if you build your brand, they will come.

With all that corn...he's gonna need some more brand in his diet.

 

You know as a web designer nothing is more disheartening then working on a website that has a truly horrible logo and accompanying outdated marketing materials. Usually it’s a bad hand drawn of artwork or something that looks like it was rushed out by a highschool kid with his first PC. It’s not just that it makes designing so much more difficult to work around that sore spot but you get so frustrated because you know that small business or organization is doing some great things and their visual identity quite frankly says the opposite. Often the client is like “well we’ve had that logo for 30 years, it’s what people know us for, but we want a website that really shows us as leaders” Do you see the disconnect? They want a great website that really reflects their amazing organization but they never looked at a root problem, their brand and more specifically the anchor that is their visual identity. They almost feel personally attached to it and it’s human nature to oppose change even for the better.

Listen, it’s time to let that 70’s disco inspired abstract symbol with the courier font to go to pasture. It’s not what your company is…it may have been what your company was when everyone in your office was in leisure suits smoking cigarettes and drove without seat belts but this isn’t who you are any more nor how you want to be portrayed. Your competition is utilizing social media, is taking fresh approaches in how they market themselves and you continue to trudge along in the trenches not realizing your getting passed by everyone else. It’s time to set yourself apart and take your branding to the next level.

Your brand needs to have a strong visual identity that not only can reach out to your existing customers and potential new customers but your own employees as well. It solidifies your direction and connects the points in the intangibles ways about  describing your business, it’s energy, it’s advantages. It helps create brand loyalty among your customers. Just remember you need a great business/product or the logo is just lying. the new brand has to be truthful and open just like your business has to be.

Since I’ve been doing logo design in tangent with developing an online presence, I’ve seen clients renewed and energized about their business again. They love being involved with the creative process of creating a logo and more importantly clearly laying out what their business is about and how it should be represented. My job as a designer is just to focus that and make it easily communicated visually. I’m not saying every business needs a logo redesign but I think a lot of companies could use a brand makeover. It might not be redesigning their logo but sometimes an evaluation of a business goals and direction can unmask some unforeseen problems in their visual identity that can be tweaked. Even if its font usage, colors or simple thematics around it which can better support their logo both in their print materials and the web. In the end a company or business that is excited about what they’re doing makes the world a little better in my opinion. I’m glad I can try to help in that.

 

If a Newspaper falls in the forest does it make a sound? Would anyone even care?

So I read that rupport murdock of the always bias and highly entertaining Fox News and Washington post that he’ll be pulling content from Google so it can no longer be searcheable. His presumption that he’s offering some sort of unique valuable content people are actually willing to pay for? Sooo as usual big business forgets what it’s like to be a customer and they start running in fear from the inevitable monster that is the Internet. News that would have normally come out of the Wallstreet Journal are just regurgitated headlines found across the press release and blogsphere and more importantly the twittersphere. in effect the King has lost it’s clothes and doesn’t even know it. By effectively trying to put up a glass wall around their content and trying to get people to pay for a subscription to their content people will simply seek it out elsewhere for free. They’re not offering anything substantial different or valuable that a 1000 others are who many times are more informed and more intelligent bloggers and have already posted it on twitter up. Sorry Newspapers you will not survive the democraticization of information. The best you can hope for is a small loyal following to your little portal of commentary reporting online but you’ll be at the same level as the rest of us. The playing field has been leveled…may the best blogger win.

You don’t have to dominate the market to be successful

Interesting article about how Apple now is the most profitable handset maker but only has 2.5 percent of the total cell phone market surpassing Nokia now in profitability. Read the full article here.

What I love about Apple is they stay out of the race to the bottom rather than putting out large quantity mass produced cheap crap to try to dominate the market (you hear me Dell, and RIP Gateway), they decided to make a product that is amazing. With the iPod they had perfect timing to actually take over that market but I don’t believe that was their end goal it was just lucky timing. Worrying less about taking over the entire cell phone market much like their computer share they have an amazing product that earns them high profit margin because people will pay more for VALUE and a trusted BRAND. I stress that word VALUE!!! You get more for your buck with the entire Apple experience (hardware/software/online/retail/support/quality). Do it great, stop worrying about destroying your competition, worry more about doing something amazing that your customers will love. That’s how to be successful and yes I know I’m a total Apple fanboy, but I’m a fan of what is great not mediocre or mass market so I’ll take that as a compliment.

who are these people in stock photos?

Who are these people? I’ve never seen them in any office I’ve been in yet. This article talks about how stock photos aren’t true representation of the companies they’re trying to portray. I mostly agree but the flip side is the difficulty in convincing a client they need to invest in hiring a photographer to take some quality photos of them in the office or their clients which could run them hundreds or even thousands of dollars when they see a stock photo for $5 as a better alternative. I would lean towards the nice stock photo over someone using their new digital camera and trying to shot photos themselves. The selection of reasonably priced stock photos which might seem large is actually quite small when it comes to very specific types of photos you’re looking for at a quality level you need. That’s why you’ll see a lot of the same photos creeping up in multiple sites. There’s a much smaller selection of reasonably prices and the highest quality a customer needs. Places like Istock and Shutterstock offer a large selection at low prices while places like photodisc have a smaller selection at amazing quality but the prices are ridiculous high. I think if someone found a middle ground they could make a killing in the market, or better yet photographers that offer special package pricing for web usage.