comments (0)

Branding the Band

October 29, 2010 – 11:21 am

Hello All – I am Elizabeth, the new-ish Junior AE here at Leibowitz Communications. Hailing from the fash­ion indus­try, I am excited to begin a career at LC and am pleased to work with this tal­ented group of peo­ple! I cer­tainly plan to chan­nel my fash­ion pas­time here on Leibowit — so, gird your loins!

With that said – I recently attended one of the highly antic­i­pated, and rather fash­ion focused, Mark Ronson and The Business International shows at Webster Hall in NYC. It was a mag­i­cal Tuesday night that began with a fuel stop at Momofuku Milk Bar (I urge every­one to try the corn­flake cookie with cereal milk ice cream).

At the show, I was sur­prised to find the open­ing act was one of my favorite bands, Francis and The Lights. While watch­ing the two com­pelling acts take the stage, I noted how each band had their own metic­u­lously planned sense of iden­tity – from the hair, to the shoes, acces­sories and cloth­ing to the instru­ments, dance moves, stage set and color palette. When I hear men­tion of or music from either of these bands I can instantly imag­ine their dis­tinct iden­tity or “brand” – a nec­es­sary exten­sion of their music. Very much like we here at Leibowitz develop and pol­ish a brand’s iden­tity — these bands uti­lize sim­i­lar tools to attract an audi­ence and dif­fer­en­ti­ate them­selves from other artists.

Mark Ronson and his band, The Business International, exudes a sort of acidic, robotic electro-pop vibe. I think youth­ful, van­guard, Culture Club, 80s, Mod, scen­ester, height of pop­u­lar cul­ture. See below.

On the other hand, Francis and the Lights exudes an emo­tion­ally cas­trated per­sona to tame their 80’s synth pop sound. The band uti­lizes a mostly black and white wardrobe and sim­ple stage set; stark mil­i­tary inspired jack­ets and three but­ton blaz­ers with popped col­lars; and black way­farer sun­glasses — as if to hide from the light. Francis, the lead singer, often peels his lay­ered jack­ets and shirts through­out the per­for­mance as he bursts into wild dance rou­tines. A must see live performance.

Photos cour­tesy of Brooklynvegan​.com and hifi​car​tel​.com.

By Elizabeth | Posted in Art & Design, Entertainment | Comments (0)

Music for Non-Musicians

October 21, 2010 – 8:00 am

I laughed when I read this month’s blog theme. Because to be hon­est, I don’t have a musi­cal bone in my body. Seriously. I blast the radio in the car so I don’t have to hear myself sing along. And any attempts at play­ing an instru­ment have been hor­ren­dous. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m com­pletely sat­is­fied with my musi­cal inept­ness. But it got me think­ing about what kind of designs are out there to aid those of us with a gen­eral lack of musi­cal talent.

In my search, I hap­pened upon a TED Talk called “Playing the music in your head.” Tod Machover from the MIT Media Lab explores the idea that any­one in the world has the power to cre­ate music no mat­ter their skill level. I sug­gest that you watch the clip, but I thought I’d share with you the designs I was intrigued by.

First up, you guessed it… Guitar Hero. While I could take or leave the inter­face design, I’m impressed by is what the game accom­plishes. The game scrolls a set of col­ored cir­cles down the screen, while the user presses the cor­re­spond­ing but­tons on the plas­tic toy gui­tar. In a very basic sense, the user is able to play music that they’ve prob­a­bly only ever lis­tened to. And the best part… the game bridges gen­er­a­tions, mak­ing it pos­si­ble for a five-year-old to play the Beatles bet­ter than you do.

Which brings us to our next sub­ject, called the Toy Symphony. This unique project is designed to expose chil­dren to music at a young age using alter­na­tive meth­ods and impres­sive tech­nol­ogy. Children use a soft­ware pro­gram called Hyperscore and are pro­vided with Music Toys. The toys are sen­si­tive to ges­tures and touch, and respond by cre­at­ing sounds. For exam­ple, by squeez­ing the Music Shaper shown below, chil­dren can explore the more com­pli­cated con­cepts of con­tour, tim­bre, den­sity, and struc­ture of music. The Hyperscore pro­gram is even being used suc­cess­fully by those with dis­abil­i­ties to com­pose music they wouldn’t usu­ally be able to. I also like that the site’s brand­ing uses clean and fun imagery despite its com­plex ideas.

Lastly, part of the fun of music is how you react to it, whether you dance, sing, or tap your fin­ger to the beat. But what if what was react­ing wasn’t human? One of Machover’s most recent cre­ations is an opera of the future called “Death and the Powers” in which robots are a main part of the cast. Each are spe­cially designed so that they can be chore­o­graphed to the music in the opera. This includes every­thing from danc­ing robotic sofas named Mei-Mei to OperaBots like the small ani­mated cubes seen below.

Looks like I don’t have to play an instru­ment after all.

By Amanda | Posted in Art & Design, Technology | Comments (0)

Music to Your Eyes?

October 13, 2010 – 8:00 am

I wasn’t sure what to write about for this topic as Music and Design are two of my favorite things in the world – but all this hub­bub over Gap has got me think­ing about how impor­tant it is that a logo suc­cess­fully stands alone, and what it does to tell a brand’s story.

Many artists these days choose to type­set their work in dif­fer­ent ways depend­ing on the album cover or the poster, but I real­ized that over the years many musi­cians have relied on and stuck to a cen­tral image for all (or most) of their exis­tence. I hadn’t even real­ized how per­ma­nent and  these band logos were in my mind until I started look­ing around. Most of the logos are able to evoke the same feel­ing that the band’s music does.

Here are a few that stick out in my mind.


Rolling Stones: this one is iden­ti­fi­able even with­out any type.

Led Zeppelin: the band didn’t use this type treat­ment on all of their albums, but more than a few.

Grateful Dead: another type-free treat­ment that is instantly recognizable.

KISS: This one has been set on fire, made flu­o­res­cent, you name it — but the over­all look has stayed the same.

Weezer: the band doesn’t always use the fly­ing “W” but the type remains consistent.

The Beatles: the designer was paid less than $9 for this logo in 1963. I’m going to guess it didn’t always have the drop shadow.

By Nehal | Posted in Art & Design | Comments (0)

Gig Posters

October 5, 2010 – 11:17 am

I’m start­ing off this month’s new topic — music and design — with one of my favorite art forms: gig posters. At home, we have a grow­ing col­lec­tion of them. About 15 adorn our walls now, and we’d surely have more — there is no short­age of posters on my wish­list — if not for a lack of wall space.

If you’re inter­ested in start­ing a col­lec­tion of your own, a good place to begin is gig​posters​.com. Most artists have their own sites, but Gig Posters brings them all together in one search­able data­base. There are lit­er­ally thou­sands of posters avail­able for view­ing on the site (a few of which you can see below), so it’s tempt­ing to lose your­self for hours. But the great thing is that you can nar­row your choices down by search­ing by band or artist. Or if you don’t have such spe­cific taste, you can always start by check­ing out their new arrivals and clas­si­fieds.

By Courtney | Posted in Art & Design | Comments (0)

Utensils to-go, please

September 21, 2010 – 8:00 am

In addi­tion to being new to the city, I’m also becom­ing accus­tomed to city prices… eeek! In attempt to limit my take­out pur­chases, I’ve taken to bring­ing my lunch along to work with me. For those of you that are famil­iar with the joys of com­mut­ing, some­times I’m lucky enough to get out the door… let alone pack a lunch. That’s why I was thrilled to bring left­over mac and cheese from din­ner the night before. However, it was not until I stepped on my train that I real­ized I had for­got­ten a neces­sity to one of my favorite com­fort foods… a fork! So in keep­ing with this month’s theme, I thought we’d explore the design of some on-the-go eat­ing utensils.

I hap­pened upon this fun lit­tle gad­get while ogling the good design in the Museum of Modern Art Store a few weeks back. Designed by Ineke Hans, this Credit Card Cutlery is an eas­ily assem­bled spoon and fork that fits per­fectly in your wal­let for your next on-the-go cut­lery crisis.

Another famil­iar uten­sil comes to mind… a spork, per­haps? Love it? Hate it? Either way, this fork and spoon combo is here to stay. Dating back to 1909, the spork has had many design vari­a­tions since the wimpy school cafe­te­ria ver­sion, but the basic idea remains intact. While it’s no match for twirling spaghetti, most other foods can be man­aged with this uten­sil. My favorite vari­a­tion comes in this form by Light My Fire–fork on one end, spoon on the other, and per­form­ing equally well with both!

Looking for some­thing a bit more dis­pos­able? Head to the MoMA Store to check out this ver­sion of the spork, designed by Giulio Iacchetti and Matteo Ragni. These uten­sils are made of 100% corn starch com­pound, mak­ing them com­pletely biodegrad­able. The design is inspired by the Mediterranean octo­pus, giv­ing the uten­sils a fun swirl shape when stacked.

Prefer chop­sticks? Here are a few fun facts on their design: Chopsticks were devel­oped dur­ing the Chou Dynasty (1122 – 255 BCE) when there was an increas­ing poverty level in China. In attempts to recover, much of China’s land was cleared for rice farm­ing. This cre­ated gen­eral lack of fire­wood. Thus food was cut up into smaller pieces allow­ing it to cook faster. Where there’s no fire­wood, there are also no tables, so bowls had to be held with one hand and uten­sils with the other. Thus chop­sticks were born… Wondering how wooden chop­sticks fit into all of this?  Well, they don’t.  Original chop­sticks were made using bam­boo, ivory, and bone. Of course today’s designs avail­able at Design Within Reach come in fun col­ors too!

Intrigued? Read more on the his­tory of uten­sils on the Metal_Floss blog.

By Amanda | Posted in Art & Design, Food & Drink | Comments (0)

Dinevore

September 14, 2010 – 8:00 am

I am con­stantly com­ing across restau­rants I want to try. I tend to book­mark them in my mind, or on the web, and even­tu­ally for­get about them. Dinevore is a new way to not only keep track of the places you want to try, but also places you have eaten at, read reviews, sub­scribe to other member’s lists and cre­ate your lists based off your din­ing expe­ri­ences. Lists range from geo­graph­i­cal to the best of any type of food you can think of. Each restau­rant is rated by users in com­bi­na­tion with rat­ings from such trusted sources as Michelin, the NY Times and Zagat. It is an entire online com­mu­nity based around the din­ing experience!

via Thrillist

By Claudia | Posted in Art & Design, Food & Drink, Ideas | Comments (1)

Introducing: Amanda

September 13, 2010 – 8:00 am

Hello all! My name is Amanda Dennelly and I’m the new junior designer here at Leibowitz Communications. I’m thrilled to be here! While Boston is what I call home, New York City has always had a place in my heart. I recently grad­u­ated from Syracuse University with a B.F.A. in Communications Design. I’m hop­ing that win­ter in the city won’t be nearly as intense as it was in upstate New York.

I’m really look­ing for­ward to design­ing with the Leibowitz Communications team and learn­ing all that they have to offer. The peo­ple have been great! I’ve only been here a few weeks and I’ve already learned so much. Dana has been awe­some about show­ing me the ropes and teach­ing me new Photoshop tricks. I’ve wanted to work in the city for ages, so it’s great to finally be here.

Some fun facts about me… I love to travel. This sum­mer I embarked on a five-week, cross-country road trip with friends from col­lege. Six girls, two cars, and the open road…it was quite the adven­ture! Summer is my favorite time of year (once again I blame Syracuse win­ters!) I never had any wis­dom teeth (ran­dom, but true). And my absolute favorite ice cream fla­vor is cof­fee Oreo!

So that’s a bit about me. I’m excited about all the new projects we have going on here. I can’t wait to see what kind of new expe­ri­ences the city has to offer.

By Courtney | Posted in Leibowitz | Comments (0)

The Web: It’s What’s For Dinner

September 10, 2010 – 8:00 am

I often try to tell myself I’m going to try and cook more at home – but a busy sched­ule and a lit­tle kitchen often get in the way. That doesn’t stop me from look­ing online at recipes of things I imag­ine I will actu­ally get to cook­ing some­day. There are count­less sites out there to choose from, so I like to keep a short­list. As usual, I judge a site (first) by its design, so you’ll notice I haven’t included any of the overly clut­tered or super busy recipe sites out there. Sorry, your recipes are prob­a­bly very deli­cious to make, but I’m never going to nav­i­gate get­ting to them.

A few of my favorites:

Smitten Kitchen is prob­a­bly my favorite food blog out there. The pho­tog­ra­phy is lovely and the writer is clearly pas­sion­ate about food, and she’s also work­ing out of a tiny NYC kitchen. The images are com­pelling and basi­cally makes me want to eat every­thing at first sight. Some of the recipes are a lit­tle com­pli­cated for my sim­ple skills (read: very few short­cuts), but there is some­thing for everyone.

101Cookbooks is another well-designed and pop­u­lated blog – the recipes are all veg­e­tar­ian, which I’m most def­i­nitely not, but every­thing on this site looks amaz­ing. The chopped miso salad seems like just the thing for a late sum­mer meal.  The blog­ger is actu­ally a pho­tog­ra­pher by trade, which isn’t surprising.

I was recently intro­duced to Recipe Nut–it’s more of a social net­work­ing site where you share recipes with fel­low users, and you can fol­low those who share your tastes. I like the inter­face – it is sim­ple to nav­i­gate and find what you’re look­ing for. The squir­rel with the apron is pretty cute too.

And of course, Martha. It’s no sur­prise the maven of domes­tic­ity would have one of the best cook­ing resources on the Web. The site makes it easy to find the type of recipe you might be look­ing for, and you don’t know what you want to make, the site also has sug­ges­tions based on occa­sion – as any good host­ess would.

By Nehal | Posted in Art & Design, Food & Drink | Comments (0)