Leave Your Selfie Sticks At Home

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Following in the footsteps of some of the world’s most popular museums, music festivals are beginning to ban the ubiquitous selfie stick from their events. Earlier this week Coachella posted a list of banned items to its website, including “selfie sticks/narcissists.” Lollapalooza similarly announced that it would not allow selfie sticks into Grant Park, where the Chicago-based music festival will take place this summer. Both of these announcements arrive on the heels of last weekend’s Ultra Music Festival, where selfie sticks were also banned.

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These decisions have sparked a lot of controversy online and prompted strong reactions all around. Some have been upset with the festivals’ decisions to ban what they see as a useful tool to engage with the environment and event, while others have rejoiced at the idea of one less distraction from the music.

From the festivals’ perspectives, there are many risks involved with allowing selfie sticks. Aside from the fact that they can potentially be used as weapons, they can also cause physical risks simply due to their size and functionality. Dropping, walking into, or tripping over selfie sticks are very real risks that music festivals have a duty to curb, due to their large audiences.

But it’s also interesting to consider some of the business implications that these festivals might face by allowing selfie sticks. If selfie sticks were allowed into the concert spaces, users would be able to capture unobstructed high quality videos from their devices to share content or even stream live.  Though this is not cited by any festival as a reason for the ban, we suspect that any threat to the festivals profit margins, or legal agreements with their artists adds yet another reason why selfie sticks won’t be making an appearance at this year’s hottest music festivals.

What Sparks Our Fire: An interesting debate on how technology can impact our real life experiences.

Typography Trends in Branding

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Typography is a key element in a brand’s identity, and many brands are opting to create wordmark logos that express who they are and what they are about. Using wordmark logos isn’t a new concept, but we’ve noticed a few trends rising with this type of logo treatment in some of the recognizable brands over the past few years. The first, is incorporating a handwritten font into the logo, as shown above in social media platform Instagram’s logo. It has the ability to give the brand a unique quality tailored to their specific brand qualities.

We’ve also noticed brands redesigning their logos with a more modern, minimal approach in mind.

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More brands are venturing from 3d to flat, which can be seen in Google and Hershey’s logo redesigns.

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What Sparks Our Fire: Brands adapting to the latest design trends

More Than a Lock: The Must-Have Bike Accessory

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We’re big fans of Kickstarter, it’s a great platform for sharing new products that provides entrepreneurs the opportunity to garner loyalty and buy-in from potential future customers. Our newest favorite kickstarter project is the  Noke U-Lock.  This takes bike locks to the next level by completely eliminating the need for keys or codes. This bike lock is controlled through your smartphone allowing you to unlock it from your phone, share access to your bike with your friends, and control the alarm.. yes alarm. The app also provides GPS tracking to the lock, preventing you from ever forgetting where you left your bike. If your phone is within a few feet, when you push the button on the Noke U-Lock it senses your phone and instantly unlocks. When the Noke is shaken for more than 3 seconds or the wrong quick code is attempted more than 3 times, an alarm goes off that can be turned off from the app on your phone or the quick code on the lock, so your bike is always protected.

They’ve already met their target, which is great news for all you bikers who haven’t heard about it yet, support on kickstarter and get yours guaranteed before it hits the mass market.

What Sparks our Fire: A, well designed, incredibly useful accessory for bike riders everywhere.

Changing The Mobile Advertising Landscape Bits By Bits

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Brands are always vying for creative ways to engage consumers and capture their attention. With the shift from desktop to mobile, however, one of the largest considerations brands face is the data usage that consumers must use to view and engage with their advertisements. While a wildly creative ad placed before a YouTube video might work well on a desktop, on mobile, users must consider how much data it will take to view that video in it’s entirety, and might choose to skip it after the required 5 seconds– regardless of how cool they find it.

The Spanish telecom Telefónica announced at the Mobile World Congress that it will begin testing a new program where customers can engage with brands in exchange for more data. This interesting new program will hypothetically be a win-win situation for everyone involved: brands will get the engagement they desire from willing participants, and consumers will be able to interact with their favorite brands without worrying about expensive data overages. If this program is successful, it could end up entirely changing the mobile advertising landscape.

What Sparks Our Fire: Innovative new mobile advertising ideas that give big benefits to brands and customers

King Takes It To the Next Level

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In the age of the GoogleplexGoogle‘s sprawling campus in Mountain View, California– the idea that the physical space occupied by a company is more than just an office, but an extension and physical manifestation of the actual brand, is becoming common place.

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Earlier this week, King, the company behind the massive-hit Candy Crush, shared photos of their Stockholm office with Dezeen Magazine. The Swedish-based company might not have maximized the functionality of traditional office spaces, but they have definitely remained true to their brand and the spirit of Candy Crush enthusiasts everywhere (just take a look at these trampoline seats for further proof)!

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View more photos here.

What Sparks Our Fire: Fun office spaces that reflect the brands they’re embodying