Restaurant freebies on your birthday
2 Comments Published by kurvie on Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 9:40 AM.
Since Clifton just received a lot of free meals from various restaurants for his birthday, we thought it would be a great idea to let our readers in on the fun. We're not just talking a free scoop of ice cream (everyone does that). Most of these deals do not have to be redeemed on your actual birthday, which is handy, because that's a lot of food! Some of them make you sign-up for their email list, but we can attest, they don't bombard you, and they promise not to sell your email. Here are some restaurants where you can hook up to the free food:
Famous Daves BBQ - Join the P.I.G. (Pretty Important Guest) Club and get a special birthday offer in your email. Bonus: you also get BBQ tips for grilling at home. Double Bonus: August 30th is "Dave's Day," they are giving a free entree to anyone named Dave! If your middle name is Dave, you get half price.
Garozzos - Just show up on your birthday with an ID and you get free chicken spidini. Yum!
Houlihans - When you join the email club, you get a free meal on your birthday. Clifton likes to order the Kansas City Strip, a $22 entree! Bonus: you get a free appetizer just for joining plus lots of other cool swag.
Minsky's - Signup for Free Minsky's for Life and get free a small pizza on your birthday. Bonus: free menu items throughout the year.
Red Robin - Join the Red Robin eClub and you get a free burger and fries on your birthday. Bonus: you get a free gift in your email within 24 hours of signup.
Sheridan's - Become an E-Club member and get a free small concrete on your birthday. Bonus: you get a free treat just for registering.
Baskin Robbins - Join the Birthday Club today and receive a free 2.5 scoop on your birthday. Bonus: You also get special offers, coupons, and a sneak-peek at new flavors and treats.
Cold Stone Creamery - Enjoy a free creation on your birthday. Join the Birthday Club by clicking the link and create a My Cold Stone Account. Bonus: in addition to free birthday ice cream, you'll receive other special offers and coupons.
Did we miss someone? If you know of any other birthday deals, plug em in below!
We're really excited to announce our blog has been added to Alltop.com - an "online magazine rack" of popular topics updated every hour. You just pick a topic by searching, news category, or name, and Alltop brings it to you 24x7. You can find our blog by searching Design or Branding. There's lots of other cool blogs there too!
Is your brand image only worth two hundred bucks?
1 Comments Published by Clifton on Friday, August 14, 2009 at 1:18 PM.
Commentary by Clifton:
Quickbooks and 99designs team up to provide uninspired logos for a couple hundred bucks.
Intuit (makers of Quickbooks) have teamed up with a website called 99designs.com to help provide logos and branding materials through a vehicle called "Intuit Creative Solutions".
Description of how it works (in their words):
Getting something designed at 99designs is easy. We help you run a “design contest”, where thousands of designers compete to create the best possible design to meet your needs. All you need is a clear idea of what you want designed and how much you're prepared to pay for it ... amounts generally range from $100 to $600 depending on the type of design you require.
I see Intuit as a company that promotes professionalism in small business. Doing it the right way, etc etc... So why on earth would Intuit officially support a "contest" approach to branding a company. Here are my thoughts on the matter:
Some of the logos on 99designs look fine, some are even quite nice, but how can the "designer" know enough about the business to make sure the logo is appropriate for their market and audience and culture. In a contest setting like that, it's just not possible. So while it may look nice, does it accomplish any goals of actually branding a company?
There is a point at which I understand how newly formed businesses with no start-up capital can be tempted by getting a nice-looking logo for less than $200. But I see professional, well managed companies on here that are running these design contests. Ask yourself this question: "Would I, as a professional, ever enter a 'contest', and give away my work for free in the hopes of winning $200." Probably not.
But going back to my main point, why would Intuit support this practice with their so-called "Intuit Creative Solutions". I'm not convinced that anyone on that site is getting a solution. Intuit is certainly not going to use 99designs when they are ready for a logo redesign. I just don't understand a company like Intuit supporting and promoting 99designs.com, where professional businesses can get a logo and brand from an amateur. It's sad, really.
PS, In this blog post, I'm not even getting into why this would be considered speculative (spec) work and why spec work is bad for the design community, devaluing what we do as professionals. That's another post for another time.
Quickbooks and 99designs team up to provide uninspired logos for a couple hundred bucks.
Intuit (makers of Quickbooks) have teamed up with a website called 99designs.com to help provide logos and branding materials through a vehicle called "Intuit Creative Solutions".
Description of how it works (in their words):
Getting something designed at 99designs is easy. We help you run a “design contest”, where thousands of designers compete to create the best possible design to meet your needs. All you need is a clear idea of what you want designed and how much you're prepared to pay for it ... amounts generally range from $100 to $600 depending on the type of design you require.
I see Intuit as a company that promotes professionalism in small business. Doing it the right way, etc etc... So why on earth would Intuit officially support a "contest" approach to branding a company. Here are my thoughts on the matter:
Some of the logos on 99designs look fine, some are even quite nice, but how can the "designer" know enough about the business to make sure the logo is appropriate for their market and audience and culture. In a contest setting like that, it's just not possible. So while it may look nice, does it accomplish any goals of actually branding a company?
There is a point at which I understand how newly formed businesses with no start-up capital can be tempted by getting a nice-looking logo for less than $200. But I see professional, well managed companies on here that are running these design contests. Ask yourself this question: "Would I, as a professional, ever enter a 'contest', and give away my work for free in the hopes of winning $200." Probably not.
But going back to my main point, why would Intuit support this practice with their so-called "Intuit Creative Solutions". I'm not convinced that anyone on that site is getting a solution. Intuit is certainly not going to use 99designs when they are ready for a logo redesign. I just don't understand a company like Intuit supporting and promoting 99designs.com, where professional businesses can get a logo and brand from an amateur. It's sad, really.
PS, In this blog post, I'm not even getting into why this would be considered speculative (spec) work and why spec work is bad for the design community, devaluing what we do as professionals. That's another post for another time.
Labels: branding, Commentary, logo
Popcorn's Got a Brand New Bag
0 Comments Published by kurvie on Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 9:17 AM.
Popcorn's got a brand new bag! (Sung like James Brown :))
You know those little take out boxes that fold up nicely to take home your leftovers? This design is reminiscent of that, at least to me. You just stick it in the microwave and the package goes from flat to full of that delicious puffed kernel we call popcorn.
You can even stylishly serve the popcorn straight from the package! That's right. The Pop-Up Popcorn Bowl transforms itself automatically from a flat piece of purified cardboard into a nice four-legged bowl when the popcorn is ready to be served.
Clifton is the original designer of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation logo. It has been in use for ten years. He designed it while at Barkley.
This ongoing series of posts will show personal, professional and silly facts about the staff at REACTOR so you can get to know us better. Be sure to pay attention, there will be a pop quiz!
Little Known Facts #001
- Chase has hitch-hiker thumbs
- Clifton can fool someone into thinking he broke his thumb.
Recently, and for a two week period of time, two phone books had been sitting on my porch, unwrapped and unused. I finally recycled them when I noticed they were getting warped and soggy from the recent rains. As I threw them in the recycle bin I thought to myself, I wonder how many people actually use the phone book?In my curiosity, I quickly posted my thought on Facebook and within an hour 15 people had left their answers: a defiant No!
My scope became broader. If this many people had quickly and passionately answered, would the answer be the same or different in other metropolis areas? For instance, in Kansas City it's fairly common that you own and drive a vehicle to get around. In New York City, many people do not own a vehicle. The same goes for Wi-Fi internet access; it is widely available and used in Kansas City, but I found it quite difficult to find a Wi-Fi signal most places I went on a recent trip to New York City. Maybe the signals are blocked by tall buildings? Using this logic, could the feeling of printed phone books be different in different cities?
Sean Fallon of gizmodo.com blogs about his disgust with phone books, "It would seem that this epic tree rape is largely unnecessary, given the fact that the internet and many of our cellphones can provide contact information quickly and easily." With a total of 9748 votes, only 4% answered Yes, 76% answered No, and 20% answered Rarely.
Kathy Murdock of allbusiness.com has written about her non-use of a phone book while she lived in L.A. to her dependency on it now living in a small town in Georgia. She says, "In a small town, most businesses are NOT online...I've made so many random notes in the margins of pages and flipped down so many pages that it looks as though I have owned this book for two years and not just two short weeks."
Ink Magazine recently posted an article entitled Do you still want a paper phone book? on it's Frink Panel. The article reads,
"The White Pages phone book no longer matters in most households. The latest sign of its shrunken role is a tentative deal in Missouri that would let AT&T stop automatic delivery to homes and businesses on the Missouri side of the Kansas City and St. Louis areas. Customers could still request a directory, but only a small fraction are expected to do so.
Deliver of AT&T's Yellow Pages would not be affected, and there is no plan to stop automatic delivery in Kansas.
Last year AT&T stopped automatic delivery of the phone book in Atlanta with the promise of giving one to any customer who still wanted it. By April, only 1 percent of its customers had asked for one."
The state of Oregon, a very eco-conscience place, has gone so far as to submit legislation - HB 3477 - basically stating (according to BlueOregon.com):
"The Legistlative Assembly finds that the annual, if not more frequent, distribution of hard copies of telephone directories by multiple publishers to persons at their residences without first determining whether such persons want or will use the directories constitutes both a waste and misuse of paper and natural resources and a harm to the environment without justification. The Legislative Assembly declares that it is in the public interest to establish a prohibition on the distribution of hard copies of telephone directories unless a person specifically requests the delivery of an identified telephone directory. (2) A person may not distribute a hard copy of a telephone directory to another person at the other person's residence in this state unless specifically requested by the other person to do so. A request under this subsection may be made in writing or submitted using the internet."
After doing some research, I was unable to find any stats as to how many people actually use the printed phone book and where they reside. So here's my question to the blogosphere: Do you want/use a printed phone book?
(Please say where you're from!)
This Cup Doesn't Runneth Over
0 Comments Published by kurvie on Tuesday, August 04, 2009 at 4:26 PM.
"The Glass Tank" refills itself so you never have to worry about having an empty glass. That is, unless you drink an entire bottle to yourself. Japanese designer Kouichi Okamoto designed the set-up to use air and water pressure to keep the glass filled with a constant amount of liquid. via JustCoolDesign
Clifbo: Besides the fact that it's just plain ugly, it looks really impractical to drink from. I mean, how are you supposed to properly swish the wine around?
BSJenn: The only way you could really drink from this is by using a straw. I think the designer was incredibly creative, but I really don't think anyone would buy it for anything other than a novelty item.
Found these Pepsi aluminum bottles on a Wal-Mart shelf last week - the color popped out at me. Aren't they sweet? Watch out for the bottom of the cap, it's a little sharp!
