Logos and brands

logo game

Our good friend (and former client, now retired) Anne Ritchey, gave us a very appropriate holiday gift – The Logo Board Game. Thanks Anne, for thinking of us in a big way!

The game is like a trivial pursuit. There are cards that ask questions in relation to brands we are often familiar with.

Although it is a board game, we had much fun with answering questions. Some relate to visuals and logos, some to taglines and branding. But mostly, it got us thinking and helped us build on our brand vocabulary.

We share some of the fun here with questions for you:
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Where Customers Take Control of Branding

Put the brand in the hands of the users
SALT and The BMW Guggenheim Lab allow users to lend their own interpretations to their brands within boundaries they set up. At the core of both these organizations is collaboration and participation.

The theory behind this type of “non-logo” encourages community-building, interactivity, mutability and allows users to truly feel and be part of the experience. It’s like social networking for design. Mirroring the organizations they portray, anyone can play a part in the organizations interpretation.
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How Great Brands Deliver

A 2011 survey ranking the top 100 brands as selected by US consumers conveys the top attributes of those brands that ranked highest.
They each:
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Building Brand, Delivering Happiness

I just finished reading Delivering Happiness by Tony Hseith, CEO, Zappos.com, Inc.

This IS a business book.

The first half of the book is a great story on who Tony is and how Zappos came to be. His genius is awe-inspiring and to be greatly admired. At such a young age, he offers many life-living nuggets which makes it not only a business book, but a life skills book as well.

But, most importantly, this book is about branding. Yes. It is about delivering happiness – through your company brand AND through living your life.

The book has a number of levels and many revelations. The author speaks of building a Tribe. He realized that he felt the happiest when he was in his “Tribe” where he gets a sense of love and belonging. Once he realized that Tribes are key, his intent became to build a Tribe with Zappos. Building a tribe (or a culture) is building a brand. Brand advocates are those who work there and those who buy there. They all become one “Zappos people” with the unified goal of delivering happiness to everyone. They all become brand ambassadors within the organization and in the outside world.

Branding is no longer a marketing or a PR function, but a natural organic process which grows from the culture. Amazing! Inside and outside of the business: Live it. Be it. Think it. A unified goal. The author has become a master at how and why we humans do what we do, which is key to building a brand that humans embrace.

Zappos is one of those companys that we should model for brand building behavior.

The author says, “It is really important to have core values that can be committed to. And if you’re willing to hire and fire based on them, you’re well on your way to building a company culture that is in line with the brand you want to build.”

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Your personal brand. It just is.

brandAs in your company’s brand, your personal brand is equally valuable.

If you are not doing anything to build it, it will be done for you, good or bad.

So whether you think you have a brand or not, it is created for you in everything you do. And we all need our brand to reflect who we are positively.

Why do we want to build a personal brand?
It is important for our customers to see us as allies. We need to mold perception and build trust, respect, understanding, insight, rapport, value and memorability so we can serve customers needs best.

How do we do this?
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The W brand

Can you think of a brand that uses more than three of your senses?
Well, this past weekend we shared in a momentous occasion and stayed at the W Hotel Hoboken where we experienced the W brand.
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Top 10 attributes of the best clients

I love what I do for a living. Although it was not always called graphic design, I’ve been doing it all my life. I am truly grateful to have found a way of earning a living that keeps me motivated and spirited. Cotter Visual Communications is in its 22nd year of doing business and it is about time we share, partly, why we do what we do.
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It’s Easy Being Green…For Some

Owning the color green today means environmentally-friendly.
And the latest to hop on the green bandwagon is McDonald’s. In Europe only, they are changing their traditional red backdrop for a deep hunter green — a more eco-friendly image.
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New AOL Logo.

AOL is breaking away from Time Warner next month, and leaving their old look behind as well. They are replacing AOL with Aol. and making an undistinguishable statement with this period after the Aol. The new brand identity print, video and online versions launch Dec. 10.
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The Less Choices The Better.

What happens when you ask someone for their opinion?
You get it. Their subjective – not necessarily expert in the subject – opinion.
What happens when you set up the ”approval by committee” process?
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