The Peace Parasols

The Peace Parasols, originally uploaded by This Is Beautiful.

@ Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival, 2009.

The Painted Magical Van

The Painted Magical Van, originally uploaded by This Is Beautiful.

At Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival, 2009

New Chick-fil-A Billboard Misses Chance to Connect

Chick-fil-A has a lock down on cows in marketing. The chicken-only fast food chain started using cows to promote its brand back in 1995, when the company put up a billboard with cows painting the now-famous misspelled phrase: “EAT MOR CHIKIN.” Since then the billboard cows have turned 3-D and they continue to paint a variety of catchy, anti-chicken messages alongside roadways in America.

In North Carolina’s Triangle area, the billboards appear to be updated with some regularity, often changing to reflect different seasons or trends. The latest billboard we spotted is at I-440 and Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, and it may be the most clever yet. The billboard features a real toll-free phone number (1-866-613-COWS) and when you call it you get a light-hearted recording that features ringing phones, mooing cows and this message:

Chick-fil-A Billboard Recording from This Is Beautiful on Vimeo.

“You have reached the bovine chicken chat line, where you can chat with tons and tons of cows about chicken. All our cows are busy. While you’re waiting, why not get to know some of these fuzzy fans of chicken. Hefer 9672 is a twelve hundred pounder from Kentucky who likes long walks in the pastor, watching cars go by from poastor and eathing the pastor. She’s also an aspiring author, writing a book called “The Burgers of Wrath.”

Bull 5541 is a bull from Chicago, with a pierced nose and a nasty temper, but he loves people who eat chikcen and the good folks at Chick-fil-A who make the chicken. Bull 5541’s pet peeves are cow tipping and the color red — espcially when it’s meat.

All our cows are still busy please try calilng the bovine chat line later. The cows thank you for calling and for not eating burgers. This call made possible by Chick-fil-A. You may hang up and grab some chicken now.”

We think it’s cool that Chick-fil-A is trying to find a new way to reach potential customers. We’re sure a lot of curious drivers have dialed the number while cruising down the road (which raises the issue of safety … but we’ll leave that one untouched today), and they probably chuckled like we did when we heard the cute message. But the recording leaves you wanting more.

We wonder why Chick-fil-A didn’t use the recording as a way to generate fun feedback from its customers. Maybe the message could have ended by encouraging callers to leave a message of their own about Chick-fil-A. Sure, they probably would have to sift through a lot of fratboy humor to get to the few good nuggets (wokka, wokka!) that were recorded, but wouldn’t that be fun? Perhaps, Chick-fil-A could have encouraged callers to do their best cow impression and posted the variety of “moos” people recorded while driving down the road.

The toll-free number, while clever, is also a missed opportunity for Chick-fil-A to build its community and receive feedback from its fans. The restaurant already has a huge fan base, otherwise folks wouldn’t dress up like cows for free food or camp out overnight at new restaurant openings to win free Chick-fil-A for a year.

Chick-fil-A had a chance to engage its community. The chain was almost there. They posted a funny message that sticks to its cow-boasting brand. It may have been better, however, if they took it one step further and let its audience have a voice.

Errors!

This is an audio clip that was somehow lost in translation on Vimeo. I like it better than the original audio clip. I figured I would post it. Maybe someone else loves this sort of stuff, too.

What’s Playing in the Office Today…

I’m in love with Ida Maria! Her voice is the hotness and this song makes me want to jump on the drums for a quick work break.
embedded by Embedded Video

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart remind me of the good ol’ days of noisy fuzzy warm rock n’ roll…They are coming to Local 506 in May! Woo!
embedded by Embedded Video

The Mannequins at Forever XXI

Judging a Book by Its Cover

I found this at the library today and really think it’s beautiful.

DPAC Spotlight is Live!

It’s Alive!! The DPAC Spotlight has launched and our peeps over at DPAC are going to love using it! We designed a custom theme using Wordpress, which will allow them to make use of the robust and super easy-to-use system. Will they love it? Yep. Will it change over time? Yep! We are working with DPAC throughout the process, tweaking the details as they grow into the system, making sure that it stays easy-to-use and meets all of their needs. We are also providing hands-on training so we can teach their team how to use the system and understand how to make it grow with them.

The DPAC rocks. Get over there and support the Performing Arts in our community!

How Often Do You Get To Stand Here??

When I Fell in Love

The guys over at I Love Typography have a great article by Jeremy Mickel called The First One’s the Hardest and it reminded me of my first experience in Design school and when I really fell in love with Typography.

I was riding on the bus in Boston one afternoon while I was working on an installation where I was installing doorknobs in random places all over the city. My bag was full of doorknobs (how many times have you said THAT in your life??) and I had my camera with me to document some of the installations. While I was looking out the window, I noticed that someone had carved an “I love you” note into the panel of the bus with their knife. It said something like, “I love you, Sarah” and was crossed out violently with knife slashes into the plastic. This would be the inspiration for my first typeface, BusLove. I took pics of the slaughtered type and used it as inspiration for the work. It’s horrible!

Sure, it’s embarrassing to look at, but it definitely brings back a lot of incredible memories I have of that time in my life and when I fell in love with typography.

Do you remember when you fell in love?