THE ROSEY AWARD IS NOW PROUDLY DISPLAYED IN OUR PORTLAND OFFICE. COME AND CHECK IT OUT FOR YOURSELF!

A Rosey Award is not won easily.
Awarded each year since 1957, the Roseys have come to exemplify inspired creativity and original thinking. This year’s show featured the best work produced across the state of Oregon and Southwest Washington. This means that we could be competing with packaging from much bigger companies that are based in the region like Nike, Adidas, Starbucks, Microsoft, Nordstrom’s, etc. “We’re very proud of this coveted award, and plan to celebrate it by raising our glasses of New Deal Whiskey and toasting to our good fortune!” said, Alfredo Muccino, Chief Creative Officer of Liquid Agency.

THE PACKAGING FOR NEW DEAL DISTILLERY WAS INSPIRED BY THE LOVE OF CRAFTSMANSHIP THAT MAKES PORTLAND SUCH A UNIQUE PLACE.

We won a Rosey for the packaging work we did for New Deal Distillery.
The highest honor we received at the 2011 Rosey Awards was a Rosey in the Packaging Category for the work we did for New Deal Distillery. Based in Portland, New Deal Distillery has been making high-quality, hand-crafted spirits inspired by Portland’s Do-It-Yourself attitude. Liquid designed a versatile label system and bottle recommendations for the New Deal ‘Distiller’s Workshop’ range of products which includes vodkas, whiskeys, and gin. The label system was designed to incorporate batch variations, using hand written modifications – as a way to address the limited edition nature of the batches and the DIY craftsmanship that is a hallmark of the brand. Kudos for the work go to David Williams (Creative Director) and Peter Baston (Sr. Designer), and to Philip Mascher (Client Ambassador).

THE RETAIL WORK FOR KEEN CAPTURED THE SPIRIT OF THE CAMPAIGN AND THE ESSENCE OF THE BRAND.

Liquid also received an Award of Excellence for the retail work we did for Keen.
Liquid Agency was also the recipient of an Award of Excellence for Keen’s ‘Recess is Back’ retail campaign. The campaign is about reconnecting with that playful spirit inside of each of us — taking small moments to get outside and really enjoy life. The concept was brought to life at retail with a “monkey bar” window display, a “tree-house style” shoe/product display, Microsoft Tag shelf-talkers, and an environmental hopscotch display for customers to interact with.

THIS NATIONAL CAMPAIGN INTRODUCED THE MEGA SHOES IN STORES ACROSS THE COUNTRY, AND HELPED THE ADIDAS BRAND STAY FRESH!

And…we also received an Award of Merit for the retail work we did for Adidas.
When adidas was getting ready to launched one of the biggest new product lines of 2010, the y called Liquid Agency to help them manage the retail launch. The adidas Originals MEGA included over thirty-one styles, taking popular technologies from the ’80’s, amplifying them with updated styles and colors. The campaign for the product launch was the ‘Mega Diner’ and featured hip-hop artist B.o.B. This retail campaign launched the adidas MEGA line of shoes at Finish Line, adidas Originals stores, and independent urban retailers. The merchandising materials included window fixtures, shoe walls, banners, table displays and custom cooler displays.

ENTREPRENEURS LEARNED STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE GROWTH THROUGH HANDS ON WORKSHOPS DURING THE CONFERENCE. 

The First Chile Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
The government of Chile has made innovation and entrepreneurship one of their top priorities, and to this purpose they organized the first ever national Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The conference took place in November at the same time as Chile Design Week and it included an exposition featuring resources for entrepreneurs, presentations by global experts on business and innovation, and workshops where local business leaders could participate in hands-on learning sessions. We’re very proud that both Marty Neumeier and Alfredo Muccino were invited by the government to deliver presentations and workshops. Marty Neumeier, our Director of Transformatiom collaborated with Cristian Montegu, the president of MagiaLiquid (our operation in Chile), and gave a workshop on Design Thinking to a group of almost 200 people. Alfredo Muccino, Liquid’s Chief Creative Officer collaborated with Pedro Ossa, one of the senior partners of Nivel1 (a very well respected business and branding strategy firm in Chile), and they delivered a workshop titled Creating a Culture of Innovation – where the attendees learned that it’s important to start with a clear sense of purpose and then learned how to eliminate the barriers to innovation that exist in so many traditional business structures.

MAGIALIQUID WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ENTIRE EXPERIENCE, INCLUDING THE DESIGN OF THE ACTIVITIES, THE SPACE AND THE GRAPHICS.

MagiaLiquid designs the conference concept and the exhibition space.
We’re also proud that MagiaLiquid was tapped to develop the brand strategy and creative execution for the conference. It was MagiaLiquid that first suggested that the conference should became a component of Chile Design Week. This idea helped connect the dots between “design”, “innovation” and “business entrepreneurship”. MagiaLiquid extended the identity work that they had designed for Chile Design Week and applied it to the conference. MagiaLiquid’s architects also designed the actual exposition space, which included temporary display spaces for the many resources that were on hand to support entrepreneurial businesses. MagiaLiquid also developed a process that helped businesses articulate their business plans and identify the areas where they could use the most support on their path to growth.

BOTH MARTY NEUMEIER AND ALFREDO MUCCINO WERE FEATURED SPEAKERS AT TEDx PATAGONIA. 

Marty Neumeier and Alfredo Muccino deliver two talks at TEDx Patagonia.
TED is an organization that creates a stage for sharing ideas. TED’s tagline is “Ideas worth sharing”. The TED outpost in Chile is TEDx Patagonia – and Marty Neumeier and Alfredo Muccino were invited to present at TEDx Patagonia – which took place during the Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Giving a TED talk is quite an honor – and we were delighted (and a little nervous) to have the opportunity to share our ideas at TEDx Patagonia. Others speakers included our friends Eric Ryan (co-founder of Method soaps), TJ Scimone (founder of Slice) and Daniel Pandza (founder of PassionBusiness).

PRESIDENT PINERA POSED WITH THE INTERNATIONAL DELEGATION ON INNOVATION, INCLUDING MARTY NEUMEIER AND ALFREDO MUCCINO.

Meeting President Piñera was the highlight of our trip.
The week we spent in Chile was nothing short of amazing. As if launching our new office in Santiago and delivering the TEDx Patagonia talks was not enough, we had the honor to be invited to a meeting with President Piñera at La Moneda – the official residence of the President of the Republic of Chile. This was the first time that Marty and Alfredo had the chance to meet with a head of state, and it was quite an exciting experience. President Piñera is a multilingual Harvard educated former entrepreneur and university professor who has amassed one of the world’s biggest fortunes thanks to his successful business ventures. He was one of the owners of LAN (Chile’s biggest airline) and he was the man who introduced credit cards to his country. Because we came from Silicon Valley and because he wants to make Chile into a center for innovation, President Piñera was interested in our insight about innovation and transformation. During our meeting we had a short chat about design thinking and attracting and nurturing the best talent, then we drank some coffee and took a couple of pictures. In conversation, we were delighted to learn that President Piñera had read – and enjoyed – Marty Neumeier’s books! How cool is that? Take a look at Marty’s interview where he talks about his impressions on entrepreneurship and innovation in Chile.

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM: ALFREDO MUCCINO AND SCOT HERBST. SLICE BOX CUTTER USAGE DEMONSTRATION. 

The Box Cutter is an award-winning design that people can really use.
Last year the Box Cutter received a prestigious RedDot Design Award – which is a distinct honor. “We are very proud of the awards and the recognition being given to the Box Cutter we designed for Slice. It has been extremely rewarding to have the chance to explore the world of product design – which is very different than designing a logo or a website. It’s great to end up with something that is sold in stores and that people actually buy and use.” said Alfredo Muccino.

SLICE BOX CUTTER DESIGNED BY ALFREDO MUCCINO AND SCOT HERBST ON FASTCO. DESIGN BLOG.

We’re big fans of Fast Company – so it’s nice they liked it.
FastCompany seems to have the pulse on what’s happening with business, technology, innovation and design. So, it’s really cool that they decided to feature the box cutter in their blog. Check it out.

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: ALFREDO MUCCINO, CRISTIAN MONTEGU, SCOTT GARDNER, JOSE COVARRUBIAS. PHOTOGRAPHED AT MAGIALIQUID’S OFFICES IN SANTIAGO.

Liquid Agency opens its doors in Latin America.
According to Scott Gardner, CEO of Liquid Agency, “We recognized that the Latin American region offers substantial growth opportunitites for many of our clients, and we felt that it was important for Liquid to have a local presence. We are very happy to be now able to support our clients with an office that is part of the local culture, yet is fully integrated with our headquarters in the US and our office in Europe.”

THE CITY OF SANTIAGO IS A DYNAMIC AND SOPHISTICATED BUSINESS DESTINATION SET AT THE FEET OF THE MAJESTIC ANDES MOUNTAINS.

Santiago, Chile is the Silicon Valley of Latin America.
The new LATAM office is located in Santiago, Chile – a country that is considered the most technologically sophisticated in the region and one of the most progressive business climates in the world – and it is often dubbed the “Silicon Valley of Latin America”. The new office operates as MagiaLiquid and is the result of the integration of Magia Diseno and Liquid Agency.

THE MAGIALIQUID TEAM WORKS ON MULTIDISCIPLINARY PROJECTS FOR LOCAL AND GLOBAL BRANDS.

Magia Diseno was one of Chile’s top firms.
Magia Diseno was established as a strategic design firm over ten years ago by Cristian Montegu – who is now the President and Chief Creative Officer of MagiaLiquid. According to Cristian, “Magia Diseno has been widely considered  one of the most innovative firms in Chile – servicing important clients across all of Latin America and beyond – and we are delighted that we now are MagiaLiquid, after joining forces with the most respected branding firm in Silicon Valley”.

YOUNG, SMART, DEDICATED – THE MAGIALIQUID TEAM IS A FUN BUNCH OF PEOPLE TO WORK WITH.

An award-winning team of strategists, designers and architects.
The team of people that works at MagiaLiquid is made up approximately 30 extremely talented people, including brand strategists, designers, project managers and programmers. In addition, the Santiago office also includes a team of award-winning architects who are transforming the way that brands manifests themselves through temporary as well as permanent environments.

FROM DESIGN THINKING TO CREATIVE EXECUTION, MAGIALIQUID EMBODIES THE SAME VALUES AND USES THE SAME PROCESS AS LIQUID IN THE US AND EUROPE.

Same proven methodologies and same comprehensive services.
MagiaLiquid is fully integrated into Liquid Agency, using the same methodologies and delivering across the same service disciplines – therefore enabling us to provide consistency of services to clients who would benefit from an agency that has offices in multiple geographies.

THE CLIENTS WHO ATTENDED THE LAUNCH PARTY ENJOYED MEETING MARTY NEUMEIER AND THE TALENTED MAGIALIQUID TEAM.

A proper launch needs a real launch party!
During our travels to Santiago we discovered that Chile is a country where people like to celebrate life. And, when we recently launched the new agency, we certainly celebrated in Chilean style. The MagiaLiquid launch party took place at the prestigious Sport Frances – a beautiful private club in Santiago – where about 100 people gathered to help us toast the launch. The party went late into the night and was enjoyed by all the clients, press, friends and employees that attended – yet, much to our amazement, the next day people were at the office starting at 8:00am!!! There are a lot more pictures on our Facebook page. Check them out!

Liquid Agency is recognized for delivering extraordinary work for its clients.
GD USA, one of the country’s most widely circulated trade magazines sponsors an annual design competition to celebrate the best design work being done in the US. The 2011 America Graphic Design Awards attracted more than 8,000 entries from agencies across the country, and only 15 percent of these entries are recognized with a Certificate of Excellence Award. Liquid is proud that six of the agency’s recent projects were singled out for awards.

Following is a list of the winning projects:
Logo Category
- Tunerfish: an app by Comcast hat merges TV with Social Media.
- The Rickshaw Run: a benefit event taking place in India.
- Dulcetta: a company that merges sound with visual content in iPad apps.

POP Category
- Touro: Retail Poster for a Hitachi drive.
- G-Tech: Merchandising System for G-Tech, a Hitachi brand.

Promotion Category
- Liquid Agency: T-shirts that Liquid gives to clients, employees, family and friends.

We’re happy to have received these awards.
“We certainly don’t create work for the purpose of winning awards,” said Alfredo Muccino, the Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of Liquid, “but it sure is nice to know that our peers think our work is good enough to receive a Certificate of Excellence.” The winning projects will be featured in the December issue of GD USA and on the GD USA website, along with the other winners. Be sure to check it out!

A collaboration between Liquid and HerbstProdukt.
Hextec, a leader in the tool category is based in Shanghai, but sells its products to retailers worldwide. In its effort to continue to grow its market share, the company wanted to develop a set of products specifically designed to appeal to a younger and more design savvy consumer. Realizing that they needed to work with a design team that has a fresh approach and a global perspective, the company reached out to HerbstProdukt for the industrial design and to Liquid Agency for the brand identity component of the assignment. The two firms are both based in Silicon Valley and have collaborated on award winning products that range from consumer electronics to kitchen tools.

Hextec: A brand that is rugged and sophisticated.
HerbstProduckt took the lead on the assignment by developing an industrial design language that positions the brand as a premium alternative. According to Scot Herbst, principal of HerbstProdukt, “I felt that the brand should be perceived as being about hard working tools that just happen to be beautifully designed. They are sophisticated, but in a very industrial, very rugged kind of way. ” The brand language leverages “hexagonal” geometric details inspired by the brand name, and suggests concepts of engineering, precision and quality. Scot discussed these ideas with Alfredo Muccino, the founder and Chief Creative Officer at Liquid Agency, and they agreed that the logo should embody these same qualities.

Engineered to stand out for all the right reasons.
The brand identity steers away from a decorative approach, instead it is a very simple and bold typographical solution in which the the “X” in Hextec becomes the most iconic component. The design of the Hextec identity takes into consideration the fact that it needs to be showcased prominently on the products becoming an easily recognizable signature element. The color red implies strength and power, while the grey alludes to the industrial nature of the products. The combination is not new, but the way in which the industrial design and the identity design are combined offers an alternative to traditional tools that is definitely contemporary and modern. According to Alfredo, “We’re very happy about the balance that we have been able to achieve between elegance and functionality. The brand stands out from the alternatives, but it does so in a way that it will be considered a serious tool. The brand’s elegance is born out of its purposeful engineering, we steered away from any type of decorative aesthetic”

Elegant packaging is focused on less, not more.
According to Alfredo, “We are using the Hextec Screwdrivers as the starting point, but in reality Liquid is working on a packaging system that can be applied to a full range of products”. The packaging will be designed to convey the premium level of the brand – and will need to accommodate products that hang on pegs and products that sit on shelves. “We are still at the very early conceptual stages. But we hope that the packaging will be as smart as the products – which in our opinion means less packaging. I am challenging our designers to “engineer” the packaging design solution to use the least amount of materials and minimize the impact on our environment while lowering the manufacturing costs. That’s what we consider to be smart design.”

Helpful links.

Industry veteran with plenty of talent and experience.
Bill has been the president and CEO of both private and publicly traded companies, and has held a variety of senior executive positions in communications, branding and marketing. He was also a partner in a big-four accounting firm and a principal and national practice leader for one of the largest global business consultancies. Bill has also worked as an advisor and strategist to several of the most prominent companies in the world.

Bill understands Madison Avenue and Wall Street.
His impressive background in both business and marketing makes him well-suited for the role he’s taking at Liquid. He founded, built and developed multiple companies, one of which was a fully integrated agency delivering strategic consulting and creative client services in branding, advertising, PR, corporate communications, marketing communications, investment relations and employee communications to a marquee list of multinational clients. Within five years, the agency was named one of Inc Magazine’s fastest growing companies – going from three employees in one office to 100 employees in seven offices across the U.S. Zabit sold the company to a publicly listed Internet and marketing company in 1998. He then transitioned to the role of president for the buying entity. While he was president, the company went from OTC to NASDAQ listed, and the stock climbed from $6 per share to $48 per share in one year with the company’s market cap reaching a billion dollars.

A career that includes Emmy nominations and lots of awards.
Zabit has earned more than 100 awards of excellence including two Emmy nominations as a director and writer. He has been quoted on a variety of topics by the Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC television news and national radio.

Although he doesn’t brag, he has plenty of reasons to do so.
Not one to brag, Bill will rarely talk about the three times he was invited to the White House as a communication strategist and advisor to the Clinton Administration. Or on stage with Paul McCartney. Needless to say, we’re very excited that Bill has decided to join our company and help us continue to provide valuable services to clients worldwide.

When you apply the design process both deeply and broadly, you can create rich brand experiences that turn customers into believers. The trick is to do what Shakespeare did in creating his plays. By designing entertainment products that worked on multiple levels, he was able to increase not only the number of customers but also their satisfaction, so they came back again and again. Here’s a diagram called the design well that will help your visualize how your company is understood by its various audiences.

The top of the design well visualizes your company as a set of concentric rings. It starts with vision at the core of the company and ripples outward through identity, culture, products, and brand – the place where your company touches customers. Each of these rings presents a design challenge, and it’s important to design a clear alignment from the inside to the outside. If there’s a disconnect between vision and brand, for example, your brand will be seen as muddled, inauthentic, or even suspect.

Alignment across the top of the well can be addressed through an organizational understanding of brand, plus the structures and processes needed to enable it. My books The Brand Gap, Zag, and The Designful Company will give you a better grasp of brand alignment.

The side of the design well shows the range of levels at which your audience can encounter your company. The shallowest level, at the top, is perception – the surface of human experience, including what we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste.

The next level down is reason, the logical processes we use to make sense of products, services, companies, and communications.

Going deeper into the well we find emotion, the feelings that drive many of our decisions, including those that are hidden beneath our reason.

Below the level of emotion is resonance, which gives us the intuition that a relationship with a given company, product, or offer is “right” for us.

At the deepest part of the well is ideology, the tribal connection we feel with a brand – the deep knowledge that we “belong” to a company or brand.

When you touch people at more than one level, you not only deepen their experience, but you reach a wider audience, since people vary in their sensitivity to each type of experience.

Designing deeply cannot be achieved through organization mandate. It can only come through the personal mastery of the designers doing the work. While Shakespeare was a great collaborator, it was his personal vision and skill that gave his plays – and his business – the richness and authenticity that created a legend. Download slide set.

Welcome aboard Josh!
Josh is a first-rate addition to Liquid’s brand strategy team, a group of exceptional individuals we’ve brought together over the years who believe that branding starts deep in the belly of a company and is an ongoing process that drives authentic and continuous change which, in turn, creates a culture of innovation. In his role, Josh will be designing  and building culture-change programs for companies and organizations  to help them go beyond just talking about their brand to actually living it.

Josh brings plenty of experience and an ample dose of passion to Liquid.
As a brand coach, Josh uses his diverse background and professional facilitation skills to help clients discover and execute on their unique market position. And for more than a decade, he’s helped global brands like Hewlett-Packard, Warner Brothers, Microsoft and Levi’s to strengthen their internal brand culture. Josh began his career working for internationally-acclaimed design agencies like Landor, Brand Engine and VSA but quickly found his way into branding when he joined Neutron — a design think tank that was based in San Francisco and had focused on internal brand-building processes. Josh also regularly writes, speaks and leads workshops on the intersection of brand and business, and his work is seen in many Design Management Institute (DMI) publications.

Read Josh Levine’s full bio.
Learn more about the Liquid brand strategy team.

Diane Stember Richards: Award winning creative director with lots of agency experience.
Diane has spent the past 25 years developing print, television, collateral and webcampaigns on both the West and East coasts of the U.S. She started her career in San Francisco where she worked on a number of award-winning campaigns before heading to New York to put her creative mark on the likes of IBM, BEA, Bell South, General Motors and Johnson & Johnson. Diane eventually returned to the City by the Bay and joined Hal Riney & Partners, working on substantial branding and advertising initiatives for General Motor’s EV1, Sprint PCS and HP. She also helped create iconic national television campaigns for Saturn, America West Airlines, Sun Microsystems, Bank of America and the much-touted launch of Webvan.

Diane’s knack for creating strikingly beautiful imagery in head-turning campaigns can be seen in her work below for Bank of America, BEA and Chevy’s.

In 2005, Diane moved to celebrated artist community San Miguel de Allende, in the heart of Mexico. Under that desert sun, she stretched her creative abilities even further. While in San Miguel, she designed and built an award-winning house recognized for its innovative use of light and space. After four years south of the border, Diane re-entered the Bay Area creative community as an associate creative director in the graphic design group at Apple.

Diane’s work has earned her numerous accolades, including recognition from the One Show, San Francisco Show, Graphis and the Print Design Annual. At Liquid, Diane leads a creative team working on a diverse set of clients delivering strategic brand design, video and interactive projects, as well as advertising campaigns. View Diane’s creative portfolio.

Sam White: A man with many talents who is passionate about the potential of digital experiences.
We also welcome Sam White to the Liquid team as one of our key creative director’s responsible for the digital side of the brand experience. With a user-centered approach to his work, he seeks to create compelling conversations between brands and their customers.

Sam began his career as a designer at the famed Boston Globe where he learned the value of good storytelling to a large audience. This eventually led to his work for Houghton Mifflin Publishing where he designed education material for national high school history and science programs. While working in the Consumer Environments group at Fitch Inc, Sam helped launch several successful campaigns for Timberland, Nortel Networks, and Coca Cola.

After an extensive road trip across America, Sam found his home in rainy-but-beautiful Portland, Oregon. He did a brief stint on the client-side, working for a local footwear company, before he was lured back to the agency life. Before coming to Liquid, Sam worked for five years at digital marketing agency eROI. While there, Sam built a very collaborative creative team that launched integrated campaigns and large-scale websites for Wacom, CBS, Zinio, Columbia Sportswear and HBO.

See a few of Sam’s work below for Moonit and Wacom.

When Sam’s not hunched in front of his computer pushing pixels, he’s probably in the mountains on his snowboard or bike. View Sam’s creative portfolio.

We’re ecstatic to have both Sam and Diane as part of the Liquid team. For more more information on other creative minds at Liquid, visit our web site.