Bond no. 9 has selected 5 finalists for their Brooklyn bottle design contest, and they'd like you to vote for the winner. You can see all the winning entries, and find instructions for voting, here.
Update: per one of the finalists, Bond no. 9 has "put a hold" on the contest, and has given all of the finalists a free bottle of Brooklyn.
Finally! I didn’t submit, but I was wondering whatever became of this contest. I love entry #3 .
Don’t love the Bond fragrances but that’s a nice bottle design.
They’ve had a busy spring, I guess…
But I don’t like any of these as well as the original. But then, I guess lots of people hated the original & that’s the point!
I’m with you R- don’t much like any of these…I think the first one looks the most “Bond”ish…but I like the original (and I got to test the juice recently- not bad at all 😉
I couldn’t agree with you more, Daisy. I’ve voted for #3 as well. As a native NY’er, I think it’s very representative of the borough of Brooklyn. I’ve never owned a Bond No. 9 fragrance but if the company goes with #3, I’ll spring for this just to have the bottle. Is that crazy?
Vote, Daisy. VOTE!!!!!
lol –yes, I did vote, for #3. Entry #1 seemed to be the most in line with their other bottle designs but I liked the color usage on #3 .
Anyhow, very unlikely I’d buy any Bond frag though….they just don’t seem special on my skin…..and for the price, they would need to be special indeed. (I’m not a ‘bottle person’ )
I don’t particularly care for any of them…though the 2 posted above were also my favorites. I love the little detail of “Brooklyn” appearing on the cap of the first one, and there’s something classy/retro about #3.
The thing about #3 is that it doesn’t look like a Bond bottle, which seems to me to be a problem whether it’s attractive or not. Wish we could see ALL the entries!
Eh, true enough…I was judging on its own merit. The first one could grow on me if only they’d used real drawings instead of clip art! maybe they could tweak it just a bit….
Strangely, I like number 4. Perhaps if it were a ltitle less cartoony it would be better………..but it makes me think simultaneously of DUMBO and hanging-out on my friend’s roof in Bushwick. It’s the one that makes me feel the most nostalgic about the time I lived in NYC.
I wonder if there were more entries using the bridge?
i love the graffiti style of #4. a read an article recently about how many companies are incorporating this style into their logos and marketing campaigns because it is just so eye catching. ive never been to brooklyn (im not a city person really) so i dont know how well it fits the profile of that area. ultimately, i have never considered the way the bottle looks when buying a fragrance. im paying for the smell. the bottle just sits on my bedside table.
True, but the whole objection to the original Brooklyn bottle was that it was in a graffiti style.
The graffiti was obviously supposed to suggest that Brooklyn is hip and young and ~*creative*~.
What part were people opposed to?
pssssshhhhhhh Brooklyn isn’t as ~*cool*~ as Kreuzberg anywayz
#3 reminds me of a title screen for a 70’s tv show.
i was underwhelmed by all 5… most looked pretty sloppy too.
I don’t mind the sloppy, but…none of them look like a Bond bottle to me. Seems to me the new bottle ought to be in keeping with the brand’s aesthetic to date.
Sloppy is where #3 left me. Way too pixelated.
I think #1 is the best look overall.
I like the original sooo much better! Not too impressed by any of these, but #3 is OK… the first looks like a Lex Ave wannabe, and #5 is just scary… unless Brooklyn really does look like an acid trip? I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been there 😛
It did not look like an acid trip to me 😉
so if you win do you just get the satisfaction of knowing you won.. or will the bottle design actually be produced?
The graffiti bottle is the only Bond no. 9 bottle that I like. I still don’t get why people were complaining. They’re just trying to pretend that Brooklyn is ~*creative*~
It will be produced.
it’ll be produced but won’t replace the original, right?
I voted for #5 because the rainbows lol
Yes, they’ll keep the original.
I got an email about this yesterday and was kinda underwhelmed by the entries. But I guess that happens.
Yep!
Sorry to be so negative (though I’m not the first, I see) but it doesn’t look like the superstars of amateur graphic design turned out for this contest! They used to give us assignments like this at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan — I’d like to see what the students would come up with for something like this.
I was going to conceal my vote, but what the heck — I think #1 is the only one I like. I do enjoy the Brooklyn fragrance.
Either that, or there were better entries that didn’t make it to the final picks.
I was underwhelmed as well by all the designs. Probably #1 is the best bet.
It is the closest to Bond-ish.
Definitely closest to “Bondish” design, however, to me, it’s too similar to the Lexington Ave bottle in colorings anyways. While I am not an overt fan of any of the offered designs, I do lean more towards #4. It would be a unique Bond offering.
I think they’re all rather disappointing … I thought about entering the contest, but I decided not to because I thought that 1.) there would be zillions of excellent entries much better than what I would do and 2.) I don’t know much about Brooklyn, and 3.) I haven’t actually smelled it.
Now I wish I had thrown something together and submitted it, because … without wishing to sound rude, I think I could have done better.
I’m left wondering if they had great submissions, but a bad selection process, or if they actually didn’t get many entries at all.
You know, one of the complaints about the original bottle was that it wasn’t a good representation of Brooklyn (something that didn’t bother me, since you could say the same of most of the Bonds). These seem like they’re reaching too hard to represent Brooklyn.
Wow. The original now looks like a masterpiece.
Agree, although I liked it to begin with.
lol yup….I wonder if that isn’t part of their plan.
I liked the original bottle but also bottle #1 & 3. Although bottle design is important I keep most bottles in closet because of my kitties, they’ve destroyed two already…. 🙁
Bad kitties, LOL…
I voted for #1, the others are not so much Brooklyn.. and I think frankly some are tacky. #1 is the most elegant for the brand. I wouldn’t want to buy it if they make it any of the others. #2 is not so bad, but the others cheapen the bottle.
Will be interesting to see which one wins. I don’t love any of them enough to vote.
I waited to check out the bottles until after reading everyone’s comments. And still, I didn’t expect them to be as bad as they were. Wow. I don’t even know if it’s worth voting. #1 and #3 were the *least bad*. (It’s almost like voting for a political candidate: which one do you hate the least!) Oh, Bond No. 9… I really wanted to love their fragrances, and when I discovered that the Saks here sold them, I made a pilgrimage, ready to spend. I wasn’t that impressed, but still bought two bottles (Broadway Night and West Side), just because I had to leave with something. I probably should have saved my money.
Wow, you bought 2 bottles just to leave with something, you’re nice! Take me with you to Saks next time, LOL…
It’s embarrassing, isn’t it? Whenever I make stupid purchases like that, I envision someone at my credit card company looking over my history and wondering what someone who works for a non-profit is doing spending that kind of money.
I am a good gift-giver, though. 🙂 So if you’re ever in Portland, Ore., Robin…
You never know!
Gosh, I liked the original bottle! I don’t care for any of these.
I liked it too.
I liked the original bottle, but I also really liked #3, which I voted for. I also like the fragrance, and I would buy a bottle of #3 if it was produced. #1 looked like a copy of Lexington Avenue, although it and #4 looked most Bond-like to me.
Actually, I agree with you — #3 is nice.
I voted for 3 as well, just because looking at it kind of calmed me down. The other ones were okay, but 3 is a nice contrast to the original, which I also like.
Calm is good 🙂
I still love the first bottle’s design. That was one of the reasons why I purchased Brooklyn. Of course, the scent was the first reason. I voted for #4.
I’m guessing more people liked the original than didn’t.
Graffiti is a controversial issue for Brooklyn because during the 80s “tagging” was rampant in Brooklyn and was associated with gangs and violence. I love the original bottle design, but I think that’s why there is some concern about it. A wonderful novel about Brooklyn during that era is “The Fortress of Solitude” by Jonathan Lethem, which is about the lifelong friendship between a nerdy white kid and a black kid who is the son of a well-known R&B singer–lots of tagging scenes….
I have read JL but not that one, will look for it.
Every last one of these redesigns is absolutely horrendous. If I knew the competition would be this poor, I would have surely done up a bottle!
I’m laughing at the thought that they possibly tossed all the good ones out so they could say, “SEE what happens when you let the AMATEUR hoi polloi design a bottle — let’s see if you complain about our choice next time.” I am pretty sure that’s unlikely though.
that’s what I thought when I saw the bottles lol
that has occurred to me as well. How could they have not gotten anything better than those 5??
Maybe it’s not that they didn’t GET better designs, but that they didn’t RECOGNIZE them? I’ve seen an awful lot of very moneyed people with positively atrocious taste. Go home shopping online once, and look at the multi-million dollar homes. Gorgeous homes; tacky decor, 9 times out of 10.
I wanna part of this line of objectors! So I leave a comment 😉 My first thought was: ‘souvenir shop!!’, those where they sell totally overpized mini airbrushed platic versions of famous landmarks and liporellos with photos from the early 80s. Why not a black bottle saying ‘BROOKLYN BY NIGHT’?
Well, if you like ironic kitsch no. 4 is actually not that bad, with that double icon. The thing is, I don’t like ironic kitsch.
Like others, I’m now kicking myself for not entering this contest and cleaning up! I was going to do a Cyclone motif, grrr…
Not only are these all pretty slapdash (No. 5 is particularly poorly laid out), but as a former longtime Brooklynite, I have some questions: where the heck in Brooklyn are the swallows in No. 1? And yeah, I used to watch fireworks over the Brooklyn Bridge from my rooftop too, but where the heck did those ducks in No. 4 come from? Don’t tell me those things are supposed to be pigeons…
You know, very few of the other Bond bottles have such obvious and direct references to their neighborhoods…and now that I see these, I think that’s a good thing.
This week, Bond No. 9 and I marked our 2 week Anniversary. 2 Mondays ago, I stumbled upon Bond No. 9’s website, and I’ve fallen in love! I ordered some samples from Ebay. Two I loved (Coney Island, New Haarlem), 1 I disliked (Wall Street) and 1 I HATED (brooklyn! Yuck! Smells like burnt grass). However, I looooove the Brooklyn Bottle! I can’t wait to own my first bottle!
Hey, you have lots left to try!
They must have had a lot of complaints to actually run a contest like this. I like #3 of the new ones, but think it’s all pretty silly. The market research should have been done before the original product was launched. I had been debating about whether to get Brooklyn as the fragrance does work well on me. I think I’ll pick up a bottle soon as I’d like to get it in the original graffiti design, one of their best designs to date!
I don’t know about that, I mean, lots of people loved the bottle, and this just gets them even more publicity….seems like a win win situation to me.
I think it was more the “Vocal Minority” thing, you know, those few people who manage to ruin everyone’s lives.
So, they’re really gonna change the bottle? What about the people who love the bottle??? I wouldn’t buy it because I HATE the bottle, but when I get rich I would like to put another Bond fragrance in this bottle 🙂
I don’t think they’re getting rid of the original bottle.
Look you all- ONE of these is going to win and represent Brooklyn.
OK- now that we’re past that, MY vote is for ENTRY #1, because
1) It’s not Graffiti (BK is about more than Graffiti) and
2) It’s the best of the bunch.
That random front door bottle is gross, and Brownstones are only a small part of Brooklyn. Why not use a bottle with the widest appeal and which represents a little more of Brooklyn than the others show.
lilydale aka Natalie:
“Brooklyn Bird Club – Tour 4
Bluebirds, various sparrows, meadowlark and swallows are just a few species seen here ….”
Thanks!