The first being a book that I grabbed off of the shelf at the office called Logo Lounge. My brother picked up this book a while back and I have seen several like it before. However, I highly recommend this one since it is simple. It consists of all types of Logos from all over the world and the book is categorized into styles of logos such as Typography, Initials, People, Birds, you name it. I went through this book tonight for about an hour looking at logos, some familiar others not so. I finally put the book down because I was getting frustrated thinking about how I didn’t want to “rip off” a logo from a product that already existed.

Instead, I started watching the Food Network and eventually found my way back to my laptop to give it another go. All the time Diane had been sitting on the couch taking apart dozens of picture frames that she has been collecting from thrift stores, clearance racks and the occasional yard sale. Since before we had moved in to the new house, we have had the idea to decorate our house with strange vintage advertisements, hence the collection of frames. To help with decor, Diane’s parents found two very old issues of LIFE magazine and gave them to us over Thanksgiving. How old? 1936. Oddly enough, beat up 1936 LIFE magazines are really not that valuable in terms of resale. What they are valuable in are the number of great advertisements inside of their pages.

Diane had carefully taken each issue apart and divided the ads into groups, Hygiene, Liquor and Oppressed Women. She then pitched each ad to me as if we were in an episode of Mad Men to see which ones I felt would be acceptable for the house. Don Draper, eat your heart out. Some I liked, others were just dull, or too hard to understand. One thing I did notice, advertisers used a lot more ad copy in the 30′s. When all was said and done we had decided on over a dozen new ads and Diane had them framed up. Looking at this new collection, it hit me how simple the logos for these companies really are, Johnnie Walker, Royal Typewriters, Electrolux, and even Ex Lax. All of these have simple logos made up of only great typography, no icons needed.

I booted up Photoshop and I had a new logo for my new project finished in a matter about 10 minutes. I love when inspiration hits and it makes you want to stay up all night coming up with more ideas.

Fast forward 7 years and I have advanced my affiliate marketing to an expert level. So when we got a piece of mail today from ADT offering $600 worth of free equipment for former customers and customers who have moved, we instantly paid attention. Why? Well because only a few weeks ago one of the first things we set up in the house is our ADT system. However, we had only had it for a little over a year at our old residence and didn’t qualify for a free set up when we moved. Cost us a little over $200 to set up the new house.

The piece of mail we got today says even in the fine print if you have ADT for 6 months or more you qualify for a free set up when you move, or if you have turned off your system after at least 6 month you qualify. So of course we call, and the response we got displayed a great flaw in affiliate systems that are not control by the source of the product.

While ADT is responsible for the support and making sure a guard comes to your house if the alarm sounds, what they are not in control of are affiliate who depending on their level of advertising and what I guess would be their sales level can offer customers different packages.  When we called to enquire about getting our money back for being a loyal customer and simply moving, they said they couldn’t help us and although we qualify under the mail piece, since we went through a different affiliate they would need to call them and speak with them. They politely offered to do this for us, however not to speak about refunding our installation fees, but rather it see why some of our equipment from our first install was not included in our new install.

I will keep you posted on how much they are going to charge us to come set up our system with all the features included, or should I say what deal they can offer us.

Suggestion ADT, you have a great service with excellent response time, how about offering all your customers they same product and services? Don’t rob the people who pay for you to protect them and their families.

The month started out in a rush, I have a new job that promises to be a lot of fun and work, but I am ready. Diane and I got the keys to the new house on the 7th of this month and after having the keys for only about 20 minutes, we jumped in to John’s car and raced off to Idaho.

John wrote a great recap of that adventure here

My parents have been going to the Sturgis Motorcycle Classic for as long as I have been around and I always knew it was a good time there, I think the Braun Brother’s Reunion could easily become the same type of yearly ritual for us.

Also Diane has posted more photos up on Flickr – Check ‘em out.
First Set
Second Set

Once we got home from the Idaho trip, Diane and I were in full moving mode and were able to move most of our belongings into the house using just our cars. We hired movers to get all the large stuff.

That was the week of August 11th, so now we are finally settled, all the waiting for utility companies and deliveries is over

Apart from that we have been moving forward with expanding Black Diamond Digital Imaging. I am excited to see how great this company is going to be. Check out the website and I will be blogging over there as well.

Finally, now that the house is built and we are moved in, what in the world am I going to blog about?

Maybe one of my other passions – Advertising, Hockey, Football, Books - nah already blog about that, I will think of something.

But for now, check out the newest photos

A few last minute touch ups and it is all ours!

We are going to be out on the road with John and Chris for a few days but wait for the final house building post coming soon!

The house is looking great and they have really made some great progress.

The new flooring went in this last week, it was still covered but I was able to get a few shots.

There isn’t much left for the builders to do, the next thing Diane and I will need to do is finish the back yard, that will be fun.

It looks almost finished from the street.

We were also able to negotiate a huge increase to the size of the back yard. That is for Phase 2 of the house.

They have the counters in for the bathroom and all of the banister work is installed, but not yet stained.

Finally, we also have a garage door, drive way and front steps. Can’t wait to have a sweet car up on blocks for all the neighbors to enjoy

Just as we asked the builders were able to move out our fence line and create what will be the perfect back yard.

The entry way is looking great with the custom front door we had installed.

The house was locked up when we got there yesterday, so I hope to get out there this week during the day for some photos of the inside.

A quick house update, the drywall is done and stucco is drying.

Can’t forget an update on the outhouse

Lookin’ good,

Tomorrow Diane and I are off to San Diego for the US Open Golf Tournament, check back for photos from that.

Should have the inside all finished in the next few days.

Living Room

Loft

Master

And we should have drive way soon to go with that garage.

I am going to make an offer on the Outhouse to say where it is.