I Had the pleasure to attend Opportunity Green's Room 367, a networking event (aka PARTY) for young folks interested in making this world a better place.

The event was held at the A + D Museum of Los Angeles and offered the perfect setting as the walls were covered with images from their current presentation "After the Flood: Building on Higher Ground; An exhibition presenting proposals for replacement housing and redevelopment in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

There were good vibes a plenty... the organic Mojitos from Ciudad and the mini citrus salads from Blue Velvet were tasty highlights. I discovered a new favorite beer as well... Mothership Wit from the New Belgium Brewing Co... thanks Dallas for the hook up.

Fun aside, the biggest highlight was meeting a variety of new friends who are all working on some amazing projects while treating mama earth good.

Here are a few links for you: greengrownandsexy.com for a fun look at the greenscene in LA & AOSA for some blow your mind new technology in the green printing field.

Credit to the top two photos goes to greengrownandsexy.com

Esteban: When industry outsiders think about advertising, they’re more likely to think of it as the pitching of products rather than an interaction of relationship and experience — companies mean so much more than that today.

Paul: Businesses and corporations possess the kind of identity once saved for individuals — it’s just natural that they should move, in essence, to brand self-actualize, a reflection on the stories that make them unique, an ownership of characteristics that, true or not, people identify with.

Esteban: When you mentioned Brand Self-Actualization, I think you’re hitting on the old axiom of know thine self, or even better make sure you know what everyone else thinks about you. It’s been expressed as nicheing, positioning, brand personality, competitive positioning …

Paul: UVP (Unique Value Proposition), Brand Spectrum, Brand Identity… the buzz phrases could go on infinitely and still only tell a portion of the story. The most beautiful packaging will sell a product, once; meanwhile a great product can go completely undiscovered if not “presented” properly. People will get confused if an offering is one thing today and something totally different next week. This is why the marketer needs to know, and define, thine product and purpose.

Esteban: Or risk the customer, or, even worse, the competition defining it for you. Brand audits often reveal inconsistencies — different packaging across a product offering, divisions identified by incorrect names, I’ve even seen a company logo that wasn’t in it’s company colors — things that could be solved by a Brand Identification document.

Paul: Which should also contain a messaging strategy — defining tone, key language…the process of discovery is like climbing the mountain to speak with the guru.

Esteban: But we climb the mountain for our clients, and the truths we deliver are never delivered in riddles. Well, thanks for having this chat. We’ve polished the tip of a very large iceberg, which hopefully stimulate thought. If any of our readers want to continue this conversation, or want their Brand Self-Actualized, simply contact me at Headhigh Creative.

Esteban Chavez is the Big Kahuna at Headhigh Creative.

Paul Elliston is wordsmith by trade, and a conceptual strategist by practice.

Conversation, it’s where the Headhigh Experience begins.]]> Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/04/04/experience-headhigh-branding/ Esteban Chavez http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/04/03/id:24/ The average person is hit with 3000 marketing messages per day. Does your message cut through the clutter?]]> Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:23:19 -0500 http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/04/03/id:24/ Esteban Chavez http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/22/fortini/

The Fortini brand has been carefully guided by the Fortini family and the store is run by Ryan and Marisa Fortini who are graduates of the well respected ornamtental horticulture program at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

The Fortini store is unique in that the personal behind the counters are award winning experts in areas of interior design, garden design and landscape architecture.

Pair this experience with heirloom quality pieces for both the home and garden as well as excellent customer service and you are in for a shopping experience that is impossible to attain at most retail stores.

Headhigh Creative has been working with Fortini over the past few months in order to translate their purpose to the web. The collaboration has been a pleasure and here is a peek at the store design. Stay tuned for official launch details.

]]> Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:29:25 -0600 http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/22/fortini/ Esteban Chavez http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/21/id:18/ You are brilliant & the Earth is hiring.— Paul Hawken]]> Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:56:50 -0600 http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/21/id:18/ Esteban Chavez http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/21/manfelare-racing-bikes/ It is always exciting to provide an answer through design. It is exhilarating when you get a chance to work on a graphics project that is close to you heart.

As a fan and participant of the sport of cycling, I am thrilled to introduce the Manfelare Carbon SL Cima. Contact Manny Felix at Ted's Manhattan Cycles to get one of your own. Very limited production.

]]> Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:28:22 -0600 http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/21/manfelare-racing-bikes/ Esteban Chavez http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/20/aluminum-fever/

Airstreamtrailers.com feeds a passion to a dedicated audience in a very vertical market, one that arguably in the past was targeted to a core demographic of 50-65 year olds.

Today however, Airstream, Inc. has repositioned itself in front of a younger design savvy crowd with the help of the internet and sites like Airstreamtrailers.com.

The current Airstreamtrailers.com is comfortably drawing traffic and profit by feeding a passion.. and having a great domain name... and we are excited to see the before and after stats once the new "Aluminum Fever" design look is in place.

In addition to design, we are also providing Airstreamtrailers.com a complete CMS system, which will allow them full control off all their content.

Enjoy the before and after preview and stay tuned for the upcoming launch.

BEFORE

AFTER

]]> Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:45:58 -0600 http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/20/aluminum-fever/ Esteban Chavez http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/17/gyssien-booth/

Having a solid brand platform allowed us to quickly design collateral under a tight deadline and deliver to a happy client.

When the goal and purpose of a company's visual identity system are well defined, creating additional collateral is a piece of cake.

]]> Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:48:51 -0600 http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/17/gyssien-booth/ Esteban Chavez http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/15/gyssien/

Their existing branding was very disjunct and their previous marketing efforts were thwarted by the complexity of their product offerings.

We put the Gyssien identity through a brand reinforcement exercise. From this we developed an identity system that differentiated them from their competition and gave them a solid brand platform to build all of their deliverables upon.

Once this platform was in place, the task of organizing their complex product offerings was taken on. We built Gyssien a catalog that clearly defined each of their customization points and showcased their product offering with photography that we managed in house.

The next task was the creation of a website that clearly defined all of the product customization points that Gyssien offers. Once establishing a clear information design system, we paired it with a powerful Content Management System (CMS). The site gives Gyssien to power to continue to customize its offerings as their brand grows.

BEFORE

AFTER

]]> Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:36:33 -0600 http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/15/gyssien/ Esteban Chavez http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/02/13/a-toxic-site-for-every-day-of-the-year-superfund365org/ Superfund365 is a website that is profiling (you guessed it) 365 Superfund sites over the course of a year. The Superfund program, managed by the US Environmental Protection Agency to clean up a huge variety of really nasty environmental problems that range from Manhattan to Hawaii, is brought to life in slick, Flash animation-based fun. Art is always best when it can inform, and learning about the real, nasty threats posed by Superfund sites is much more palatable in this artful form.

The project was conceived by New York City-based digital media artist Brooke Singer; check out the site for more details. Superfund365.org

Have any suggestions?

Thanks to Jose at The_Groop for sharing his reading list, which not surprisingly is very similar to mine.

Highlights from the Opportunity Green Show]]> Mon, 21 Jan 2008 19:30:12 -0600 http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/01/21/opportunity-green/ Esteban Chavez http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/01/20/id:21/ We should be cutting lies instead of trees.— Jerry Martien, Salvage This]]> Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:14:27 -0600 http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/01/20/id:21/ Esteban Chavez http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/01/07/trident/

]]> Mon, 07 Jan 2008 20:24:23 -0600 http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/01/07/trident/ Esteban Chavez http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/01/06/id:23/ Those who work selfishly for results are miserable.— Sri Krishna, Bhagavad Gita, The Song of God]]> Sun, 06 Jan 2008 17:18:48 -0600 http://www.headhighcreative.com/blog/2008/01/06/id:23/ Esteban Chavez