I remember interviewing at Grady Britton in 1995. Marianne Banke, like many CDs in the Portland ad community, offered me a mix of encouraging and critical words.
Now that I’m back in Portland, I’m looking closely at all the shops again. Thankfully, there are many new ones, in addition to some old stalwarts. Which brings me to Grady Britton’s website and a meditation on their logo.
Griffins are the mythical offspring of the lion and eagle; part predator, part guardian. The ultimate combination of do-anything, get-anything-done creatures you want on your side, because they bring it with nobility, fearlessness and guts. They come from a time of knights and damsels, but they are beasts built for advertising today. Advertising with honor.
That’s an icon we can get behind. That’s our mark, for the way we believe advertising should be. We want those griffins in our castle.
I like to see that kind of thinking in a logo. But Grady Britton has more than thinking, they also have merch! Or I should say they did have merch, before selling out of this finely crafted belt buckle.
I’ll tell you what, let’s show some support for a new round of belt buckles. Are you with me? If so, say you’d like to purchase a Grady Britton belt buckle in the comments here. I’m confident they’ll meet our demands. That’s what good marketers do.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think those things on the belt buckle are griffins. They look like heraldic lions.
A family member of mine goes to Reed College in Portland and their mascot is the griffin. The griffin has wings and looks like this: http://tiny.cc/YslTO
Nonetheless, it’s a nice belt buckle.
Bob,
Right you are.
Another look at GB’s site and it’s plain to see, the griffin is used in their logo, but not here on the belt buckle.
Given that they are presently out of stock, perhaps the shop can return with a griffin on the buckle. But I don’t want to ask too much…
As you can see, even the Griffin isn’t immune to a blunder every century or so. Those responsible have been stricken by crossed lightning bolts. Clearly we didn’t have our eagle eyes on when we let those into our store.
But good news: we are in fact working on some custom buckles of our own, with assuredly genuine Griffinosity embedded in them. They are going to most blinge.
These are a ways out however, as we’re working on our new site– oh, and all that client business first. Priorities, you know.
Good catch on the buckles. Take care out there.
…and yes, that’s blinge – accent on the ‘e’!