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.

It’s no great surprise that AOL has taken a pretty good beating in blogs around the world the past few weeks, after introducing their new…um…logoish thing. I was one of MANY, MANY people who took the time to comment on the logo and almost all of the commentary has been negative. It seems that almost everybody has a reason to hate the logo.

Alissa Walker wrote an article for Fast Company, allowing branding firm Wolff Olins to tell their side of the story. While I am not sold on the somewhat tongue-in-cheek explanation that the new AOL logo is the logo of the future, I think that AOL’s management and Wolff Olins make a good case for themselves. I don’t buy AOL chief of staff Maureen Sullivan’s explanation that scrapping the old name is “the lazy consultant answer,” I can certainly appreciate the idea of hiring Wolff Olins at least in part because they were in the very small minority who advised them to keep the name.

Have you ever heard the old saying about when you’re in a panic situation and everybody is heading for the exits, you’re better off heading in the direction they’re coming from because you stand a better chance of getting out alive? I can appreciate that. I think, were I asked, I’d advise AOL to keep the name simply because AOL is an icon, so I agree with keeping the name.

Again, I don’t care for the changing imagery behind the logo, but the imagery isn’t supposed to be the logo. The logo is the Aol. wordmark in front of the image. If you go to the Wolff Olins home page (linked above), watch the video. It’s a good demonstration of how the logo “works” in a motion environment. The videos produced are, as Walker says in her piece, quite good and make a strong case for the “invisible wordmark.”

I still think they’d be better served by having identified one image as their flagship logo for print purposes, but I at least get what they were going for. I don’t know that it’s the future of design, but I have to admit that I like their out-of-the-box thinking.

Even if you don’t care for the new logo, Wolff Olins certainly gets an A for process and creative thinking. So kudos there, Wolff Olins.

What I’m most curious to see now is how many people start mimicking the style? I only wish I could put together a graph correlating the number of mimics with the number of critics, because you can bet your ass that there is going to a lot of crossover in those two groups. We hate it today, but we can’t wait to steal it.

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.

While the logo isn’t great, it’s not horrible, either. It’s just sort of there. I know that a lot of designers really hated this logo, but to be honest, I was on AOL before I was designer so the logo is very familiar to me. It’s not great, but it brings back good memories from the early days of the internet (granted, 1991 wasn’t that long ago, but it was still long before many people knew much about it).

As AOL continued to grow (and grow and grow), they decided to updated the logo to be more in step with the time. In 2004, the logo was given a more contemporary feel. Strangely, the new logo was to be part of the 20th anniversary celebration of AOL, but that was still seven years in the future.

Fast forward to 2009 and we’re still 2 years shy of the 20th anniversary and AOL finds itself facing a business climate change which they didn’t anticipate. Between DSL, cable modems, wireless networks and so forth, the need to have a dedicated service to connect to the internet is no more. There are still people who use AOL, but the numbers are WAY DOWN from the good, old days. AOL needs to find a way to make themselves relevant in order to survive in the current environment. Step one in that process is, apparently, a major rebranding. Behold the future…

…that’s right, it’s a goldfish. In other versions of the logo the goldfish is replaced with a green scribble, some sort of weird brain thing or any of many other little icons with an updated type treatment. AOL’s big branding brains came up with a whole slew of icons. Their explanation (excuse, is more like it) for this is that AOL is a 21st century media company and that required a brand that is “open and generous.”

Um…yeah…whatever. Just call it what it is…we don’t know who the hell we are, who we’re supposed to be or what you want us to be. So we’ll just be everything.

Can you believe some people get paid to come up with a goldfish with type on top of it? Assuming they were paid for the design work (and I use design loosely), they should be locked up for larceny.

Because he was using the wrestler’s image and name without permission, a lawsuit was threatened and Fairey created a new iconic version of the likeness. This new likeness became a brand of its own—Obey Giant.

Like the original stickers, the Obey Giant icon took off. Fairey, a longtime proponent of pushing the limits and breaking rules saw another one of his creations spread around the world in stenciled graffiti and stickers and more.

Fast forward to 2008.

The Obama campaign approached Fairey and asked him to come up with an iconic image and he came up with the Obama Hope poster (bottom image). The image caught on like wildfire and began showing up EVERYWHERE, giving Fairey yet another pop-culture hit icon. This time, however, there was a catch.

The Associated Press claimed that Fairey used one of their photos (top image) as the basis for his icon without permission/rights to do so. Fairey denied the accusation saying that he based his drawing on another photo, but made significant changes to the photo, which he claimed was within fair-use rights.

Taking the offensive, Fairey sued the AP, presumably because of the damage their claims did to his reputation. The AP didn’t buy his explanation and promptly sued back. All along Fairey kept proclaiming his innocense and defending his good name. Until recently, when Fairey admitted that he had, in fact, used the image that he was accused of using.

So let’s recap…the AP said he used their image, he denied it and went so far as to sue the AP. Now he admits that the AP was right and that he concealed/fabricated a story about the other image and filed a lawsuit under false pretenses. His laywers dropped the case as quick as they could and now Fairey is claiming that the real issue is fair use rights.

This guy is a million-dollar talent (literally) with a ten-cent head. What the hell is he thinking? He’s going to lose this case, lose millions in a judgement to the AP (which they have pledged will be given to a non-profit organization), pay all court costs, and could face further punishment for filing a frivolous lawsuit under false pretenses. Hell, for all I know, he could end up with a little jail time.

As a designer I can tell you that if anybody ever took one of my photos and just traced over it, I’d be pissed. That isn’t fair use, that’s copying. It’s larceny and Fairey deserves whatever punishment he gets. He stole an image another artist (the original photographer) created.

The really funny thing is that when another designer created a parody of his Obey Giant icon with a SARS respiratory mask, guess who threatened to sue, claiming trademark violation. Fairey went so far as to call the Texas designer a “bottom feeder” and “parasite.”

I don’t like to see people, even jackassy people, go through bad times, but I have to admit that I want to see this guy get his comeuppance.

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.

For any established institution to undertake a rebranding project is a pretty big deal and to do it twice in two years is a risky proposition. Any momentum you have gained with the initial rebrand stands to suffer a little bit with a second rebrand. On top of that, changing the name and then changing it again so soon after will give some people an impression that the magazine is not stable or lacks direction. In the magazine’s defense, due to some big internal changes, I can attest to the fact that they are now probably more stable than they’ve ever been. With the recent changes as well as the editorial changes that took place a couple of years ago, I think the overall content and presentation are better now than they’ve ever been.

While I don’t like the idea of rebranding so hot on the heels of another rebrand, my real issue isn’t that they’re changing the name again, but what they’re changing the name to. Great Lakes Bay Regional Lifestyle Magazine? Really? I have to admit that I am surprised that Tri-City drank the Kool-Aid on this one. When the local communities first unveiled “Great Lakes Bay Region” as the new name for the regional brand, I wasn’t particularly wowed by it. I think the name is way too long, doesn’t lend itself well to certain applications, and I don’t much care for the logo. In branding terms, that’s three strikes against you.

Right away, though,you saw a lot of businesses jumping on board. Public radio quit calling it the Tri-Cities and started using the GLBR moniker. Newspapers quickly updated their style guides to push the new regional brand. My problem with the magazine changing their name, though, is that I think they are the first business to make the regional brand a part of their identity. In effect, they let somebody else name their business. And until then you are saddled with a magazine name that’s as long as an entry in the dictionary.

I don’t think you’re ever going to see an everyday person on the street refer to this region as the Great Lakes Bay Region. As I’ve written about (at length)—it’s just not a great name. There’s no tongue appeal to it. It’s not sexy. It’s just…wordy. Try slipping Great Lakes Bay Region into casual conversation. It’s not easy to do without sounding like you’re selling something. What happens in a few years if this brand doesn’t catch on and people just stop using it? Do you change your name again?

This name change just seems like they are trying to fall in line with what the regional chambers of commerce want. Why let somebody from outside dictate what your identity is? What’s next? Give the chambers final editorial approval on the articles and ads? We’re not talking Woodward & Bernstein here, but tying a publication too tightly to local business interests takes away any appearance of journalistic integrity.

I think Tri-City would have done well to just leave it alone and keep their name. Or, if they are really committed to rebranding, take some time and actually come up with a solid identity. There are some really talented and creative folks working at the magazine, they could come up with something great if they were given the opportunity.

There is a little bit of an uproar on the internet recently over stylish-but-affordable furniture retailer Ikea switching the fonts they use in their advertising. For a long time, Ikea had used a customized version of Futura in most of their advertising. If you’ve ever seen an Ikea catalog or ad, maybe you can picture the big, bold prices accompanied by a brief description. All of their advertising had a consistent look which helped bolster their overall brand image. In addition, the use of a custom version of a classic font showed that Ikea really did pay attention to design.

So why the brouhaha over a simple font change? The problem, for most people, is that they switched to Verdana. Verdana is a font that many people are familiar with (even if they don’t realize it) because it is a free font distributed by Microsoft. It’s probably found on just about every computer in the universe. I’ll bet you they even have Verdana on the International Space Station. Except there it’s SPACE Verdana…that’s pretty sweet.

The font itself, isn’t terrible. It’s just sort of boring. It was designed very specifically for use on computer screens. Loose letterspacing and tall lower-case letters give Verdana an overall looser look. This is so that it’s easier to read on screen—letters don’t plug up or run too close together. And for that purpose, Verdana performs perfectly. It is a very good utilitarian design.

But to take this on-screen font and use it for print work shows, in many designers’ minds, a lack of respect for design. Complaints about the font range from finding the cheapest option available (free) to the easiest solution due to it being readily available around the world. Neither of these show the same sort of concern for design that Ikea shows with every single one of it’s nearly 10,000 items. Each silverware tray has a fun name, unique design—in short, each product fits in with the Ikea brand image. Using Verdana does not fit into the Ikea ethos.

Personally, I’m not freaking out about the font. I’ve seen print pages with the new font and while I don’t love it, it doesn’t ruin it for me. To be totally honest, I think that a lot of the uproar is because it’s a font created and distributed by Microsoft. Microsoft and the design community don’t generally play well together. It’s not the Mac-vs-PC thing, though, so much as it is that Microsoft tends to devalue professional design. By putting out products like MS Publisher with 15 zillion templates, they tell people that everybody can be their own designer.

The moral of this story is this: um…I don’t know. I have to admit that it would be pretty sweet, though, if 989 Design ever got so big that people got pissed off about the font I used on my site. I think I’ll make that one of my goals. Become huge, cause font uproar.

Most people are aware of Habitat’s main focus which is helping build and provide homes for people. Rather than focus all of their efforts on a single home, the neighborhood project gives Habitat the opportunity to work with a number of homes in a given area. The neighborhood they chose is in Bay City’s south end, near Rexer-Jablonski Park (named for two Bay City Police Officers killed in the line of duty). The neighborhood, while not being a bad area, is home to a number of houses in various states of disrepair.

Coordinating their efforts with Dow Chemical and other volunteer organizations, Habitat had the chance to make a real difference in this neighborhood.

I’m not sure exactly how many homes were worked on over the course of the eight-day project, but the work performed ranged from paint jobs, to gutter repair, porch replacement, landscaping and so forth.

One part of the project was to clean up the landscaping at Rexer-Jablonski Park, which served as a home base for the entire project.

As part of any Habitat project, the families whose homes are being worked on are required to help pitch in with the work. As you can see below, no family member was too small or too young to help out.

Okay…maybe some of them were too young and too small. The trio below did, however, help eat donuts. Everybody did their part.

I heard a great story from one of the people with Habitat. Family members were so filled with the goodwill the week created that many of them took time out to help out on other neighbors’ homes.

On the final day of the project, Mayor Charles M. Brunner came and said a few words about the difference that one full week of giving back to the community made. Not just to the homes themselves, but to the people who live in the neighborhood. And it showed in the number of families who chose to attend the closing ceremony and share their thanks and their stories.

As a great parting touch, each home that Habitat worked on was given two chairs for the front porch to encourage neighbors to sit out on their porch and spend some time talking to their neighbors. The best part is that the neighborhood has been using the chairs and is coming together as a real community. They’ve even planned a neighborhood picnic for the near future.

Habitat is already working on its 2010 neighborhood revitalization project, but there is a big challenge in front of them. This year, they were able to count on Dow Chemical providing a lot of volunteers. Next year, however, Dow Chemical will be working on a Habitat project in Midland. This means that to have the same sort of impact, Habitat will have to recruit a LOT of local volunteers. I am making it my personal mission to do whatever I can to help get the word out about this project.

I’ll be turning to friends, family members, clients and readers of this blog to take a few hours out of their week to pitch in and give back to some people who can use a helping hand. Watch this blog for details as they become available.