Scary difference in Halloween can designs

Notice a difference in creative latitude between Jones Soda and Pepsi?

Tweet Steep - Origami tea bag

Russian designer Natalia Ponomareva created these wonderful tea bags that enter your cup in the conventional square shape, but when the tea steeps expand into into a bird. Beautiful concept.



(Via Cherryflava),

NACS Show in Vegas

We helped our client, Alternative Beverage Innovations, launch their new "relaxation" drinks Liquid RelaxX and Liquid Smoking at the National Association of Convenient Stores show. Both drinks are made in Amsterdam, so we recreated a street scene from the Red Light District. It was so much fun and the response was great.



Professional photos coming soon...in the meantime, you can check more out here.

The Biggest Loser : Infobesity

Tim Young, founder of SocialCast, just wrote this interesting piece comparing food and information consumption (via PSFK). He has some great thoughts about how over-indulging on the overwhelming amount of info available can cause health problems. Lately, I've been feeling a little stuffed, myself.

I prepare and feast on these daily:

1. My personal Facebook page
2. The RTH Facebook page
3. RTH Blog
4. Google Reader
5. Personal email account
6. RTH email acount
7. Seesmic desktop
8 Tweetie: 2 app
9. Weather Channel app
10. Voicemail
11. IM
12. Stock market updates
13. CBS Sports app

How are you controlling your infobesity?

I Love Dust Shakes It Up

Our friends at I Love Dust designed these incredibly cool milkshake cartons for South African company, Bill's Dairy Farm. They look delicious.

(via TheDieLine.com)

"The Social Media Guru"

This video is hilarious. (Disclaimer: strong but appropriate language)

Moderator Mike Lewis from Awareness, Inc. played it to open the Inbound Marketing Summit and followed it with a discussion about whether or not self-proclaimed social experts are damaging the reputation of social media.

I think it's amusing that some "real" social experts are so threatened. Sure, I understand they were first to the gold rush, and now that "Socialwood" is full of prospectors looking to cash in, they're freaking out a bit. But they really have nothing to fear. Social Media is not going to run dry anytime soon, and their understanding of it is on an entirely different level than the phonies.

I also think clients deserve more credit and are smart enough to sniff out the fakers. And, hey, if they aren't, they'll get a big time wake-up call that just might save the future of their brands.

Designing for Good

Last Friday, I had to pleasure to take a beautiful ride to Charlottesville with my good friend and AIGA Richmond Vice President, David McIntosh to check out the 2nd Annual Design Marathon.

Organized by the Charlottesville Community Design Center, the intense twelve hour event gathers professional designers and students who provide pro-bono branding and architectural design services for ten non-profit organizations.

It was amazing to see the passion and dedication of all of the volunteers. Does the heart good.

Stay tuned for an announcement of a Release The Hounds event coming this Winter in Richmond.



The talented and lovely Serena Gruia of Alloy Workshop with David McIntosh updating his FB account in the background.