The results are in from the DWR Holiday Champagne Chair Contest and all I can say is that this annual competition never ceases to amaze me with their ingenious and simple executions. Check out the site and enjoy for yourself. Hats off to the winner, Krista Charles.

An interesting story about an industry giant trying to embrace a big challenge, in response to the rumors flying around about GM going into bankruptcy. This industry analysts are saying its due to lack of differentiation in the market, in a market saturated by well thought out and executed brand awareness campaigns.

Printing Responsibly, a side venture of PrintPromotion, is holding a great contest where the objective is to conceptualize, design, and create a postcard that utilizes environmentally-friendly best practices, including vegetable based inks, recycled materials, and paper from better-managed forests. The aptly named Clean Design 2006 competition is a great way for designers to flex their design muscles, while remaining loyal to the environmentally sound constraints. Good luck!

“This competition is meant to emphasize how a clear simple yet effective message can get your point across more effectively and in actuality, reduce the amount of printing therefore needed for a promotion to succeed”. That‘s where we feel a dual impact will be made, better results, less waste and lower total production costs, states Steven Van Praagh, partner.

a. Modern builds sustainable modern dwellings, and this one is a super sleek kitchen they did in Atlanta. Their site is chock full of great work they've done in the last few years.

Materialise
Gandia Blasco

Bonaldo
u:b studio showed off some interesting ways to organize your media, including this innovative magazine and book holder–although to be honest I could never have the heart to do that to the spine of my books.


Quinze & Milan

MoCo Loco Contributing Editor Gimena Gomez Paz was at IMM Cologne, for more information (and gorgeous photos) check out her photo report at mocoloco.

Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen's Chilmark House, a vacation house by the same firm that designed the NYTimes Fortified weekend cabin. Sweet.

It seems that ever since CP+B resigned MINI for the much larger Volkswagon Assignment, they have never been the same. Working with the Miami-based agency has created a stir within the company, and changed the way they run their agency selection process altogether. Normally, companies use a selection firm to manage the RFP process and then a select number of agencies are invited to pitch. After, the company selects their agency.

Run by Jim McDowell, MINI CEO, they began the selection process in the normal way, but once they had their short list they held an immersion boot-camp in which all the agencies had to perform in front of each other, including: a scavenger hunt, improv, and info sharing. By the end, one agency dropped due to 'chemistry differences', and this uncommon practice led to Butler Shine as their new agency.

McDowell put these agencies through this uncommon pitch process “… to get closer to how each agency thought, behaved, and went about their business when unexpected situations were thrown at them.”