The Creative Advocacy Network (CAN) is a broad coalition of arts organizations, businesses, government, and individuals with a mission to create a strong voice in support of the arts in order to strengthen the regional arts ecology and to change how the arts are funded in the tri-county region.

Specifically, CAN needs to gain support to pass a $20 million levy that will be distributed among many arts organizations (like The Right Brain Initiative) and guarantee the continued progress of the arts in Portland and the tri-county area.

CAN asked NORTH to create a brand identity for the program to help focus their efforts on a single message that Portlanders could identify with over the coming months leading up to the vote.

NORTH began an exploration based on the insights that arts are the lifeblood of our region and a necessity, not a luxury. From these insights came the brand platform: Food. Shelter. Art. and the CANifesto proclaiming that in the Portland area, the arts are as vital as food and shelter.

Visit theartscan.org to read the CANifesto, see the impactful design provided by MakeLike and learn what you can do to keep the arts alive and well in our region.

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It’s no surprise to us really, but it’s great to see it recognized publically.

That’s right, NORTH and makelike are lucky enough to be able to walk into an award-winning abode every day.

Congrats to Skylab and thanks to Interior Design for picking such a fantastic space.

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Arnold again asked NORTH to produce some music for Jack Daniel’s.

This time around it is was for a new holiday spot, and as always it was a blast to work on. Thanks again Arnold!

The VFX were produced by the super talented crew at BrickyardVFX in Boston. If you want to elevate the experience, before you press play, crushing up part of a candy cane and dissolve it into a flask of Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel. Some would think this blasphemy, but not the folks at the distillery. I think around there it’s called seasonal cold medicine.

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Amid all of the commercials and the website, we’re also helping the Downtown Marketing Initiative partner with P.I.C.A. to do an interactive installation on the corner of 6th and Alder (launching this Friday morning with a ribbon cutting featuring mayor-elect Sam Adams.)

If you look really hard you might be able to find a few sneak peaks.

More to come once this puppy goes live…

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That’s the question that The Right Brain Initiative is asking.

On the 18th of September, in front of nearly 200 advocates, NORTH helped unveil the new identity and mission platform for the Portland-based arts collaboration formerly known as Arts Partners.

Now branded as The Right Brain Initiative, the group is working diligently to integrate arts education experiences into the standard curriculum of every K-8 classroom across the region’s school districts.

After renaming the program, NORTH worked with local artists aged 5-50 to craft an evolving, participatory logo, short film and web presence that feels as genuine and unique as the children who stand to benefit from the program.

Many thanks to The Right Brain Initiative for letting NORTH be part of shaping our kid’s, and collective, future.

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Their studio generates art direction, graphic design, pattern design and illustration for publishing, editorial, markteing, retail, exhibition, product development and identity/brand applications.

www.makelike.com

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NORTH has just unveiled a television spot for client Portland General Electric with a curious proposition: use less of our product.

Yes, desperate times call for desperate measures. And NORTH and PGE are responding to the current energy crisis with a high-road message: conserve.

This elegiac spot grows from the often overlooked observation that, in our prudent quest for wind, solar, tidal and other alternative energies, we sometimes forget  that the most critical step of all is simply cutting back.

Add to this unexpected proposition an equally right-brain execution.

Working in partnership with photographer Chris Hornbecker and Grow Film, NORTH developed a unique stop motion technique using digital still photography as the content source. 250 still shots were woven together to create a seamless, yet slightly impressionistic story.

To further the idea of conserving energy, NORTH directed, edited and scored the spot.

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Using some tongue-in-cheek humor and emulating some vintage chyron titling, we tried to bring a little levity (and a little notoriety) to P.G.E.’s salmon conservation efforts.

The result seems to have been fairly well received…

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Center Camp, Burning Man 07, originally uploaded by BURИBLUE.

It’s ironic that an event centered around “radical self-expression and anti-consumerism” is actually a very large and successful brand. In fact, in its 22nd year, Burning Man has built the kind of loyalist consumer base that could rival any iPhone upgrade launch.

Now before all you Black Rock true believers start beating us with virtual hookah pipes, this commentary is not intended to disparage the sanctity of “the burn.” If you want to go into the desert, build a city, make art, bike naked, trade bracelets, get baked and commune with the Lizard King, that’s cool. (And please send pictures.)

Meanwhile, let’s consider the properties of a successful brand. A brand can be a product, service, a person, or in this case, an event. When the brand consistently delivers on its unique promise, an emotional connection is formed with the consumer. The consumer identifies with attributes of the brand that reflect aspects of himself.

You see where we’re going here. Bud = mainstream, Americana, sports. Burning Man = counterculture, nonconformity, ‘shrooms. Told you it was ironic.

While Burning Man has become a business out of self-sustaining necessity, make no mistake, it’s a business. Black Rock City LLC, the organizing entity behind the festival, supports a full-time paid staff, has an office in San Fran and handles an annual budget of over $10 million. But that should be obvious to anyone not on a permanent acid trip. Even an anti-establishment experiment has to pay government land use fees.

“Hey, doesn’t Burning Man eschew all forms of marketing by its very being,” you ask? Guess it depends on what you call marketing but if you count web, print design, PR, blogs, direct mail and nontraditional, then um, no. Not to mention Word of Mouth. We’re talking two decades of burners spreading the “it changed my life” gospel.

Currently, there’s 287,346 related images on Flickr.

And that’s where Burning Man achieves true uber brand status. Come August 25th, over 48,000 brand advocates will once again shell out several hundred bucks for the unique experience of camping around a flaming… logo.

Yeah, that’s right, we said it. That big man-shaped structure towering over the playa is a logo.

Just check the trademark.

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