Heimie's Haberdashery

As I mentioned in previous posts, I started working on a project for a small men's clothing boutique based in St. Paul, Heimie's Haberdashery, with my art director friend Dan Spillman. This is an update on our progress thus far.

It's been about a month or so since we started the project and after 20 or so ideation sessions we have it narrowed down to half a dozen ideas for fleshing out and picking one to produce. We also took on an awesome copywriter that is finishing up her last year at MCAD, Katie Bode.

Dan has been illustrating some logo concepts for rebranding Heimie's to give it an updated feel that still stays true to Heimie's roots. We were drawn to the more stamp, ornate feel of the top row and the more distinctive aristocratic look of the second row. Dan is working on fleshing these out and turning them into vector images.

While narrowing down the concepts, we have been left with the decision to ramp up the wankiness of the store and sell it for all it's ciche. Or to take a slightly more serious refined route with the creative. It will be exciting to see where we end up so stay tuned for more.

Some of our inspiration on this project: Mustache Blog, Victorian Portraits, Old Spice, Postmodern Gentleman, & Kubrick's Barry Lyndon

Lost Touch & Heimie's Ideas

An interesting subject was broached among my mother, my sister and myself, the effectiveness of the new Toyota Prius Ads.

How effective are ad reviewer's at major publications and how objective is their analysis? I read an article decrying the Toyota ad for being to flippiant and creative for creatives sake. Yet, many non-ad friend's and relatives have brought up the ad on their own, and upon looking it up it ranked 3rd in most liked ads by Nielson during May. Judge for yourself.

Read this review on an earlier Toyota ad by Ad Age.

Toyota Prius' "Harmony"

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi

Reason: Although it hinges on being visually stimulating it truly has the effect of capturing the consumer's attention and getting across the eco-friendly message.

As I mentioned earlier, I wanted to get some in-progress work up for the concept I'm working on with my friend Dan on Heimie's Haberdashery. For the time being it's been primarily research, consumer target and the bigger picture idea; but, I had a chance to start sketching out some logo and tag line ideas.

Take a look at the progress thus far. And below is a first go at a logo. I'm not too terribly happy with it at the moment; but, it was great to get it out of my system and see how it looked.

Other Sources of Inspiration

As creative person in the advertising industry, many individuals have different sources of inspiration that influence their work, mine tend to be in the camps of graphic design, industrial design and package design (a strong sector of industrial design).

While working on Heimie's Haberdashery this morning I stumbled upon some great finds of vintage logo inspiration and package design.

Hermann Oak Leather Logo
Reason: I love the looseness of the typography and the wanky placement drawn together with the aesthetic curly elements.

You Smell Packaging
Reason: Not only a great vintage inspired logo, it also has a very distinct personality in the placement and usage. Found on thedieline blog.

Old World Deli Logo
Reason: Another great vintage inspired logo but with a bit more of a masculine feel to it.

I also came across a great bank of over a hundred 70's logos you can download on Eric Carl's blog.

Sticking To It

After having my site live for just under a week (coupled with an 8-hour campaign), I received an offer for freelancing, over 300 hits on my site, a threat to sue from a major agency and the same agency calling back a few hours later with interest in my work and approach. All-in-all it's been a good week.

I spent the majority of my day generating ideas for the Heimie's Haberdashery campaign, which I mentioned in an earlier post. After spending some time thinking about the specific target consumer I feel we should go after, I tried a number of different approaches in terms of the way the campaign should feel. In the process I dug up some great old pieces of reference that I researched when working on an alcohol pitch earlier in the summer. These two are excellent examples of targeting the same demographic with slightly different personalities.

42 Below Vodka's "Map of the World"
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
Reason: It pulls off an extremely dry sense of humor very well. A perfect approach for an affluent single male around 21-30.

Ketel One's "Table"
Agency: Grey Group
Reason: It pulls of classy cool in a unique way. Great for the affluent single man that thinks of himself as an alpha male.

Look out for some of my process work for this campaign which I will have posted tomorrow.

Heimie's Haberdashery

This marks the first time I'll be partnering with another art director to create a campaign.

I started working on an awesome hypothetical ad piece for my portfolio for Heimie's Haberdashery (a high-end men's only store) and today I went to their first Cabaret show hosted at the store. I had an awesome time with the great female and male singers they had going for about two hours tonight.

I am working with a good friend from MCAD Dan Spillman. The only hitch is, it's the first time I've partnered with another Art Director instead of a Copywriter. We plan to reel in one of our busy Copywriting friend's when the time comes; but, for the time being this will be another interesting experiment into how two art director's partner together to come up with the big idea and the visual concept behind it.

Stay tuned for the work in a week or two.