As apart of a summer long initiative, Soldier is excited to announce the launch of the Spyder Website today.  Soldier played a driving role in the design and development of the site alongside the Spyder  team in Boulder, Colorado.  Back in February, around the time of the Olympics you may remember a post that Soldier had started working with the iconic ski brand on a host of initiatives from helping progress their interactive experiences (which you can get a taste of here), to upping their game at retail with a host of point of purchase & shop-in-shop executions including a premium build out for Harrods of London.  We will continue to share creative as it becomes available including the design of Spyder’s 2011 women’s product line called Quest.

http://www.spyder.com/

iPhone photo from premium seating

Thanks to Reid and the folks at UFC for the visit to Soldier last week.  It was great to get the true insight into the hyper emerging sport and international expansion plans.  The Soldier team is still humming from our time at the Fan Expo, Weigh-In and Fight Night experience.  It was nothing short of Epic!

Hopefully Dana, Lorenzo, Bryan and the rest of the visiting UFC crew enjoyed Boston and some of Soldier’s local brand experience executions.

Dustin Perdroia; Photo by Nick Laham

Soldier has aligned with Dustin Pedria & New Balance to set a new precedent in both love & respect for endorsed athletes.  Over the summer, Soldier and the New Balance team have been busy creating a powerful graphic identity system for Dustin that will appear on his soon-to-be realeased New Balance 1101 baseball cleat, as well as a host of other technical NB gear.  One aspect of the project that Soldier has been deeply involved in from the onset is a pretty expressive DP15 apparel collection, which is expected to be rolling out next season with print and digital broadcasting to support the park sales.

We will keep you tuned in on the designs as they become available to share.

And Dustin, we look forward to having you fully back!

Lots of travel this week, which has been great.  Always good to connect with truly pioneering and progressive brands and the people taking them forward.  Soldier has found a special place in many of our relationships, which much of seems to revolve around the subject of creativity and how to push each others limits and progress in ways that matter.

I cam across some great thoughts around experiencing creativity this week, which I wanted to share:

> Creativity: “To be creative requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result).”

> And where does divergent thinking come from? It comes from being exposed to divergent ideas and cultures and people and intellectual disciplines. As Marc Tucker, the president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, once put it: “One thing we know about creativity is that it typically occurs when people who have mastered two or more quite different fields use the framework in one to think afresh about the other. Intuitively, you know this is true. Leonardo da Vinci was a great artist, scientist and inventor, and each specialty nourished the other. He was a great lateral thinker. But if you spend your whole life in one silo, you will never have either the knowledge or mental agility to do the synthesis, connect the dots, which is usually where the next great breakthrough is found.”

Provocative!  And very true in my experience too.   I am going to take this with me as I enjoy my vacation next week in the Cape.

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

35 years ago a story and creature came to life on the Big Screen. Written
to trigger consumer fears, suspicions, and intrigue with the depths of the
ocean and what lurks beneath. The mystery. The idea of going to the beach
to frolic with friends and loved ones was simple and pure. Even for your
dog. The scenario of the shark being a killer and hunter were all true.
The consistency of The Great White was documented for centuries. It
evolved and was both calculated and unpredictable. Yes, the world category
of brand should be these as well. Keep the audience intrigued and wanting
to learn more. How do we catch it, learn from it, even dive into where it
lives. Some of the more recent partners we are fortunate enough to be
working with are interested in their evolution, their rhythm, and their
opportunity to gain attraction on regional and global levels. We will
continue to share client stories here as we head into the final quarter of
2010 as they become public domain. Sometimes mystery is a good thing, the
bait if you will. We remain in the hunt – not to the carnivorous extremes
that Quint and Chief Brody took (although the ORCA outing is one of my all
time favorites) – but you get my drift. Swim deeply, explore, and grow
stronger, or tread water and well…..you know…..

WW Graphic Identity

Soldier works with The Tannery group once again heading into the opening of a brand new retail concept called the Wilderness Workshop™, which will open as an annex to the 711 Boylston store in Boston, MA at the beginning of September.  Yes, approximately a month from now.  The store will focus on contemporary outdoor in a very accessible way, delivering highly desirable and authentic Americana outdoor brands like vintage Patagonia, Redwing, RRL, Timberland, Wild Things, Barbour and Pendleton, to name a few.  Additionally, they will feature a diverse mix of outdoor brands from the UK and EU delivering a strong international perspective of rugged & meaningful outdoor brands from around the world.  A bakery and coffee shop will great you all with fine maple treats, coffee and other classic outdoor snacks.   You’ll be able to sit down in deep brown chesterfield seats, enjoy some tasty food, good company and take in the smell of fresh pine trees and chainsaw art that will populate the environment.

As The Tannery continues to scale with brand offering and complexity, Soldier continues to help drive the conceptual platform for communication and consumer-facing message through storytelling, identity creation, retail programming and architecture that reinforces the overall message & voice of product mix, attitude and intended consumer experience.

And with this initiative, the Soldier product development team has worked with a host of opinion leading brands in a collaboratively provoking way  in order to develop newly articulated product designs to encompass the spirit of the store it’s strong relationships. These products range  from apparel to footwear — including a Wilderness Workshop Bounty Jacket from Fjallraven and Wilderness Workshop Rubber Boot Galoshes with Tretorn – and will be sold exclusively at Wilderness Workshop.

So, from the creation of the Concepts store in Cambridge, MA to the newly introduced Curated and The Tannery on Boylston Street in Boston, we are pleased to whisper some beforehand information, renderings and teasers of our next exploration with the Wilderness Workshop space and products you can expect to arrive this Fall.

Look forward to seeing you at the September launch, if you can make it!

WW Entry

WW Rear View

WW Perspective

WW Tretorn Galosh

WW Fjallraven Bounty Jkt Print

Dan Vogelzang by Day 19

It was two years after I started Soldier Design in 2002, that I was en route to Los Angeles for a business trip at 35,000 ft on Jet Blue, when I heard “Riley” as I was walking down the isle of the plane to get my stretch on.   It was Dan Vogelzang, a friend of my wife’s friend who I had met only once before in passing.  I liked Dan already because I indirectly knew his Dad’s personality as the President and voice behind VPR, which I listened to often while living in Vermont.

Dan and I shared the same layover in Las Vegas during that trip, where we took advantage of a nearby bar and started chatting.  After some small talk and a beer or two later we soon found out that we both came out of the womb obsessed with design and the power it wields in communication and story telling, which were two subjects that keenly interested us both. Some key stars aligned for us quickly as the conversation escalated quickly around the role of design in each of our pasts, but more specifically the role of design in brand communication and the power in has to convene people in a unified fashion.

The building conversation had us high and lead to more sharing about our personal connection to brand, community and contribution to culture.  My story was largely centered around my retail background and hot streak tenure in brand marketing with the Burton Snowboard Company.  Whereas Dan’s connection to brand, community and contribution to culture was through the lens of designer, interactive connoisseur and impacting experiences at Apple during the launch of the iPod.  Shortly after our trip I asked Dan to be a partner in the venture we call Soldier Design.

Dan has been paramount in the success of Soldier, as both an owner and within his functional role as Director of Operations, focused on the subject of process for the business and on behalf of serving our client initiatives. From day one Dan has been determined to make Soldier run like a finely tuned Patek Philippe watch. Dan has earned such nicknames as Intel (as Intel Inside!) and “Cool Proof” named by Steve Costello, co-founder of Raw Skateboards.  I think both attribute to the reality that Dan does not shake.  His thoughtful, tempered, patient and merciful approach to people, projects and business has created a safe and trustworthy environment for the emerging, explosive and erratic energy within the walls of Soldier to thrive.

Thanks for being you brother!

Recently thinking of all the information at our fingertips, I reflected on blogging. The deep oceans of content available to anyone with an electrical current and device is staggering. It had me reflect where some of the critical lift-off points for individuals were and who put pen to paper in creating this form of personalized journalism? In a flash my mind went right to Hunter S. Thompson. Yes, he of Gonzo Journalism unapologetically living and documenting how he wanted and what he wanted. He scared a lot of people because he wielded a pen and reckless attitude to call it like he saw it. People cheered or mocked him – there was no middle ground when it came to Hunter. Not too much different then the millions of self-proclaimed expert scribes running amok on the net. Not too much different then the brands populating consumer’s journeys. So when the truth is told and millions read it, it can be entertaining, amusing, and perhaps most of all, real.

At Soldier, we collaborate and push leaders of brands to rethink their position and cause, however noble (see our work with Curio and below with Metro Lacrosse) or frightening (Sig Hansen and his industry) to be truthful and spirited with their brand and with their respective industries and audiences. Audiences waited months for books or Rolling Stone columns to be released by Hunter S. Thompson. And if you were on the beat-down side of his ink, then it was a bad omen because he created the appetite for more. But with today’s disposable journalism running rampant – how would you classify Hunter? I think he threw down and backed it up by living in it and calling it open and honest. Shouldn’t all brands be so fortunate to do this?  We think so……..