Rizen Creative Ideas, advertising & design for underdog brands

With the Feds auctioning Ted Kaczynski’s (aka Unabomber) “personal effects”, we researched some other interesting items up for bid on ebay.
1980 Chevy Citiation Tricycle (reserve not met)
Advice from a 21-year old college student (20% goes to Red Cross)-Buy it Now for $4,000
6 dozen brownies
Yodelling pickle, includes batteries
Bowtie made from toad
*At the time of posting, Kaczynski’s hoodie [...]

A friend and client of ours is an international management consultant. As you might imagine, this means he spends a lot of time on planes. He has countless horror stories. But this week he also shared an experience that was down right delightful.
Last week, while flying between Denver and Boise on United Airlines (well documented [...]

Spotted in Boise: dog poop advertising. OK, not exactly. It was actually advertising (in this case sponsored by a local Realtor) on a dispenser for doggy mess clean-up gloves/bags. Actually, we don’t know for sure because said dispenser was empty.
Things we like: hyper-local, community service-minded advertising.
Things we don’t: a good idea isn’t enough…execution matters. In [...]

“Ask a designer to make a diagram of your clothes closet and how many white and black articles of clothing you have worn and on what days and see if there is a pattern. There probably is one. It will make a sensational chart. Compare the amount of homeless people in relationship to the amount [...]

Imagine this: you’re a mild-mannered librarian named Travis Porter in Boise, Idaho. You use Twitter. Suddenly you start, with increasing frequency, receiving tweets meant for an up and coming rap group from Atlanta, also named Travis Porter.
Humor and lessons about social media ensue.
Travis Porter (the former not the latter) covered his personal experience in this [...]

Brian Ulrich, a photographer based in Chicago, has recently come out with a series of photographs whose subjects are abandoned shopping centers. The photos are not only haunting, but also kind of sad, and one can’t help but ask what is to become of these deserted retail shells. If it were up to the artist, [...]

Annoyed by the incessant check ins on Foursquare? We were surprised to learn that Walgreens has over 35,000 followers on Foursquare. That ranks first among retailers according Foursquarebrands.com. They recently just ran their first Foursquare promotion offering customers 15%-20% off select items. Formerly entrenched in print and circulars, Walgreens is making the digital transition. Not [...]

This photo was taken this week in the Atlanta airport. All these people are gathered in a large area called (somewhat euphemistically, I suspect) “Need Help? Center.”
The place was packed. Lines for the customer service reps (not seen in this image) were stacked deep with waiting customers. The Phone banks (the white displays) were all [...]

We could not let this story pass as we are faced with it right outside of our office windows.
Local radio station KISSFM 103.3 is hosting an event “Live for 175” at 9th & Front St. which began this morning at 10am for the 4th Annual Child Abuse Prevention Campaign! DJ Keke Luv is broadcasting live on the official [...]

If you’re like me, you’ve got more online bookmarks than Walmart has mouth-breathers. Enter Pinterest. A cool little tool that helps organize your favorite finds on virtual pinboards, where you can collect and share things you love - everything from interiors, fashion, food, gift ideas, whatever. With the Pin It bookmarklet, you can grab images [...]