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Russell Hirshon

BARADAR


An impactful movie Directed by Beppe Tufarulo and Executive Produced by good friends Dalia Fateh and Cami Fateh, BARADAR is worth a watch as it shows a struggle not so unimaginable for children in conflict zones and at-risk situations.


Russell Hirshon

Freelance Graphic Design Resource Position Available


MoD is looking to add a freelance graphic designer resource to our group of talented, creative and imaginative team members.


Toni Tileva

From Huffington Post

A Burning Hot Marketing Spot: How Burning Man Moved from Counter to Corporate


Burning Man, the festival in the Nevada desert, oft-presented as the ultimate celebration of counter culture has undergone a bit of a transformation. The "playa" has now, for better or worse, becoming the playa-ing ground of some big-time tech players.


Toni Tileva

Tinder Takes a Swipe at "Dating Apocalypse" Characterization


Tinder, the dating app, took umbrage at a recent Vanity Fair article that pointed a finger squarely at the app for precipitating a "dating apocalypse" and replacing romance with hook-ups and...well, insipidness.


Toni Tileva

Vice's New Channel for Women Aims to be the New Face of Feminism


Vice, the magazine and online platform that has long be THE platform for all things subversive and hip (and arguably, wryly hipsterish) is launching a new channel Broadly...


Toni Tileva

Girls With Gluten--Chew on this Grain of Thought


Survey data gathered by Packaged Facts in July and August of 2014 showed that more than a third of consumers said a gluten-free/wheat-free label claim is an important factor when they are shopping.


Toni Tileva

The Humble Beginnings of a Bee-Loved Brand


A little more than a week ago, the bearded beekeeper and co-founder of Burt's Bees, Burt Shavitz, passed away. Burt Shavitz, our co-founder and namesake, has left for greener fields and wilder woods," the company wrote.


Delani Marchigiani

How Surge Pricing is Killing My Uber Buzz


Imagine a convenient limo service with no reservation required, clear pricing charged straight to a credit card, reliable pickups, a qualified and friendly driver all at less than a quarter of the price of a real limo service, and the best part: it is all controlled from your smart phone.


Toni Tileva

Chobani's "Love This Life" Campaign Courts Controversy


Chobani's latest ad, part of their "Love This Life" campaign, is certainly high on the cheesy content (apropos for a dairy brand, no?). When I first started watching it, the message I got was "this poor soccer Mom has such few sensory enjoyments in life that she is supposed to be thrown into near-orgasmic paroxysms of delight upon the consumption of yogurt...


Toni Tileva

One Cookie (Campaign) That Didn't Crumble


In last month's issue of Real Simple magazine (my go-to source for D.I.Ying by household cleaners...kidding not kidding), I chanced upon an ad that grabbed my attention for a lot longer than a second--a true marketer's dream, indeed. "First the cookie. Then taking on new adventures." The picture underneath was of a blissfully in love African-American couple, who appeared to be riding a bicycle...


Mike Edstrom

Responsive to Change


Do you ever find yourself longing for the days of yore? When the Internet was confined to a refrigerator-sized box in your home office? Maybe not, but it did make things less complicated. Today, the Internet is slowly finding ways into all of our technology: both new and old.


Mike Edstrom

Selling the Robotic Brand


Humans have a love-hate relationship with robots. But companies don't seemed too bothered with the stigma of the "killer robot." The idea of pitching robots to customers is becoming much easier.


Mike Edstrom

Immune to Innovation


Companies today seems desperate to prove that they are 'innovative.' But are all these new brands and products truly innovative? Or is the word just the new corporate buzzword?


Mike Edstrom

Millennial Migration


The millennial generation may not run the country yet, but it can be said that they are a huge influence on modern culture and technology. But lately, their influence over the digital world has caused problems for retailers and warehouse clubs.


Mike Edstrom

Coping with Suppression: Why some businesses are fed up with social media


For several years now, social media sites have allowed companies to send advertisements to customers without needing to pay. But several social media networks are beginning to force companies to pay for their organic reach.


Mike Edstrom

The fasten seatbelt sign is off, you may now float around the cabin


The focus of the space race may have been a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, but many people began wondering how space travel could affect the general public. The public’s imagination quickly ran wild with the possibilities, and the idealists of the world began embracing the idea of “space tourism.”


Mike Edstrom

The Amazon Flood: e-commerce's impact on the retail landscape


Take a moment and briefly think about everything that you can't or refuse to buy online. While the answer may vary depending on your age, it’s safe to say that a lot of what we buy can be found online and many of us choose the convenience of the Internet over actually going to a store.


Mike Edstrom

Assembling the future with MIT’s M-Blocks


There’s something satisfying about building a structure out of plastic blocks. Although these toys are design for kids, some of the smartest minds in the country are currently developing building blocks that would put any toymaker to shame.


Mike Edstrom

Grabbing onto Innovation with Design Thinking


‘Innovative’ is a term that nearly every business in America would self apply to their staff and to their work. And why not? It says to clients that a business is creative, intelligent, inspired, and relevant. But it’s not enough for a company to preach, they need demonstrate that they can produce cutting-edge products and ideas


Mike Edstrom

Providing Help From Above: Building drones for humanitarian efforts


Americans have an uneasy feeling when they hear the word “drone.” For many, it evokes the image of an extremely advanced and deadly unmanned aircraft. But new efforts in drone technology are changing how we use these remote controlled aircrafts. It may come as a surprise, but drones are quickly becoming an invaluable tool in global disaster relief.


Mike Edstrom

SmartThings for Cheap: How the Internet of things is changing the average American home


Classic science fiction depicts a future where technology has freed us from the hassles and chores of everyday life. While this is somewhat true for today’s world, we are finally approaching a society that will reach these technological predictions and in some cases even surpass them.


Toni Tileva

The Production Of Value--What Happens When Banksy Roils The Art World's Waters Yet Again


Last Sunday, a booth appeared in Central Park selling “signed, 100% original” Banksy pieces at $60 each. Banksy is currently "on residency in New York"; his work is popping up in his trademark spectacularly subversive fashion--a creepy stuffed animal "slaughterhouse delivery truck" in the Meat Packing District, for one.


Toni Tileva

A Geography Of Internet Popularity: Popular Sites On A World Map


Researchers Mark Graham and Stefano De Stabbata, at the Oxford Internet Institute, mapped the most visited sites in different parts of the world. The map shows each nation’s most popular website, with size of the nations modified to reflect the number of Internet users there.


Toni Tileva

What's In A Name? The Word "Meat" Is Losing Favor and Flavor In Ad Parlance


"A meat and potatoes kinda guy." "Where is the meat?" "A real meaty discussion." Trite truisms aside, the word "meat" is quickly losing favor with the general public. Data from a company that analyzes user-generated content on blogs, social-media accounts, and other online sources, shows that 43 percent of conversations about “meat” over the last six months were negative and often included such words as “bad,” “concerns,” and “problem.” Food ad execs are taking note of this trend and attempting to replace "meat" with the more palatable "protein" in menus in hopes of obviating the negative connotation of the latter. Only 6 percent of conversations about “protein” were negative. Most people associated it with words like “good”, “healthy,” and “delicious.”


Toni Tileva

Dunbar's Number--Why Your 1000+ Friend-Having Friends on Facebook Are Really *Not* Paying You Any Mind


Revolutionary evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar has the answer to the question of how many friends do you need. The Director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University earned the coveted honor of having a number named after him when he posited that 150 is the number of people we can maintain a meaningful social connection with.


admin

Technology & Serving Students With Special Needs


Twenty years ago, students with autism had very few ways of expressing their abilities in the classroom. Social media and technology in schools were just beginning to evolve, and accommodations for those with various challenges were limited. Over the last couple decades, classrooms have become equipped with a plethora of machines that have allowed students to thrive in their learning environments.


Toni Tileva

Geography Of Hate


How do we measure racism and homophobia across the United States? Humboldt State's Dr. Monica Stephens teamed up with Floating Sheep, the same group that mapped post-election Twitter hate speech to broaden the scope of the study and give a more panoramic view of America's bigotry.


Toni Tileva

I Am A Walking Contradiction: Deconstructing The Concept of Personality


In his 2013 Wesleyan commencement address, Joss Whedon talked about the inherent contradictions of being human--"the contradiction between your body and your mind, between your mind and itself. I believe these contradictions and these tensions are the greatest gift that we have."


Toni Tileva

Less Than Cheery--The Cheerios Ad Serves Up Some Unanticipated Indigestion


It's an ad like any other Cheerios ad--heart-warming (and heart-healthy) and family-oriented so why the hoopla? The interracial-family-featuring ad elicited a veritable maelstrom of responses emblematic of the darkly vitriolic racist underbelly of Internet trolldom and prompting Cheerios to disable YouTube commenting.


Toni Tileva

Share My Dabba: The Big Impact Of A [Small and Sticky] Message


Mumbai is a city of gross disparities, a monolith of have and have nots, where the chasm between the rich and the poor is more like an uncrossable abyss than a gap, with over 8 million of its dwellers living in slums.


Russell Hirshon

1 Year of Ministers of Design


This week we are celebrating the 1st year anniversary of Ministers of Design as a creative agency.


Toni Tileva

Hipper Than Thou--The Ever-So-Elusive Search For "The Authentic" In A Cleverly-Consuming World


The search for "the authentic" has become one of the most dominant spiritual, moral, and consumerist quests of our time.


Russell Hirshon

My Dog Bowl: Making Dog Food Delivery Look Good


In the 55 billion dollar pet industry marketplace, Moby Duncan has found a niche that we feel is not only legitimate, but down right common sense. My Dog Bowl is a pet food delivery service and so much more.



Russell Hirshon

What Is The Real Value of a Facebook "Like"?


I get requests from friends, acquaintances and strangers to "like" their pages on Facebook. For the most part I ignore them but having just launched Ministers of Design and reaching out to absolutely everyone we know to fulfill our egotistical need to be "liked" and having even pestered them a second time, we are left asking what a "like" is worth to our friends, clients, customers as well as to the businesses we serve.


Russell Hirshon

For Non-Profits - A Meaningful "Voice" is Critical


Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen G. Sebelius recently appeared at the 2012 National Alliance to End Homelessness conference in Washington D.C. and  spoke to the progress that NAEH has made in combatting homelessness in America and assisting organizations that serve the needy. One of  her messages to the 1500 plus audience members was for them to "find their voice" when reaching out to their various audiences.


Russell Hirshon

Ministers of Design - Mission Statement


Ministers of Design is an oasis, or at least we like to think that.  Occupying the third floor of Darlington House above Dupont circle, we work, think, play ... and eat to our hearts content. We have high expectations for ourselves and for our clients. We aspire to be relevant in that which we choose to do and for what we are tasked to do.