Downtown natives have probably already noticed the newest addition to our restaurant selections, Leoci’s just around the corner from us on Abercorn Street. We’re always glad to see existing buildings being rennovated and reused, especially when they serve up sumptuous Italian food. But what really excited me (after I got over the smell of basil in the air) was their logo. Anyone know who’s responsible?
This past Wednesday SCAD presented a lecture by expert brand strategist Lee Hunt. The event was well attended, and even though his talk focused on media brands, his insights were relevant for anyone dealing with the creation or maintenance of brands for any consumer product.
First the Basics
He did a great job of covering the basics of what a brand is and what it needs to do. Anyone unfamiliar with the idea of a brand being more than just a logo would’ve gotten a lot out of this part. In short, a brand is:
the perception that exists in people’s mind
a set of expectations - promises the product makes to the consumer
a shortcut - an easy way to understand why the product you’ve chosen is superior to its competitors
But most importantly your brand isn’t what you say it is,
it’s what they say it is.
With that in mind, any successful brand needs to do 3 things:
Define the asset - this is the easy part, basically just communicate what it is you’re selling.
Differentiate - now it gets a bit trickier, you need to set yourself apart from the competition.
Establish relevance to the consumer - even more difficult, this means finding a way of convincing your target audience why you belong in their already media and product saturated lives.
Now the Meat
With a broad understanding of the challenges of branding down, Hunt went on to the crux of the presentation, which he calls the Paradox of Media Brands. Because of the space they occupy in our lives, media brands have a particularly tough job when it comes to defining their offering, differentiating themselves from the noise and connecting to an audience whose tastes change hour by hour, day-part by day-part and click by click. They need to:
Expand, Contract and Stay the Same all at the same time. Memes come and go. What was cool at 10am is no longer interesting at 11am, and networks need to always be aware of what’s considered interesting by their market in order to command their attention. So they need to be flexible enough to flow with the ever shifting tide of the cultural zeitgeist, but as they’re doing that, never lose sight of what makes them unique.
The example he used for this was the usa network. Given the challenge of finding a single idea that embraced the diverse programming they offered (syndicated dramas, Wimbledon, WWE wrestling, original comedies), while staying away from messaging that their competitors were using (TNT already knew drama, tbs focussed on being “very funny”, and Hallmark was where “stories come to life”) usa zeroed in on the central component of all stories… characters.
With their “characters welcome” tagline, they were able to bring everything they did under 1 umbrella idea while laying the foundation for connecting with their viewers as characters themselves.
Be Different Things to Different People, on Different Platforms, yet Stand for 1 Thing.
The perfect example of this was the Discovery Channel who took a risk when they decided to branch out from their usual nature-themed programming with a little show called “American Chopper.” The risk paid off as they managed to tap into an audience they hadn’t had access to before, yet were able to discover (sorry couldn’t resist) how sturdy their brand was in the minds of their loyal fans. This promo spot summed up the sentiment they were tapping into nicely…”The World is Just Awesome”
Be fresh, Evolve yet be Consistent and Reliable
TNT was used as a good example of how a channel can use their central idea “drama” and evolve not only the look and feel of their on-air promotions, but also the use of their tag line. When they launched their “we know drama” focus 10 years ago, the social landscape was different. People expected little more than interesting stories from their media outlets. Now with a more “me”-centric, interactive society, the audience needs to be engaged. We are users not just consumers of tv. Sensing this change, TNT changed their tag line subtly from merely “we know drama” (which is focused on the channel not the viewer) to a series of lines like, “we know drama inspires” “we know drama captivates” etc. with its implication of “you” at the end.
(images from dexigner.com)
Then there’s the Future
Hunt closed his presentation with a look forward into future of media. Even though this consisted more of questions than predictions, his ability to see how trends are affecting the landscape is a testament to his years of experience in this field. His main point as far as the future’s concerned is that the Paradoxes continue:
Fragmentation in the midst of Convergence - as we get more outlets, we get more ways to sync those into one device or portal
Mobile vs 3D - the screens are getting smaller in our hands, yet bigger in our living rooms
Narrowcasting vs Broadcasting - niche marketers have the reach of global audiences
iTunes in a world of YouTube - professional rights managed and restricted entertainment vs free and viral
In Conclusion
What can be said for media brands can be said for any brand. So I suggest you take Lee Hunt’s advice and make sure you build your brand so that it can:
Expand, Contract and Stay the Same all at the same time.
Be Different Things to Different People, on Different Platforms, yet Stand for 1 Thing.
Be fresh, Evolve yet be Consistent and Reliable
Or at least hire someone who can do that for you….
If you were watching the Weather Channel this past Sunday then you caught one of their latest programs, Cantore Stories. Putting aside our unhealthy fascination with Jim Cantore, we were pleased as punch to have been tapped by The Weather Channel to help brand and package another one of their HD shows.
After designing the logo for the show, we basically provided them with a kit of motion graphic parts from which they could assemble transitions, promos and other sequences to their hearts’ content. The particular challenge with this show was that each episode focuses on a different location and so would need its own customized end title treatment to correspond to that weather type. Now it wouldn’t have been efficient to have us produce every single one of the show’s necessary parts, so we ended up creating templates based on 4 major color schemes which would give their team of animators the ability to create future Show elements for any weather condition.
Part of why we love these bigger projects is that it proves we can work on cool broadcast design stuff for national clients, all from the comfort of our humble, quaint office here in good ol’ Savannah, GA.
Tools of choice: 3D elements were created in Cinema4D and the rest (including the simulated weather elements) was created in After Effects.
Here’s a montage of some of the elements we created for the show.
During our panel discussion this past Geekend we promised a list of sources of inspiration for the parched designer running out of creative juice. A complete list is impossible but here are a few of the places the team here uses for a bit of brain caffeine, categorized by our different interests for your browsing comfort:
Known as the “Thoroughbred City” and the “Horse Capital of the World,” Lexington is the second largest city in Kentucky. Before moving to Savannah and joining the Paragon team I lived in a loft apartment in downtown Lexington, which gave me instant access to everything this beautiful bluegrass location had to offer. It also allowed me to see first-hand how excited the city was to host the first ever World Equestrian Games in 2010.
I first heard about the games coming to Lexington years ago, as a student of communications at Asbury College. I immediately began considering what the branding would look like, since I had just come back from the Olympics in Turin where I had been bombarded with the kind of branding world events seem to attract. So naturally my interest was peaked to discover that one of my favorite agencies had been tapped to design the look of Lexington for the 2010 games—the legendary Pentagram.
The Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau asked Pentagram to develop a visual identity that reflects Lexington’s “one of a kind personality.”
DJ Stout & Michael Bierut came up with the concept of “Big Lex,” a mythical character based on a portrait of the famous racehorce “Lexington” painted by renowned Kentucky artist Edward Troye in 1868. The idea is simple enough, Bluegrass + horses = One Giant Blue Horse. The interesting twist is how they weave the character into traditional oil paintings to give it an old school equestrian feel. The goal was to create a contemporary interpretation of a classic art genre that would stand out from many other cities.
“There really aren’t that many identities for cities in the U.S. that you can remember” says Stout. “What you are more likely to remember about a place are its distinctive buildings, towers, statues, and landmarks …”
Rendering of the big Big Lex oil painting installed in downtown Lexington.
Oil Painting updated by Pentagram
My initial reaction to the logo design was not a good one. A simple sans serif font and a big blue horse just doesn’t seem to give the sense of elegance that the horse community is traditionally identified with. I immediately took to twitter to see what others were saying and my thoughts were echoed by locals in the Lexington area:
“Their style doesn’t seem to line up with the horse world, which is much more frilly, classic, and old-school.”
-Will Sears
“I like the identity package ok, but those renderings are mad hokey looking.”
-Lauren Liggett
But after I had some time to think about the new brand for the city, I started to see the genius in the design. On one side you could say that it looks too simple or that the billboard looks like they were just trying to fit everything in. The horse looks a bit like clip art and the elements don’t necessarily look like they were meant to go together. But on the other hand, knowing Pentagram, it will be the application of simplicity that will make this concept really sing. The use of the oil painting tips its hat to traditionalism while bringing you into the new brand (tell me people won’t be buying posters of this). The generic looking horse outline actually has significant local history, and the idea of using it instead of the name of the city will indeed make it stand out. I would wear the I “Horse” Lex shirt, and looking at the letterhead more and more makes me wish for a moment that I worked for the City Council. Just a moment.
So what do you think? Is the logo too simple? Is it strong enough? Does it stand out or is it utterly forgettable?
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References
Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau
Pentagram Article “A Horse of a Different Color”
Will Sears on Twitter - @willsears
Lauren Liggett on Twitter - @laurenmignon
This isn’t a trick question. This is either an example of a company’s superb confidence in the public’s awareness of their brand, or a lil’ slip up due to arrogance. When I asked a few friends to guess the site, some guessed right away which lead me to think this company had a really good grasp of how to identify themselves, even without using their logo, tagline or colors. But others were confused by the lack of a clear mark. (Don’t get me started on some of the eCommerce usability problems I see here).
This screenshot hasn’t been retouched by the way. So see if you can guess.
The original title for this post was going to be” Greenwashing Fail, ” after I saw this packaging at the nearby Home Depot this past weekend.
You probably can’t read the disclaimer form this picture but it says
“not intended to imply environmental safety either alone or compared to other products.”
Now immediately I thought… Greenwashing!! But a few quesions come to mind:
1. why call it eco- anything if you’re not implying some sort of environmental goodness?
2. If you don’t want to give the wrong impression about environmental claims…. why call it eco-something?
3. If you’re trying to Greenwash…why put the evidence on the front of your packaging and on your website?
4. After reading this post from Easy Eco Blog, I found out that there are some eco benefits to a few of the eco-sense brand products… so why the strange disclaimer?
It’s effect, as one would imagine, is to breed some skepticism and confusion as to what Ortho’s trying to protect themselves from. Possibly a marketing fail.
If any of you know what the deal is with this wording please share.
Every now and then we get into a discussion around the office about whether it’s still a good idea to be a “triple threat” design firm instead of picking 1 avenue and specializing. I’m always in favor of diversification, primarily because I think I have the designer’s version of ADD where I can’t sit still in one medium for too long, but I have to admit there are some challenges with managing and marketing 3 seemingly disparate disciplines, (more on that in another post).
But recently, I stumbled on to 2 pieces of confirmation that we’re doing the right thing.
The 1st comes from Karim Rashid’s manifesto (his Karimanifesto if you will, not my word) that I recently read in Daniel Pink’s book, “A Whole New Mind”. #1 on the list… Do Not Specialize. Granted that’s easy for Karim to say, being a world reknowned product / furniture / interior / whatever designer, but if the principle’s good enough for Karim it’s good enough for me.
The second piece of confirmation came in the form of our latest project, branding an indie movie called “The Action Hero’s Guide to Saving Lives.” The project started with a phone call from a friend of mine, Opie Cooper, needing help with some key art for the movie he just helped direct. (Key art - see, title treatment and a poster or 2). Having worked with Opie before I knew this was going to be a fun project and so jumped in feet first. Plus it had Patrick Warburton in it and who wouldn’t want to work with the Tick?
As a huge fan of the groups that will be performing in the Savannah Urban Arts Festival, I thought I’d give you a run-down of the festivities that I’m most looking forward to. A “pre-cap,” if you will.
