Trent Design is featured in The Detroit News

Posted by: admin @ 9:17 am | Date: September 17, 2009 | Comments (0)
Filed under: Detroit, Latest News

IMG_TD_Det_News-blog

Trent Design was featured in the business section of today’s edition of
The Detroit News
. The article goes onto discuss our success with non-profit clients and the move into our new studio space.

“This is collaborative economics… The profit motive is secondary to a desire to pay everyone a living wage and create great designs for our clients. We stay lean so we can take more risks,” said our leader Marilyn who was asked to describe our company objectives.

The article appears on page 6B. Please click here to download the other half of the story or visit:

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090917/BIZ/909170355/1001/biz

Thanks to The Detroit News and journalist Maureen McDonald for recognizing our efforts in this paper’s Small Business Spotlight.

Does your website stink? (Part II)

Posted by: andrew @ 12:31 am | Date: November 11, 2008 | Comments (0)
Filed under: Detroit

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Our last batch of tips. Fresh from our talk at Rochester’s DDA Guest Lecture Series. Download them here.

Out with the Old, In with the New

Posted by: andrew @ 11:35 pm | Date: July 5, 2008 | Comments (0)
Filed under: Detroit

Since this hits a little closer to home, I thought i’d mention that this year’s Woodward Dream Cruise— an event that draws thousands of enthusiasts to Detroit each year— just redesigned their logo. I don’t really care much for cars or the event but i’ve always felt the responsibility to make the Dream Cruise look more marketable and systematic fell largely in the auto industry’s court. And year after year, they’ve failed dismally:



2005 Logo



2006 Logo



2007 Logo

I cringe every-time i flick on the television and tune into the local ABC affiliate here in Detroit because the on-air graphics are clunky, outdated and unattractive. Meanwhile, the news anchors and event organizers seem keen on ignoring the issue all-together. They happily cover the event and i sit off to side shaking my head because i don’t get it. With all it’s resources and vast amounts of talent, visually the event never looked much better than the theatre posters the drama department at my former highschool would make.



Other logo iterations

But at least this time, i think they’re going in the right direction. I should mention the new logo was designed by long-time automotive designer Dick Ruzzin and digitized by Rochester based studio Catalyst (who live just down the street from us here at Trent Design). Previously, Ruzzin was director of Design for both GM Europe and Chevrolet North America.

I think this new 2-Dimensional look does a better job of communicating the spirit of the celebration sans all the hokey 3D gradients and chunky type-treatments. Plus the color palette is a little more livelier. It’s not a total turn-off.

Johnson & Johnson’s Big Design Challenge

Posted by: andrew @ 6:25 pm | Date: May 23, 2008 | Comments (2)
Filed under: Detroit

I read about this a while ago so maybe we file this under “old news” but I.D. Magazine wrapped up a great feature not long ago about Johnson & Johnson re-tooling it’s brand(s) through sustainable design.

The article goes on to talk about flower child turned chief design officer— Mark Hacker— and his push to tell designers that sustainability has got to be a part of what they do.

Plus we get to see a few product re-designs that were created to replace things like the old packaging for Band-aid and Rembrandt oral care commodities.

Niccceee.