BrandlandUSA™

NEW YORK – The recent release of 870,000 images to the public  at the New York City Department of Records has caused excitement for history and photography buffs around the world. The digitization project includes routine street-scape photos taken by the city for tax purposes, as well as other pictures. Featured on the main page [...]

[Read more →]

CHICAGO – An American-born graphic designer is working on a project to explore Cuban brands. It’s a visual exploration of Cuba through the lens of branding, and the designer, Emily Lozano, hopes to document the Cuban brands in order to tell about daily life. Writes Lozano: As an American-born Cuban I grew up surrounded and [...]

[Read more →]

Recently, Coleman brought back its original steel cooler. It’s sold as an exclusive for the 50th anniversary of the sporting goods supply company Cabela’s. It’s part of a trend of retro products, reintroduced as specialty products for particular retailers, similar to Fisher-Price toys sold at Cracker Barrel and vintage Tide sold at Target. The cooler [...]

[Read more →]

GODALMING, Surrey, England – Perhaps the National Portrait Gallery in London might want to get an old picture out of Maj. James Abbott, for whom the town of Abbottabad in Pakistan is named. Abbottabad, is of course, the town where Bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan. Worldwide attention has been focused on this town, 4,000 [...]

[Read more →]

DETROIT – It’s a shame it takes an Italian company and an old rap star to see the value in Detroit. But that’s what is mightily apparent with new Chrysler 200 advertisements, which feature Eminem and the tagline “Imported From Detroit.” The commercial has had 4.8 million view on YouTube in only a short time, [...]

[Read more →]

The carnage in Detroit (and so many other U.S. cities), where hundreds of gorgeous industrial buildings are either wasted by neglect or outright demolition, need not always happen. Since the 1970s, hundreds of historic industrial buildings have found new uses as offices, apartments and shopping centers. One use that is often overlooked is manufacturing. But [...]

[Read more →]

Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 novel The Help has been a sensation of a bestseller. It broke through one major literary taboo, namely a white author writing in dialect. Somewhere after 1960, dialect, except by African-Americans, became pretty much off limits, except in special circumstances. But that’s a separate literary discussion. One aspect of the story is [...]

[Read more →]

Sadly, we don’t think we will be getting to ANY of these this summer, but we nevertheless thought it would be useful to publish a list of some top corporate and factory museums to visit this summer. Take a break and enjoy America’s industrial legacy. And to all those companies that have shut down their [...]

[Read more →]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office David Kappos and Alexandria Mayor Bill Euille will preside at the opening ceremony of a new exhibit at the National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum on Tuesday, June 8, from 12 Noon to 1 [...]

[Read more →]

LOS ANGELES – What guy doesn’t want to be Jim Rockford? Well, perhaps living in the trailer was a bit tiresome (how come they let him keep it in the parking lot?), but the rest of the life as L.A. private eye is way cool. It would be fun to drive about L.A. in a [...]

[Read more →]