In late 2007 we were designing products for a client who proudly proclaimed a new Home Depot in-house product (designed by the Arnell Group directly for THD) the best thing he’d seen and wanted us to follow suit with products like it (it FAILED at retail).
I remember reading an article on Peter Arnell a few years ago (Inc or Entrepreneur, can’t remember) and walking away unimpressed with the man but impressed with his ability to sell himself to the clientele he’d been able to rope. No one would argue that having a list like PepsiCo, DKNY, Chrysler, Tropicana, etc as clients could be bad for business but the way he dismissed criticism, went out of his way to mock others’ opinions and always placed himself ahead of the client made me wonder how much time he had left before it would blow up in front of him. Making matters worse was a hero topic of the article, the PEApod - it was painfully obvious by the description, background story, images and scale model that he had no idea why cars are designed the way they are and why that contraption would be a FAIL before it ever reached fruition.
Obviously, someone at Omnicom became the biggest move of his chess match, providing his firm (and obviously for the most part, himself) quite an overpriced buyout (kudos to Arnell) - and now by downsizing their offices & staff, firing the namesake and trying to balance the P&L, they’re coming down off the cloud that doesn’t look so cushion-y after all.