- Design and branding need to be developed together.
- A brand needs to create an emotional relationship with people.
- The design must communicate the essence of the brand.
- Design needs to drive the strategy of the brand.
- Don't over design the brand.
- Continually refresh the brand through design.
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Nature Valley has undergone a brand revision to its logo that results in a subtle but significant change. They have moved from the 3D metal plate look to a more hand drawn weathered look. This brings their logo in line with the hand lettered look of their packaging. The new logo reminds me of the hand rendering we used to do when squeakers we the only tool available to render designs. I can imagine the client seeing the hand rendered logo and saying 'I love it' – 'thats just what we want'! The new logo branding continues our society's current search for authenticity. It presents an image that is hand made and folksy. Which is how Nature Valley would like consumers to think of Nature Valley. The need for authenticity is a deeply held response in our culture to the feeling of being set adrift from our roots. This is especially noticeable in the food and beverage area. Although we know that our consumables are produced in factories and on food farms we would like to think that they still grown by small holders or made in family businesses. The new Nature Valley brand logo goes some way to maintaining this illusion in the mind of the consumer. The new brand Sweden has been launched. And Guess what? It's the Swedish flag. The agency responsible worked for 2 months trying to find something creative and new that would connect to Sweden. And in the end they settled on the Swedish flag. Well, that was easy. Mattias Svensson, Creative Director at design agency Söderhavet, said “And we just kept coming back to the flag. The flag is a good anchor for the rest of the identity." With the logo out of the way, I can only think that the agency had to find something to bill all those hours for. So they created a new font, as apparently, there were no other fonts in the world that could do the job. So there you have it. Brand Sweden - the Swedish flag in a yellow box, and in case you were in any double the word Sweden next to it. That word 'Sweden' is going to be printed in the local language wherever the logo appears. Now there's an application nightmare in the making. Cost about 400,000 kronor (A$65,000) Just as quick comparison shown here is the IKEA logo, which manages to say Sweden even without a flag. Recently we were asked to create a new logo for Emission Traders International. Their old logo was more of a diagram than a logo and would only be understood by the cognoscenti. Most people would have no idea about how emission trading works, but they would probably think the following
Our job as designers was to take that information and distill it into a symbol that represented the essence of what emission trading is all about. The final logo we produced symbolised the following information.
The new Yahoo logo is an interesting choice for a tech and communications company, demonstrating that when everyone is zigging it's time to zag. There is a lot that is retro about this design - the chiselled typestyle, the large and small caps. It is almost something Eric Gill would have approved of. (if you don't know of Eric Gill, think Gill Sans). It's as if Yahoo has moved it's identity from the fun loving 50's to the power dressing 80's. The old Yahoo logo brings to mind the popular afternoon TV shows from the 50's and 60's; The Flintstones, Top Cat, Leave it to Beaver, and Bewitched, while the the logo below is more Dynasty and Dallas. It signals the arrival of a corporate contender that's ready for business. In the video below it is interesting to view how this logo was constructed. But no amount of precise font construction can substitute for visual placement by eye, and there is something about the letter spacing and placement of the 'Y' that seems not right. More on the logo can be read here. The design of Sydney's new public transport ''brand'' - a hopping ball with a multi-coloured shadow - might have been arrived at with a few strokes of a calligraphers's pen. To be fair the design part of the budget was 'only' half a million, or $599,500 to be exact. The remaining was taken up by research and consulting fees. Having worked for government departments and knowing tortuous route, and the endless committee meetings it takes to come to a decision I understand how the time and costs can quickly add up. Still, a couple of swooshes with dot and word mark does seem a little extravagant at that price. Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bouncing-ball-branding-cost-transport-1mplus-20130819-2s7bc.html#ixzz2ceFwq0Sv Sometimes this is the t-shirt I feel like wearing to a meeting. Often one of the first questions a prospective client will ask of a designer is "how much will it cost?" This usually comes up even before there is any comprehensive brief. It's a bit like saying to an architect. "I need a house built, how much will it cost?" In the case of a house there are many variables - the number of bedrooms, the number of bathrooms, the structure; concrete, timber, glass. etc. etc. Likewise in the case of a new brand design there are many variables. But because many of these variables are intangible they are not understood or given the full recognition they deserve. Some of these include:
"How much will it cost?" There's no easy answer to that. |
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