While the classic Gap logo is a little dated, I am really underwhelmed at the new logo. It’s Helvetica bold and a blue box that is, for some reason, partially obscured by the p in Gap. The blue box looks like an afterthought, thrown in at the last minute. It’s like they looked at the Helvetica word mark and just KNEW it needed something extra. I imagine an exchange going something like this:

“I like it. It’s bold, yet classic. This mark is going to be with us for a long time,” the creative director says. “But maybe it needs just a little something extra. Something that really gets the brand across. We need something really designy.”

“We could put the whole thing in a shiny-looking circle sort of like the 989 Design logo at the top of this page,” the graphic designer says.

“A shiny 3d-looking circle? What is this? 2008? We need something that SCREAMS 2010 and beyond!”

“Well maybe we try using a box. We had a box in our last logo and that one lasted a long time.”

“Hmmm…a box, you say?” replies the CD. “Yes, I like the sound of that. But it can’t be the same…it needs to be a little different.”

“How about I give it a gradient fill?” asks GD.

“YES! Now you’re talking. More, give me more.”

“We make the box really small and…um…put it before the G!”

“No…box first isn’t forward thinking enough,” says the CD. “I’ve got it. Randomly stick it behind one of the letters.”

“How about behind the p?” asks GD.

“Perfecto! It’s a masterpiece.

It’s not that it’s a terrible logo…it’s just really bland. Nothing says design or style. They’d have done better for themselves, in my opinion, by keeping the old look, adding the gradient and updating the font. Bam! Done. They were so busy trying to think outside the box (pun intended) that they stepped on the design.

I think anybody who is starting a business or ready to take their business to the next level should give the article a read. It’ll only take about five minutes to read, so click the link above and check it out.

There were a few items in the piece that I thought were important enough to warrant a mention here.

Many companies skimp on logo creation. Nowhere is this more true than with small businesses. Throughout the region, I’ve seen thousands of business cards and signs and I can tell you who spent money on a designer and who didn’t. In this area, you see a lot of businesses who try to do it themselves or let their sign company design their logo. Bad letter spacing, poor font choice, use of clip art—these all give potential clients cues as to what kind of business you are running.

A great example of this is a restaurant I know. Their logo was clearly put together by a sign shop or a nephew or something. The typography on the sign is horrible. Poor font choice, poor use of the poor font, weird spacing, etc. I happen to really like this restaurant, but this sign is a great indicator because good as the food may be, the service is often pretty bad. You can sit waiting for service for 30 minutes when there are only two other tables in the place. Just horrible, sloppy service. And that’s exactly what their sign promises—sloppy and not thought out.

Planning and research in logo design is critically important. Whenever I design a logo for a client, I ask a lot of questions, but before I even meet with them I want them to do some of the legwork for themselves. Sit down and really articulate what it is you do, what you want people to think of when they think of your business and stuff like that. If you can’t tell me what you are, how can I tell anybody else?

I also highly recommend looking at other logos in your industry (websites, too, for that matter). Not to steal anybody’s logo, but to get a feel for what others are doing in the field. Maybe your initial idea is a cliché or maybe it’s too abstract. A logo doesn’t have to be a picture of what you do, but it is very hard for a smaller company to make the associations between abstract logos and their company brand.

Hire a professional designer or, at the very least, consult with a professional. Of course I am going to recommend this. Yes, it’s self-serving advice, but it is also solid advice. They give price ranges from $4,000–15,000 for logo design, but I’ll be honest and say that I’ve never had a $15,000 logo design project. If anyone has an extra $15K laying around, though, I promise that I will design you a SUPERKICKASS logo.

The truth is you can have a great logo designed for less than $4K, too. Every job is a little bit different, so don’t let those numbers scare you off from talking to a designer. There are a bunch of talented designers in the Tri-Cities, so you have a lot of people to choose from. Beware, though, because for every good designer there are at least three or four hacks masquerading as designers. How do you tell the difference? Look at their past work. Look at the logos they’ve designed. Look at the clients they have worked for.

If you have very strong ideas for your logo, most designers will be happy to work with your ideas. Mostly likely you are going to need a designer’s expertise anyway because you probably don’t have the skill set needed to create your logo in the formats you will need for printing. And if you give a designer your ideas, maybe their experience will give them a couple of ideas that you didn’t think of.

Don’t think of a logo as a one-time cost. A logo is designed to last for years (this article says it’s a minimum of 10 years, but I think it’s closer to 7 years because things/times/businesses change and grow and you have to allow for that). The point is, though, that you are not using your logo one time. It’s the one thing that everybody sees on  your signage, your ads, your business cards, your vehicles, etc. Think about the cost of logo design as being amortized over the life of the logo…5 years, 7 years, 10 years…whatever. It is a big check to write at one time, yes, but if you take the time to do it right, it will serve you well for years.

A well-designed logo tells potential customers who you are, serves as a visual reminder of what you do, and helps solidify your top-of-mind position. Logo design is one of the best investments you can make in your business, whether you’re just starting or if you’re due for an update.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and, seriously, read the Entrepreneur article, too. It’s a good piece.

Woody Allen was quoted once as saying, “80 percent of success is just showing up.”

Often when I am speaking to high school or college classes, the question of how to be successful designer comes up. And more often than not, I quote Woody’s wisdom because it is an absolute truth that applies not just to filmmaking and graphic design, but just about any other path in life you choose to follow.

The best example of not showing up is something that happened recently in my attempt to have a print project quoted by a printer. I am not going to name the printer, but I will tell you that it wasn’t F.P. Horak, McKay Press or QRP. Those are the three printers I use most often and I don’t want anyone to think that I’m talking about them.

This particular project, I thought, was a good fit for another printer in the region. The printer in question threw up every single roadblock they could come up with along the way. Honestly, it was as if they didn’t want my work.

My first step was to find their website to get contact info. The Google search took while because I wasn’t 100% sure of their name (they have gone through some ownership changes). With the correct site located, I clicked through to look for contact info and trouble ensued.

Their site is a wide-awake nightmare. I couldn’t find the information I was looking for, contact info was buried, sales department names and e-mail addresses weren’t available, etc. I didn’t want to fill out a form to wait for a response because my experience with these forms is that response time tends to be slower.

I was able to locate a phone number, though, so I called which led me to a pain-in-the-ass phone tree. If you don’t know the name of the person you are trying to reach, you’re directed to a general mailbox. Since I couldn’t find any sales rep names online, I would be stuck in the general mailbox which often isn’t much better than filling out the online form, where response time is concerned.

I call back and hit zero a few times and get through to a live person. I explain that I need a quote and she isn’t sure who she needs me to get to. After some confusion on her part, I just ask for a customer service rep and says she’ll connect me to the person I need to talk to. The call goes through to an extension which promptly hangs up on me. I call back again and ask if I can speak to a living, breathing customer service rep, but because I don’t have an account manager, she can’t direct me to a CSR.

Finally, in frustration, I give up. The job was a perfect fit for them and it will be printing elsewhere. It isn’t the hugest job in the world, but it would probably be somewhere between 5–10 grand every month or two. How many jobs like this do they lose in the course of a week? There were several opportunities along the way for them to save the interaction, but they managed to miss at every step. All they had to do was show up, but they phoned it in and missed out on a decent, little revenue stream.

There is actually a humorous postscript to the story, too. About one week after being unable to get a quote, I actually get a call from the sales manager wanting to sell me on doing my printing with them. I told him that I was surprised to hear from him and told him all about what had happened the prior week. He is both grateful for the candid input and assures me that is not the way they do business. He asks if he could send me some material to look at about them and maybe set up a meeting. I understand that every business has bad days, so I tell him to send the info and we’ll get together after that.

Five weeks later and guess what…nothing ever showed up.

Chuckleheads.

Personally, I think it’s pretty funny and it’s a GREAT promotional coup for The Simpsons, who are celebrating their 20th anniversary on Fox this year. Thing is, it sounds like it wasn’t Fox’s idea. Sounds like the idea came from Playboy who wanted to try to draw more 20-something readers to the magazine, whose readers have a median age of around 35.

Why Marge Simpson, though? The Simpsons is still a solid enough performer on Fox, but the series is decidedly in decline. And I can’t quote viewership statistics, but my feeling is that the younger readers they are trying to appeal to aren’t necessarily Simpsons fans. My guess is that if they watch the Simpsons, they only do it to kill time until Family Guy comes on.

Family Guy skews much younger and with it’s edgier humor would seem to be a better fit for what Playboy is going for. Maybe the problem is that Playboy’s folks are skewing a lot older themselves and can’t be bothered to stay up past 9PM. Or, worse yet—and more likely—they’re too busy watching Desperate Housewives.

I like the idea behind the cartoon cover and giving a few pages on the inside—I’m even sure that the novelty will give Playboy a nice, one-issue sales bump—but I think those buyers are going to be in the 30-45 age range. If anything, the median reader age may go up for an issue.

Overall idea: B+
Probability of giving the magazine a short-term (one issue?) sales increase: 80%
Probability of achieving stated goal of drawing younger readers in: 15%

Overall grade (for Simpsons): A

Overall grade (for Playboy): F-
I would have given a C- because it is a fun idea and will result in a temporary sales bump, but they kind of botched when it comes to drawing in the younger crowd.

Author’s note: This is something I started to writing, but couldn’t finish, a few weeks ago. It isn’t quite as timely as I would like it to be, but I still wanted to put this out there. In the interest of full discloser, I do some work for the Saginaw Spirit, the Ontario Hockey League team which Garber  owns and was instrumental in bringing to Saginaw. Even though I do some work for the Spirit and we have exchanged hellos at a couple of games, we have never actually met and I’m sure he doesn’t know who I am.

Author’s Note #2: I did not take the above photo, I found it online and borrowed it.

Anybody living in the Tri-Cities can speak firsthand about the effects of the economic downturn and the rapidly eroding job market. It’s really been pretty brutal in this part of the state. Largely due to a decade-long trend of auto-industry job losses, Saginaw’s unemployment rate is over 20%, which is pretty insane.

We’ve all heard about the federal government’s bailout of the auto industry as well as the cash-for-clunkers program. Love these programs or not, they gave the auto manufacturers a chance to reorganize their business and rethink their business practices. As part of their reorganization, GM decided to eliminate many of its dealerships across the country, which does make some sense. There are markets in the nation with multiple dealerships within just a few miles of one another. The dealership closure was a big part of their plan as GM headed into bankruptcy court. What baffles me is what the criteria were for closing a dealership.

Garber Buick is an icon in Saginaw. Established in 1907 by the Garber family, Garber Buick had survived the Great Depression, two World Wars and several economic downturns throughout its 100-plus year history. At one point early in their history, the Garber family—who have long been very closely associated with GM—helped Buick make its payroll when they were short on cash. Currently, even with the economy in Saginaw being pretty rough for years and years, Garber Buick has remained one of Buick’s top-selling franchises. On top of all of that, they receive consistently very high marks in customer service. In short, Garber Buick is a model franchise.

So when the news came that GM was going to cut Garber Buick from its franchisee list, people in the area got up in arms. Buick was planning on cutting off one of the top performing franchises in the country. How does a move like that make even an ounce of sense? With decisions like this, it’s really easy to see how GM got themselves into their current predicament. Ouija boards could probably produce better results than GM’s bloated-and-out-of-touch management structure.

As I said, people around here got pretty fired up and started a letter-writing campaign to GM and I was one of the many who took the time to write. Even though I don’t know Dick Garber personally, I know a lot about him and the way he runs his business. it doesn’t take a genius to see that this was a stupid decision and I wanted to let GM management know what a bunch of disloyal jackasses they are (I didn’t actually use the word ‘jackasses’ but I did lecture them about loyalty). I don’t know how many people took the time to write, I only know that I was one of many.

Very often, when people see someone who has more than them get taken down a peg, they take a certain amount of satisfaction in it. This schadenfreude (isn’t that a great word?) is a kind of sick spectator sport—taking pleasure in the suffering of others. But that’s not what you saw in this case. What you saw was a community come together and instead of snickering behind his back, they rallied behind him. Even if the letters fell on deaf (and very dumb) ears at GM, the outpouring of support was something special and unique to the Tri-Cities. We do take care of each other and we showed our true colors here.

Congratulations to Dick Garber, all of the employees, friends and relatives who are stakeholders in the Garber organization, and to the community of Saginaw which could ill-afford another gut-punch like this.

Just as I did when I wrote about it in March, I still think it’s just rebranding for rebranding’s sake.

I think it’s funny, though, that major media are just now picking up on this. Do a quick Google search and you’ll find articles in the New York Daily News, the UK’s Guardian, UPI, Wired and many more.

The 989 Design blog had the story in March. I scooped them all!

I believe it when the players and coaches say it, but not so much coming from the NHL. All they really care about is the business of hockey. The problem is, Gary Bettman & Company don’t seem to have a very good business sense. A news report came out today that Joe Louis Arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings, are not going to be allowed to run Joe Vision during tonight’s Stanley Cup Finals game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. If you aren’t familiar with Joe Vision, it is much like viewing parties held for other sports teams while their team is playing on the road. For 15 years, Joe Louis Arena has had giant viewing parties at the Joe at different times, especially during the Stanley Cup Finals.

In the case of Joe Vision, there was a nominal entry fee, which was given to charity. Seems like it would be a win-win. The rabid fans get to watch the game at their home stadium, the charity gets some dough, the NHL could turn it into a real feel-good PR campaign or something like that. If we were talking about the NFL, that’s probably what would happen. The NFL is a marketing machine. They don’t miss too many tricks which a big part of why they are far and away the biggest of the four major sports.

In this case, though, we’re talking about the NHL who have proven again and again that they have little marketing savvy (seriously…Versus?). The NHL requested that NBC and CBC not allow teams to run their broadcasts of the game for viewing parties. Some are suggesting that the networks were involved in the decision, but it was really the NHL’s doing.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why this decision was made. The networks have already paid for the rights to broadcast the game so there is no lost revenue. Presumably there would be a small dip in ratings in that market during the game (a sold-out Joe Vision game would shave 1 point off the ratings), but ratings are really the concern of the network, not the NHL.

And not only did the NHL pass up an opportunity to create some good PR, all day long I’ve seen articles and commentary about how pissed people are. Lots of badwill directed at the NHL and NBC.

Great move, NHL. Way to alienate your fan base. Clowns.

Edited to add: The Penguins held viewing parties in Pittsburgh for the first two games of the series. Why didn’t the NHL clamp down on Versus, the way the have with NBC & CBC? Or did Versus just show some spine and let the Penguins use the broadcast over the NHL objections?

A lot of businesses have no social media presence on the internet. Ignoring social media is a huge mistake because it carries benefits to all sorts of businesses, both large and small. Whether it’s a blog, Facebook page, Twitter account or something else, the investment in getting it set up is minimal and the potential rewards are large. And if you think that these sites are just for fun, you couldn’t be more wrong.

Take the case of Del Monte, the giant food production company you probably associate with vegetables and canned goods. In addition to the main Del Monte brand and several other giant brands for human consumption, Del Monte foods owns many HUGE pet food brands including Kibbles ‘n Bits, 9 Lives, Pounce, Milk Bone and Snausages.

Del Monte has had a web presence for a long time and had some experience with social media when they created the private “I Love My Dog” site. The site was open by invitation to BIG LEAGUE dog lovers. The site offered an opportunity for people to interact with one another and, perhaps more importantly, to interact with the brand’s marketing research arm.

A question was posed to the community regarding what people’s dogs liked for breakfast. Many members of the community responded and many of the responses included eggs and bacon. 

Members were also asked if a treat or pet food included vitamins or other healthy ingredients, if that would make a difference in a purchase decision. The dog lovers agreed that being able to give their beloved canines something that is good and good for them would be great.

Del Monte wasn’t asking these questions just to ask them. They were using social media as an instant feedback device and rather than sitting on the results, they acted on them very quickly. 

In six weeks, Del Monte posted images of packaging and samples of the new treat, Snausages Breakfast Bites. The treats come in these really cute fried egg and bacon shapes and have added calcium, antioxidants, and Omega 3 and 6 oils. Members loved the idea and, I think, they really responded to the fact that a megaconglomerate company was really listening to what they had to say.

Shortly thereafter, Snausages Breakfast Bites were in stores and the treat is a huge hit. The simple act of creating a site where their core market could interact with one another and share stories and ideas shortened the product creation cycle from years to months. That cost savings alone was more than worth the investment. Add to that the fact that instead of jamming a new product down people’s throats, they took the time to solicit and utilize consumer feedback shows that Del Monte really gets what the true power of social media is.

Congratulations, Del Monte, you win the 989 Design Social Marketer of the Week Award!

I wanted a pizza for dinner last night. There are many pizza joints to choose from in Bay City, but I have a couple of favorites. I couldn’t find a menu, so I looked them up online and found their website. The website has a menu, but I still had a question about one thing on the menu, so I picked up the phone and dialed.

A young woman answered the phone brightly, with a friendly greeting and the name of the restaurant. This was the high point of the phone call.

My question was pretty straightforward and, having worked in a couple of pizza places in my life, should have been very easy to answer. My question left her baffled…I’m not sure what was so confusing. I repeated my question, but she couldn’t answer it. Instead of informing me that she had to ask someone else, she just put the phone down and started asking a co-worker.

The co-worker then answers the question with this snotty, mocking/condescending tone, as if it were a stupid question. I can hear the whole conversation and I wanted to hang up right there because I was pissed. I let it go and when she gets back to the phone, she repeats what her co-worker said, minus the mocking tone. I tell her what I want and she tells me they have a special on a certain pizza—it isn’t exactly what I wanted, but it sounds fine so I tell her I’ll take it and then try to place my order.

I tell her the size and crust style. She repeats it back to me and gets the crust wrong.

I repeat the crust style and this time she gets it right.

I give her the toppings. She repeats them back to me and gets them wrong.

I repeat the toppings and gets it right.

Then she starts offering side items, which I tell her I don’t need. She tells me that to get the special, I have to get the side items. I tell her that I just want the pizza, but she can’t give me a price.

In the end, I give up.

I wasted several minutes on what should have been a one-minute phone call. The person who answered the phone was uninformed, couldn’t answer simple questions, wasn’t very good at listening, and overall communicated very poorly (outside of the sunny greeting, that it).

I don’t care how great your logo and website are, what people are going to remember long after they forget what your logo looks like is how they are treated. Both on the phone and in person. If I were a first-time customer, I’d never call back a second time. As a repeat customer, I’ve had bad service there a couple of other times, but it’s good pizza. No matter how good the pizza is, though, there comes a point when customers are going to stop coming back. 

The life of any brand can be either shortened or lengthened based on customer interaction. This is why it is crucial to keep in mind that the person answering the phone is as much a representative of your business as your logo and your product. If I know that I am going to have a problem every third time I place an order, why would I bother calling back? There are, as I said above, many pizza joints to choose from. I’ll just go to the next name in the phone book and give them a shot. (HA! I said phone book…how quaint.)