America’s first high-speed rail service arrives. Acela stands for speed as well as comfort and superior service. O+CO created the name and visual identity for America’s first and only high-speed rail service and, working with our partner IDEO, extended the brand’s message through every point of contact with travelers, from communications to onboard amenities, and from station design to train liveries.

Upgrading and merging services at AeroMexico and Mexicana. O+CO helped Mexico’s two leading airlines investigate opportunities for integrating their services on short-distance routes. After extensive study, we developed a blueprint for the future, providing for enhanced services and a step-by-step plan to progressively merge services. Our recommendations offered opportunities for operational efficiency while answering travelers’ unmet needs.

Inspiring design. AIGA is the preeminent professional association representing the interests of American designers. The organization engaged O+CO to help reposition it from being “graphic design centric” to a group that supports a broader range of creative specializations, including strategic and management disciplines. With its new strategy, AIGA inspires and informs a broader constituency of designers, as well as students and business people, about the value and relevance of design in business, culture, and society.

Using the Amtrak brand to upgrade customer service. To help Amtrak improve service across its entire national network, O+CO investigated opportunities for passenger rail in the USA. Insight gained through the study of business, commuter, and long-distance travel options provided the basis for us to create a revitalized Amtrak brand. And it allowed the railroad to bring service enhancements across the entire customer experience.

Meeting the vital needs of students and educators. Following the merger with Voyager Learning, O+CO worked with the new Cambium leadership team on research and strategy assignments to address opportunities in the K–12 education market. We also worked for Learning A–Z, Cambium’s online K–6 learning destination, where we revamped marketing materials and created a new website that transitions multiple product sites to a single destination. Now students and teachers have easy access to an impressive variety of materials for learning vital skills.

Surviving in the city. O+CO created Blink 102.7 for the radio division at CBS, which was investigating options for a new radio station concept: an audio survival guide to New York City. Our Blink 102.7 concept does just that! The zippy new station puts listeners on the inside track with minute-by-minute news about city life, celebrity moves, styles, and shopping scoops.

Reaching the world through live entertainment. When Clear Channel absorbed SFX Entertainment — the world’s largest live entertainment company — it incorporated a strongly integrated brand. O+CO integrated disparate entertainment assets from venues, talent management, promoters, and marketing businesses into a coherent entity so that today, audiences and sponsors around the world have complete access to music, family, motorsport, and theatrical entertainment.

A fresh idea for good taste. O+CO was retained to provide strategic and creative counsel as Così merged with Xando to form a national chain of restaurant-coffee bars. We conducted extensive customer research to gain deeper insight into people’s attitudes about new dining concepts and made good use of our studies to create store design concepts that make a unique dining experience possible.

Explaining a conservation strategy for the decade ahead. In 2008 O+CO developed the first international annual report for the Earthwatch Institute. It articulates the organization’s vision and strategy for the next ten years, explaining how its unique conservation model is taking on the extraordinary global challenges of our time: climate change, degradation of natural resources, oceanic decline, as well as loss of indigenous cultures.

Setting new standards for branding on the web. One of the projects O+CO completed for IBM was to define standards for presenting its brand on the Internet — on the ibm.com website, as well as on partner and promotional sites. The models we developed are now used not only online, but as an integral part of the company’s overall brand management program.

An entirely new way to connect. A revolutionary new product originating from work at the MIT MediaLab, nTAG is an electronic nametag filled with networking technologies that link people and ideas among attendees at conventions and at industry and social events. O+CO created the brand identity based on the platform and slogan: “People Networking.” Thanks to the new brand, its marketing materials, and website, nTAG is helping people connect more quickly and more efficiently.

Building a unified platform for a global infrastructure firm. Well known for over a century as a leading infrastructure consulting group, PB had greatly expanded into new businesses and markets worldwide. O+CO devised a coherent platform for the company’s far-flung and complex services. Through our work with PB, the firm established a unified and cogent basis from which to market its services and communicate with community leaders, investors, and partners around the world.

Appealing to the tastes of a new generation of cooks. With Revere, the challenge O+CO faced was to update the image of one of the oldest and most respected brands in American cookware, without sacrificing its heritage of quality. Confident, contemporary identity design, together with a clearly organized product packaging system guarantee that today’s cooks can select the cookware they need and enjoy using.

A distinctive image for a singular law firm. Indisputably one of the world’s top law firms, Skadden has moved beyond merely its valuable reputation for remarkable mergers and acquisitions work, brilliant innovation, and intense energy to signal a very specific quality: leadership. O+CO’s bold and sophisticated identity design, carried through the firm’s publications, marketing materials, and its website, emphasizes this message — clearly enhancing Skadden’s image and position as the firm that leaders around the world think of when they need high-powered legal help.

Sleep innovation for everyone. SleepJoy, a breakthrough but more affordable line of bedding products, features new high-tech materials that induce people to overcome stress and enjoy sleep. O+CO created a fresh-looking brand identity, modular product packaging, and display systems that signal the benefits of these new material technologies and designs to a broader consumer base. Now everyone can easily get a good night’s sleep.

Expanding the reach of The Wallace Foundation. The Wallace Foundation helps expand learning and enrichment opportunities for all people. O+CO created a new identity, subsuming the original Reader’s Digest Association funds into a unique brand that conveys the Foundation’s quest and its culture. Our involvement with Wallace spans several years, during which we have helped extend its influence and impact through a variety of strategic and communication projects.

A symbol of global cooperation and hope. In 2001 a host of international corporations united to create DRN (Disaster Resource Network), an initiative of the World Economic Forum. The organization builds bridges between engineering companies, government agencies, and relief organizations to respond to major calamities. O+CO advised the group strategically and creatively; and we designed a corporate identity for the network, signaling hope and help to people facing disasters anywhere in the world.

Renovation at World Kitchen. World Kitchen — the owner of Corelle, Corningware, Pyrex, Revere, and other leading household brands — asked O+CO to help reposition this valuable trove of offerings into a coherent portfolio. Our approach was to configure these brands according to the way people actually use cookware. With meaningful propositions for each line, we established a coherent basis for new product development, distinctive package design, retailing — and a more efficient World Kitchen.