Why Severing Your Logomark from Your Logotype Might Make Sense

Why Severing Your Logomark from Your Logotype Might Make Sense
01/18/11

Over the last month, two of the world’s biggest brands have departed from spelling out their company name as an element of their logo. Instead, they are opting solely for what is referred to as a brandmark symbol, ideogram or pictogram. Starbucks Coffee and, as of last week, Target are now strictly featuring their ideogram removed from its traditional wordmark. Examples below:

This trend is nothing new. Look at iconic brands like Playboy, Apple and Nike, who made a point to dispense with their wordmark years ago. However, I confidently predict that more brands will migrate to this strategy in what we affectionately call the Digital Age.

Does this approach make sense for your brand, too? Consider these five reasons why it just might:

1. If you have an established brand and a multi-channel marketing approach, why clutter your valuable brand real estate with both a wordmark and a visual brand element? With prices soaring for as little as 50px on websites and in social media, you must effectively capitalize on your brand’s allotted space.

2. The size of the physical world is inversely proportional to the size of the digital world — meaning, as the digital landscape expands, brands gain easier access to countries and consumers they wouldn’t have reached even 2-3 years ago. However, even in a contracting global marketplace, cultural and language barriers still exist. When a company simplifies its brand identity and messaging, it can seamlessly transcend continents, countries and cultures.

3. These brand symbols have far more visual design versatility than their wordmark counterparts. This is especially true with regard to dynamic identities (for instance, animated logo treatments in pre-roll ads, banner ads and broadcast executions). These icons can also add dynamic visual interest in the background or as a pattern, where wordmarks would yield too much substance.

4. In the age of “likes” and “sharing,” 140-character limits and check-ins, giving users the ability to interact and support the brand is key to building organic brand affinity. Again, in most cases, this must be accomplished in a less-than-50px space. The simpler the visual representation of your organization, the easier it is to recognize as it’s quickly ushered down a Twitter feed or Facebook Wall, or swimming elsewhere in the flood of available information.

5. Finally, just like individuals can rally around a flag, family crest or religious symbol, so too can they rally behind your brand’s identity. An optimum outcome of any branding effort is to have users tattooing your logo on their bodies, wearing it on their shirts or incorporating it into their digital profiles. By simplifying your logo down to its most essential elements, you can empower brand enthusiasts to fly your brand’s flag in both digital and physical spaces.

Of course, the practice of severing your brand’s identity and creating a stand-alone ideogram is not for every brand. In fact, the design community has been very vocal about whether Starbucks has made the right decision.

Look to these specific guidelines when your company is deciding whether to migrate:

1. An ideogram should fit as well as possible in a square or circle. Anything too oblong will interfere with optimum sizing.

2. Detailed illustrations or photos will not reproduce well when scaled down. Simple is always better, but it is absolutely vital to a stand-alone ideogram.

3. Ask yourself, “Is my brand unique enough?” That is, will it be confused with others or lack the necessary context to communicate what it is?

4. Last, and most important, know your users and customers, and how they are going to react to the evolution of your brand. Bring them in on the decision.

Before you take the plunge, weigh your options and consider your unique circumstances. While a brand refresh can attract positive attention and help maintain a current image, a branding disaster has just as much potential to draw scrutiny on an increasingly public stage.

Digital Distraction Pyramid

Digital Distraction Pyramid
09/14/09

I am easily distracted, thus… take a look at this.

This would qualify as a second tier distraction. Saw it on FFFFound, which got it here.

Enjoy.

Hardee’s – French Maids, French Dip

Hardee’s – French Maids, French Dip
07/11/09

A big part of my absence for the past 20 days or so has been Hardee’s, their newest Thickburger® and a handful of gorgeous french maids.

The French Dip Thickburger was launched at the 2009 MLB All-Star Game here in St. Louis and is available at most if not all Hardee’s restaurants. Thats’s right the French Dip Thickburger. That’s a Thickburger, with the full amount of Roast Beef you would get at say Arby’s on top of it, with Swiss cheese, and side of Au Jus for dipping. Voila!:
“Meat as a condiment,” is Hardee’s M/O. And I had one of these Thickburgers. It’s good. Not good for me, but good tasting. This isn’t the ideal sandwhich for someone who sits at a computer all day. But when I was working as a roofer in college, this would have been perfect.

We helped make Hardee’s vision of four models/actresses dressed in french maid uniforms, riding around the streets of St. Louis on Segways, flirting their way into the hearts of Meat loving Americans a reality. And now they’re on the move. Next week the girls (the French Me Femmes; Sophie, Antoinette,Gabrielle, Isabelle are touring the region in a SUV that I designed. This is it:

You can see if they are coming to your area anytime soon by checking this calendar. The girls will be distributing coupons for FREE French Dip Thickburgers, as well as taking photos while “Frenching” guys across the country. If you don’t think you’ll get a chance to see the girls in person, click here to download a coupon for $1.00 OFF a French Dip Thickburger Combo.

Let me know what you think of the sandwich, the promotion or the unapologetic female exploitation.

The Death and Life of the Kurca

The Death and Life of the Kurca
05/5/09

So I live vicariously through Scott Lichtenauer lately, but I wanted to post his latest project for all, especially my Kansas City Slavic loving friends.

The Sugar Creek Slavic festival is a local event filled with slavic food, dance and garb. His current agency Salva O’renick in KC handles the promotion of the event every year, and has made Scott the point man for the past few years. He has dominated each time, especially given the nonexistent budget and zero time allocation.

This is this years installment.

Its a sort of who done it, Kurca (pronounced Kur-cha) murder mystery. Your three suspects are Borislava Jaje (the bakers wife, who fell in loving with the womanizing Kurca), Vlatko Ovaca (a peace loving shepard, enraged by the dissapearance of his flock) and of course Belbog Harmonika (plays “The Chicken Dance” on the squeeze-box like an angel, but has been silenced by the Kurca seemingly uncontrollable desire to destroy when hearing his rendition). Scott is Belbog by the way.

Check it out, as well as his normal blog The Surly Birds.

This Guy is CRAP!

This Guy is CRAP!
04/24/09

Have we seen this?

This guy hates your business card, rolladexes and probably puppies.

But he can get a crowd, damn it!

Here’s my business card. It’s on a 110lb paper stock with an aqueous coating. It’s terrible for the environment, but feels like silk. 1.5″x3.5″ of raw business contact identification. Stolze Priniting here in St. Louis made these happen:

I like it, but I bet it gets lost in a rolladex. Damn.

Fun work

Martin Luther King Tribute
06/1/10

I wanted to attempt this style  in February, and being Black History Month I chose the Rev. as my muse.

His face is made up of the words of his epic Lincoln Memorial “I have a dream…” speech.

Take a look. I am having it framed as I type.

Smoking Goat Branding
04/1/10

I like beer.

Beer high in flavor, alcohol and price. I brew at home, but wouldn’t consider myself very good at this point. I’m working on it.

We have friends in Louisiana who I would consider really good. I designed some branding for their forthcoming brewery down there.

The Smoking Goat will hopefully be amazing, especially if I get some good beer out of the deal.

Have a look. Then drink a beer and have a look again. Continue this process until the logo looks awesome.

New Poster
02/4/10

This is a poster I made for my buddy Dustin.

A classic quote from him as we drove by Effingham, IL’s infamous and huge cross.

I thought it would look good in his new apartment.

Sheltered Perceptions
01/6/10

I recently got the chance to work on a project for the Humane Society. Given the fact that every time I walk into an animal shelter I have to be talked down from taking home every animal in the place, I was happy to help in anyway I could.

With the majority of pet buying in the United States coming from breeders, mall pet shops and unfortunately mills, animal shelters (specifically the Humane Society) are left overflowing with pets that need loving homes. They are running into a perception problem however, and many misconceptions about shelter pets are accepted as fact, and often repeated as such.

To get past this, we decided to take the problem head on, and address the most common misconceptions individually.

Here is where we landed:

Lauren and Dan sit’n in a tree…
01/5/10

My good friend Lauren is getting married in July, and though I am extremely jealous of her fiance Dan (don’t tell my wife), I made their save the date cards.

I use VistaPrint to print these types of things. Though the quality suffers, and the rumor is that they are destroying local community printers nationwide, for the price they can’t be beat. Check them out next time you want to customize your own holiday card or invitation.

Here’s how Lauren’s STDs turned out: