The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has tapped Elixir to develop their Holiday 2009 promotion. The theme will waft into The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf’s 700+ locations around the globe this fall, infusing all aspects of the sipping, sitting, and shopping experience.
Elixir will start by establishing a proprietary brand visual language that aligns the essence of the Holiday promotion with the brand story—from attitude and tone to palette, icons and seasonal décor. In-store applications will deck the walls, displays, collateral and packaging and extend to recommendations for gift merchandising and in-store music.
Elixir began working with Hlaska in 2007, redesigning their website and catalog to align with the growing company’s new luxury positioning. In 2008, Hlaska opened their first store on Fillmore Street in San Francisco. In anticipation of additional store openings, Hlaska has recently asked Elixir to develop a brand visual language that will inform in-store collateral, packaging, and advertising.
Anthony Mazzei, Hlaska’s founder and CEO, recently had occasion to describe his initial experience working with Elixir: “The first thing I noticed about Elixir is how much time they take to ask questions to understand our brand. Elixir does not take the easy way, they don’t look for shortcuts. They are so passionate about our products that the work feels seamless, like they are part of our company. They helped keep our goals both realistic and ambitious. They are always on time, and everything they touch looks 50 times better than the original. They are worth every penny.”
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The March/April Communication Arts (CA) celebrates the magazine’s 50th anniversary, and Elixir is honored to be mentioned twice in this retrospective issue. CA, which originally stood for “commercial art,” predates most of us. It has always been there: fresh work beautifully reproduced, plus forward-thinking, history-respecting perspective. But in 1959, the magazine was blazing a trail in the CMYK wilderness and being perfect-bound by hand!
The current issue features two big-picture information graphics: a 20-page 50-year timeline and a Visual Communications Genealogy. The logo Elixir created for New Leaf Paper appears on the timeline {top of page 82}, which starts with, not surprisingly, the cover of the first issue and ends with Mad Men and Barack Obama.
And we are included in a Visual Communications Genealogy, which Editor Patrick Coyne describes as a work-in-progress: “to provide an understanding of the impact of mentorship on design and advertising.” Elixir is in very exalted company in the honeycomb of San Francisco design on page 126.
In addition to reminiscences and reflections, the issue is rich to the last spread with enticing resources: from book reviews to Swiss font furniture; from a photo-sharing site that encouraged us to strew our photos across the floor, to an application that converts digital photos to their Polaroid equivalent. This issue is a mega-maga-matic of our moment in time.
Elixir has recently begun to work with Tea, a globally-inspired children’s clothing company. Dual objectives are to better align the Tea catalog with their brand and to integrate “best practices” to increase profitability. Since its start in San Francisco in 2002 “with three pima cotton sweaters,” Tea has developed two lines that are now sold in over 500 stores around the world (including Bloomingdale’s, Barneys New York, Neiman Marcus, and Takashimaya). Creative consulting will encompass a voice guide, design templates, photography direction, and other recommendations for infusing the catalog with the essence of Tea.
Elixir is developing a new logo for Morgane Le Fay, a New York City-based fashion house founded in 1982 by Liliana and Carlos Casabal. MLF describes their work as “quiet yet dramatic, wistful and lyrical, emotive and profound, complex in its apparent stillness and simplicity.” The line has found favor with many loyal notables, including Bjork, Juliette Binoche, the Duchess of York, Mrs. Tony Blair, Halle Berry, Sharon Stone, Bianca Jagger, Sarah Jessica Parker, Goldie Hawn, Anjelica Houston, Helen Mirren, and Brooke Shields. Morgane Le Fay’s Fall 2009 Ready-to-Wear Collection was recently presented during New York’s Fashion Week.
Elixir is happy to be highlit in a Studio Spotlight on The Dieline, an on-line showcase of “the world’s best examples of packaging.” The feature about Elixir presents several packaging projects, plus multi-component invitations and studio gifts from holidays past. Andrew Gibbs, The Dieline’s Founder & Editor-In-Chief, is compiling a hardcover book, titled “Box Bottle Bag: The World’s Best Package Design by The Dieline,” to be released internationally early next year. Elixir’s bottle design for Golden Star Tea will be included. Cheers!
Elixir is delighted to be working with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), a non-profit organization established by Congress in 1984 to preserve and restore our nation’s native wildlife species and habitats. The Foundation directs public conservation dollars to the most pressing environmental needs and matches those funds with private contributions.
Elixir is creating invitations and event collateral for NFWF’s annual Bay Area fundraising event: ‘Celebrating the Great Outdoors,’ to be held March 24th. This year’s honoree is Julie Packard, marine biologist and Executive Director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. San Francisco’s own Stanlee Gatti will be designing the event.
Since its inception, NFWF has invested more than 1.5 billion in conservation, providing over 10,000 grants to more than 3,500 organizations in all 50 states and over 50 other countries.
Elixir is proud to be one of twelve San Francisco design firms whose work is showcased in San Francisco Graphic Design, a new exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design. If you’re in the neighborhood, join us at the opening preview on Thursday evening, January 15, from 5 to 9 pm. Elixir’s mini-exhibit will include a retrospective of holiday gifts to friends and clients, plus selected work for local events and innovators.
The January/February 2009 issue of CA, featuring an in-depth article about Elixir, is on newsstands now. Founder Jennifer Jerde talks about Elixir’s “North Star” branding process, and clients describe their experiences working with the firm. Event designer Stanlee Gatti, who has collaborated with Elixir on projects for Lucasfilm, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the California Academy of Sciences, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, pays the supreme compliment, “I don’t think there’s anyone like them!” Download the complete article in pdf format here.
