The 2008 Curtain Call Ball invitation, designed by Cue for an annual fund-raising event for Children's Theatre Company, has been selected for inclusion in the 365: AIGA Year In Design annual and accompanying exhibit. The piece was chosen by the jury of the 365: AIGA Year In Design Competition as one of 30 winners from a field of 3,800 entries.

In addition to publication in the annual, the invitation will become part of the AIGA Design Archives, a permanent historical record of notable design. The Archives are accessible online and currently housed at the Denver Art Museum. The 365: AIGA Year In Design competition winners will be on public exhibit at the AIGA Design Center in New York in 2009 and will travel to AIGA chapters, student groups and galleries around the country throughout 2010. We are honored to be included in this exhibit and to have the opportunity to create such a fun piece on behalf of the Children's Theatre Company.  

Cue is pleased to have two projects featured in the 2009 AIGA Minnesota Design Show. Printed materials for the Bonterra Vineyards Roadshow were accepted in the Books category, and our holiday booklet "Looking Forward " got the nod in self-promotion. 

A feature of commarts.com, Exhibit is a daily showcase of outstanding examples of graphic design and advertising including packaging, print ads, television commercials, direct mail, catalogs, CD covers, books and posters.

Bonterra on commarts.com

The typographic solution is built from a pattern inspired by digital technology. Letterforms emerge from a geometry that is precise, but changeable.

Patterns become more interesting and varied as color and elements change.

The system straddles complexity and simplicity. From the shorthand of “pf” to a pattern that can be expressed with almost unlimited iterations, this holistic identity becomes a metaphor for creativity, connecting people through experience.

The icon of the Animal engine, used for racing Kart, Bandolero and other forms of small engine racing, is one of 103 selections from 4,700+ submissions for outstanding design of 2006.

See the work at the AIGA design archives.

That’s where we come in.

We’ve sat across the table from you. Well, not you, but a lot of people like you over the past twenty years. People holding precious mental cargo. People with ideas that could transform the company -- if only brought to life in the right way.

We’d like to help you be one of the other kinds of people we know.

The ones who finally see the potential of their ideas become real. The ones who feel the confidence of a message that matches their business proposition. The ones whose brand is finally expressed in a way that connects with their real audience.

The ones who say we wish we’d done this a long time ago.

Talk to us. We’re good listeners. Tell us what’s working and where you think it could be better . We’ll be honest about where we think we can add value, or whether or not we’re the right fit. Because our success is realized in helping companies like you express their true identity.

Management at the Interpublic Group of Cos. agency found its brand meant little in the marketplace -- and that many prospective clients saw it primarily as a solid account-service shop that offered middling creative. Even worse, executives there said, its own employees were beginning to buy into that perception.

So, perhaps at the risk of some embarrassment, C-M asked another agency -- Cue, also of Minneapolis -- for help. "It's a bit like heart surgery," said Campbell-Mithun CEO Jack Rooney. "You can't operate on yourself."

Self-examination
Agencies -- particularly bigger, older ones such as Campbell-Mithun -- are beginning to pay far more attention to the state of their own brands as they try to confront the reasons for sluggish growth in recent years.

Some, such as J. Walter Thompson and the Chicago office of BBDO, have opted to change their names entirely, either to imply a larger streamlining of operations at a place previously seen as siloed and lumbering -- as in JWT -- or to disassociate with its hometown's sluggish reputation -- as in Energy BBDO.

Other shops, such as Leo Burnett (which like both C-M and JWT is associated with charismatic, Depression-era founders) have struggled to confront a branding dichotomy. Burnett's creative in Asia, Europe and Latin America is seen as edgy and envelope-pushing, while its U.S. flagship is seen as the stodgy shop best known for wholesome creations such as the Keebler Elves and the Maytag Repairman -- a reputation executives said has hindered the shop's efforts to add new clients in recent years.

"When you're a large, iconic agency brand, you get painted with the brush of being old and stodgy," said Tom Bernardin, CEO of Leo Burnett Worldwide. "That's not where we want the brand to be."

Shuffling the deck
In an attempt to fix that, Mr. Bernardin is reorganizing Burnett, realigning the shop more closely with its direct/interactive sibling Arc Worldwide, and also promoting the head of the agency's hot Latin American outpost, Juan Carlos Ortiz, to co-president of the U.S. outpost. (Mr. Ortiz shares an office with Rich Stoddart, who formerly had the presidency to himself.)

Tom Bernardin, CEO of Leo Burnett Worldwide said Mr. Ortiz's presence has already generated "powerful buzz" he thinks will improve the U.S. agency's image. But he said he didn't think the agency would go so far as to hire an outside firm to help it achieve that end, as Campbell-Mithun did.

Mr. Rooney said he took that drastic step because, upon arriving at Campbell-Mithun in 2004, he inherited an agency that had a nondescript business proposition -- a vague boast about creating iconic brands -- and little apparent sense of itself, which he attributed to a succession of ownership changes.

"Ogilvy, where I used to work, had a real sense of itself and a marketing proposition," Mr. Rooney said. "What [Campbell-Mithun] had was potentially generic, a little thin and a little limiting. ... We don't just want to be known for creating icon brands; we want to be known for solving business problems."

'Second-rate' creative
The reputation of the shop was equally nondescript. "They were always given credit for being good with account services, because Ray Mithun was an account guy, but the creative was thought of as a second-rate product," said Cue President Ed Mathie. "That's what the image was."

Cue, Mr. Rooney and the agency's then-new chief creative officer, Jonathan Hoffman, worked first to convince their own staff that wasn't the case. "They needed permission to do great work," Mr. Mathie said.

The result of that collaboration was the internal launch of the agency's "Seven Tenets," a series of mantras attributed to Mr. Mithun. Cue helped the agency refine the tenets and illustrate them into graphics that now adorn the agency's once-Spartan walls.

Writing is on the wall
Some of the wall-size murals use symbols as well as the likeness of Mr. Mithun in a cross between an Andy Warhol silkscreen and 1930s communist propaganda posters. The design help extended to literal branding as well, such as logos, stationery, business cards -- even the agency's website.

That work wrapped up in February 2006, and Mr. Rooney said he and his team spent much of the rest of the year working on ways to incorporate it into new-business pitches and other external communications.

None of those efforts have come to fruition yet, as the only major review Campbell-Mithun won last year involved retaining H&R Block's $80 million account. (Block's resulting "I Got People" campaign that launched earlier this year has drawn nearly universal praise.)

Mr. Rooney said he was confident the new-business wins would come eventually but denied that was the primary reason for the agency's brand revamp. "We haven't thumped the drums real loudly yet," he said, "because this was something we had to do for ourselves."

One of my life's minor quests has been to find a worthy reincarnation of my happiest childhood food memory, my grandmother's caramel rolls. When Hedvig Nelson died, so did her recipe, a product of purely instinctual baking that, unfortunately, was never recorded for posterity. I haven't known the bliss of a Hedvig caramel roll since the mid-1970s, and in the intervening years I have failed to encounter anything that came even close.

Until now. One whiff of the caramel rolls at the Good Day Cafe and I thought -- no, hoped -- they might be a contender. With a single taste I knew I was in the presence of grandmotherly baking greatness: a warm, lightly yeasty, lavishly gooey, pecan-studded wonder, crying to be torn apart by sticky fingers and inhaled with abandon. Talk about a harbinger of good things to come. We're constantly being bombarded with the message that breakfast is the Most Important Meal of the Day, but follow-through among restaurants is often indifferent at best. Not at the Good Day, which hoists breakfast up to a pedestal, treating it with the respect it deserves but so infrequently gets.

The goodness begins with a genre-defining quiche, a deep-dish wonder built on a flaky, golden crust, its decadent custard filled with a can't-miss combo of roasted tomatoes, caramelized onions and plenty of fragrant basil. Omelets, made with obvious expertise, are similarly first rate, prepared in a puffy soufflé style or following a more traditional folded model, filled with flavorful ingredients -- tasty herbs, fresh vegetables, mellow cheeses -- and served with teasingly addictive grilled potatoes.

Lumpy crab cakes capped with poached eggs and a smooth hollandaise headline a don't-miss Benedict roster; I'm also partial to the wild mushroom and tomato-guacamole variations. Avocado, ham, Cheddar, fried onions and a fried egg, all layered between brioche, will permanently erase any Egg McMuffin thoughts. Even classic egg dishes seem to have a spring in their step, including a crisp, savory corned beef hash topped with poached eggs and a smartly grilled steak finished with béarnaise and paired with any-style eggs.

The light, jaunty waffles are crowned with a hefty dollop of thick whipped cream. There are four French toast variations, each more decadent than the last, although the real overkill is reserved for the apple soufflé pancakes, a plate of oven- baked pancakes slathered in buttery, cinnamon-coated apples. It tiptoes toward parody in its enormousness, but at the Good Day, where the portions are uniformly generous, quantity does not have an inverse relationship with quality. It's a refreshing equation.

This is a detail-obsessed operation. Orange and grapefruit juices are fresh-squeezed. The kitchen turns out a dozen beautiful breads. The über-rich hot chocolate gets even more sinister as a pudgy house-made marshmallow slowly melts into the dark cocoa heat. I'd love to greet every day with a slab of the sizzling bone-in ham, the smoky, extra-thick bacon and the ultra-crispy hash browns. Granola has heft and bite, and the buttery toast comes with fruity house-made strawberry and huckleberry jams.

The roomy setting, designed by Cue Inc. of Minneapolis, exudes all the right morning wake-up attributes, right down to the comfortable booths, tons of a.m. sunlight and a perky Fiesta Dinnerware color palette.

Pastry chef Paul Connor and his staff follow up those stellar caramel rolls with other crowd-pleasing sweets. Piping-hot beignets are so light that you wonder if they even had a passing acquaintance with a deep fryer. A daily pie special is a good bet (get it with a scoop of tangy house-made vanilla gelato); ditto the gigantic slices of moist carrot cake. The bakery counter boasts, among many slice-of-Americana treats, the peanut butter cookie to end all peanut butter cookies.

Lunch continues to follow breakfast's well-engineered diner upgrades: a fantastic pan-roasted steak sandwich, a textbook Reuben, spice-rubbed rotisserie chicken, a comforting turkey-and-fixings platter, a curried-up Waldorf salad and more of those excellent crab cakes, along with a repeat of several of the morning menu's egg dishes and a half-dozen salads, including a delightful hint-of-summer toss of greens, mozzarella and basil. It's all fine, but it sure has a tough act to follow, especially in a world where pulling off a standout breakfast is a rarity but producing a reliably good lunch isn't. A to-go counter and coffee bar should be operational shortly, and dinner service might be in place by Memorial Day.

The Good Day occupies some storied local restaurant real estate, the former home of My Pie and CocoLezzone, two dining landmarks owned by brothers David and Rick Webb. David now owns the Good Day, and Rick, the force behind Ciao Bella, Zelo and Bacio, has a hand in its operations. Their Winfield Potter's was one of my favorite restaurants in the 1980s, and from the looks of it, this latest Webb Brothers venture is poised to occupy a similar berth -- at least as long as they keep those caramel rolls coming.

3 out of 4 stars

Location: 5410 Wayzata Blvd., Golden Valley, 763-544-0205.
Hours: Breakfast 7 a.m.-11 a.m. and lunch 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday; breakfast 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.
Atmosphere: Sunny, casual and inviting.
Service: Fast, attentive and cheerful.
Sound level: Boisterous when half-full, conversation-limiting when packed.

Recommended dishes: Caramel rolls, quiche, fried egg sandwich, omelets, apple soufflé pancake, steak sandwich, pesto salad, crab cakes, peanut butter cookies.

Price range: All but two breakfast dishes under $9. Lunch sandwiches $6.50 to $11.50, salads $4.25 to $13.50, entrees $9.50 to $14.50.

Judy Neer, president, Pile & Co.
"I can't recall another agency doing it, but it seems like a good idea. Agencies always admit they are their own worst marketers. And if you're trying to re-energize what the world -- and your own people -- think of you, that's a good thing. But it has to go deeper than logos and mantras. The proof will be in the work and in the cases."

Dave Beals, president, Jones Lundin Beals
"I think it's smart for an agency to bring in outside help. It's the shoemaker's kid's syndrome. You work so hard on other people's brands that you're left with precious little time to figure out your own marketing needs. One of the reasons people hire agencies is they want a third party's perspective on their brand, and, even for an agency, there's value in having that third party come in and help adjust the brand. ... My sense is that agencies can evolve and change their brands to a degree, but it has to be consistent with their core values."

Joanne Davis, founder, Joanne Davis Consulting
"I wouldn't say agencies neglect their brands, but most don't focus on them in the way they would a client's brand. They should treat [their own brand] as the most important one they work on, because if it suffers, nobody will come to you with any other brands to work on, either. ... In general, the smaller agencies are better at this. It's harder for the bigger agencies because they have bigger clients with bigger brands to work on. But some of them, it's like: What are they doing?"

Abbott C. Jones, managing director, Admedia Partners Investment Bank
"If you reinvent the wheel too much, the wheel can fall off. For better or worse, you are what you are, and the best way to change perceptions is to do really good campaigns. If you want to enhance that with new logos, that's fine, but you have to be very careful because brand names are agencies' source of goodwill with clients and prospects. There are risks if you try to make changes."