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Interesting thoughts on Logo's and Branding via Drawer

YOUR LOGO IS NOT YOUR BRAND

A brand isn’t a logo. A logo is merely a symbol that represents the brand. Your corporate identity, the stuff found on letterheads and signage, isn’t a brand either. A brand isn’t the product or service that you make. So if a brand isn’t all of these things what is a brand?

A brand is how an individual feels about a company. It’s an individual’s feeling because a brand is defined by how an individual feels about the brand, not what the company wants an individual to feel. Sure companies can’t control how an individual feels, but they certainly can influence the feelings of an individual by properly communicating the qualities that make their brand special.

Have you ever had a client come up to you looking for design work, hoping that you could design them a strong brand? Maybe you thought you could, but you were wrong. Brands can’t be designed.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

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AdWeek, has named Apple's "Get a Mac" campaign the best of the decade. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company also was named the best brand of the decade, and its headpiece Steve Jobs was named "marketer of the decade."

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Via PSFK

The Daily Mail reports that cereal maker Kellogg’s is planning to laser etch their logo on individual Corn Flakes in an effort to set themselves apart from imitations and generic brands.

A limited number of boxes with the laser toasted cereal will be put into production before they move foreword with branding some cereal pieces in every box. If it’s decided that it’s feasible, Kellogg’s may apply this questionable branding across a number of thier products.

The Daily Mail explains:

Kellogg’s embarked on the project to reinforce that they don’t make cereals for any other companies and to fire a shot across the bows of makers of ‘fake flakes’.

Helen Lyons, lead food technologist at the company, said: ‘In recent years there has been an increase in the number of own brands trying to capitalise on the popularity of Kellogg’s corn flakes.

‘We want shoppers to be under absolutely no illusion that Kellogg’s does not make cereal for anyone else.

‘We’re constantly looking at new ways to reaffirm this and giving our golden flakes of corn an official stamp of approval could be the answer.

Not really sure how I feel about this? THOUGHTS?

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After fifty years of Futura, IKEA will be changing its catalog typeface to Verdana.

Via idsgn:
The font will replace IKEA Sans (a customized version of Futura by Robin Nicholas), and IKEA Serif (based on Century Schoolbook). In an interview with the Swedish design magazine Cap & Design, IKEA’s Ivana Hrdlickova says the main reason for the switch was to allow the company to use the same typeface in all countries (current IKEA typefaces do not contain Asian characters, for example). Being that Verdana was designed for the web, it also allows the company’s image to remain consistent online and in print.

Read the full story here.

Of all the choices, Verdana!? Really!?

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For over 20 years Freshjive has been a mainstay in the street wear game. And its identifiable logo has been there for the whole ride.

But, things change.

"Freshjive embarks upon one of the world's first anti-branding campaigns, in which they will be stripping their logos from not just the outside of their garments, but from the labels themselves."

In an exclusive interview with the Hundreds streetwear blog, Klotz states:

"Throughout the years I've become uncomfortable with this business of branding and brand identity. I'm not the type of person that buys something for the brand name. I've also never done a very good job at creating a captivating identity to our own brand logo. Also, within the streetwear culture, the promotion of a company's brand has become downright silly to me. What's amusing is I still really enjoy designing gear, graphics, and even logos. But when I see kids wearing company logos it reminds of people who are trying to be a part of a "tribe" or "gang", as if they need to be part of something, which seems to go against the idea of individualism in style."

Not sure how I feel about it. I mean, me, I wear a plain white or black shirt everyday, so I may actually wear it, but is it really a smart move for business?
Will younger kids spend the money when nothing really distinguishes the brand?

Thoughts?

Huffington Post

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To promote the new Resident Evil game by Capcom, for the Wii console, the developers did a promotional T-shirt that actually doesn't suck!

When worn normally, it just says “LET YOUR DARKSIDE OUT”. But when you flip it inside out, over your head, it has a great looking zombie face! Great shirt in a market where the T shirts are usually some of the worst out there! I mean really.

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Being a huge fan of Conan O’Brien, I am very excited for the big switch!

On June 1st The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien goes live on NBC. And he has a great new logo to show for it!
Conan says this about his new logo,“I wanted a logo that acknowledged the long, rich tradition of The Tonight Show while still looking good on hats, T-shirts, mugs, lawn furniture, notebooks, stemware, urns, defibrillators, water bottles, cell phones, sports equipment, pens, vacuums, chimes and our new line of unisex cologne.”

I for one cant wait until he comes back, its been kinda boring during late night recently. Sorry Jimmy.

..:: iLIKE ::..

So I feel kinda bad for dissing the Wendy's commercial. Not really, I mean that is a really bad commercial, but Wendy's has been known to do better spots for years, and I just think they had a bad one there.

Either way. I have learned that if you say something mean about someone, or something, its best to say 2 nice things.

So here are 2 examples of really great spots.

Ahh, I feel better.

Good Karma.

(But really, that Wendy's commercial sucks so hard.) OK, I'm done.

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OK, I haven't done ANY examples of bad design/ads on this blog yet. Mainly because I am a nice guy.

BUT, I have been seeing this ad run lately, and I have to say,
I HATE IT!

Its not funny, its not clever, NOTHING! Just bad.

Lets look at it.

First, he is playing hockey, with a mullet. I am sure that in the meetings, there was talk about "lets give him a mullet that would be so funny!" NO! lame.
Then he is in college, looking like he is scarred of that girl, like frightened by her, then he gets up! And leaves! WHAT!? I am getting pissed just typing this!
Then he is growing up, wearing his flannel shirt, AROUND HIS WAIST! the whole time eating a chicken sandwich! Then he is getting some kind of promotion, where people are clapping and saying "your awesome!" Then he is in lamaze class with his wife, eating a sandwich, what kind of douchebag eats a sandwich while you are doing lamaze class!!??? Then the very end, he is in a Wendy's, eating another sandwich, with his wife and kid, and they made him look like he was balding! UUUGGGHHH!! BAD!

That's it, I'm pissed off about it. Maybe its some amazing campaign, and I am missing it, maybe I'm wrong.

Doubt it.