Bainbridge Studios » Branding

Are Discount Logos/Corporate Branding Worth the Price?

Tom Carmony — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:23:57 +0000

Thursday Bram recently posted a great piece on the website FreelanceSwitch, discussing the pros and cons of clients going with inexpensive logo/identity designs from discount online “logo mill” companies (large-scale “design” shops that employ ultra-inexpensive designers to crank out hundreds (in some cases) thousands of logo designs each year for clients paying anywhere from $50 to a couple hundred dollars for a design.

Explaining the drawbacks to clients of such bargain-basement identity design can often be difficult for designers. The issues raised in Bram’s piece are an excellent starting point.

Cheap Logos: Not Worth the Cost (via Freelance Switch)

You’ve Got Something Stuck Between Your Teeth…

Tom Carmony — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:38:18 +0000

Well, this is certainly an attention-getter. Saatchi & Saatchi New York created this unique guerilla marketing piece for Glide dental floss in New York City. The exact metaphor isn’t clear, but it must be playing off the notion of having something (a piece of ham, in this case?) stuck in your teeth.

Image courtesy Commercial Archive

(via Coudal)

TV You Can’t Ignore – And an Awful Logo to Boot

Tom Carmony — Wed, 28 May 2008 17:29:32 +0000

Chicago’s WGN, one of the venerable “superstations” left over from their mid-80′s heyday on cable television, has recently rebranded, with design work done in-house (with direction by Tribune’s Lee Abrams – and apparently inspired by Pink Floyd). Gone is the “Superstation WGN” moniker, replaced now by “WGN America – TV You Can’t Ignore”.

The name change and the tag line are fine, but the new logo? Ugh. Perhaps the outdated, 80′s/90′s feel of the branding was intentional, given that the bulk of their programming is syndicated reruns from those decades?

Fittingly, I suppose, the official WGN website still looks like it was designed in FrontPage in the late 90′s, and no one’s bothered replacing the Sun Microsystems favicon with a WGN favicon. Sloppy.

(via Brand New)

Obey Obama

Tom Carmony — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:50:33 +0000

Shepard Fairey, he of the ubiquitous Obey art installations, stickers, clothing and more, has produced a pair of limited edition posters supporting Barack Obama’s candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Fairey, in his own words:

I believe with great conviction that Barack Obama should be the next President. I have been paying close attention to him since the Democratic convention in 2004. I feel that he is more a statesman than a politician. He was against the war when it was an unpopular position (and Hillary was for the war at that time), Obama is for energy and environmental conservation. He is for healthcare reform. Check him out for yourself www.barackobama.com. Proceeds from this print go to produce prints for a large statewide poster campaign.

The “Hope” design (shown to the right) is being apparently being utilized by the Obama camp as a part of an awareness campaign; the second design, “Progress“, was released by Fairey today for sale (limited to 250 pieces) and sold out almost immediately.

(via Creative Review)

Good Campaign Logo Design

Tom Carmony — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 18:03:17 +0000

Speak Up has an excellent recent post discussing the logo for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and its exceptional expansion across various sub-brands and other implementations. As derivative as most major campaign logos often are, it’s refreshing to see such a contemporary and well thought-out approach to a candidate’s brand. Check out the piece here.

(via Coudal)

So Exactly What Kind of Tagline Does $250,000 Buy You These Days?

Tom Carmony — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 05:37:55 +0000

The Times of London reports on the rather mixed reaction to newly revealed official slogan of Scotland. After more than six months, and £125,000 (approx. $250,000), the Scottish National Party revealed the new marketing slogan:

“Welcome to Scotland.”

“It feels governmental, corporate and static,” said Anita Califano a senior consultant with Wolff Olins.

Of course, one has to be wary of criticism leveled by anyone at Wolff Olins. After all, they’re the agency responsible for the mind-numbing branding of the 2012 London Olympics.

Separated at Birth?

Tom Carmony — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:26:29 +0000

This isn’t the first time that Sony’s been nabbed for taking inspiration from Apple for its marketing (and Apple’s not immune to criticism here either), but I suppose imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, no? Below is a promo photo for Apple’s second generation iPod nano and a recent promo shot of Sony’s Cyber-Shot [...]

It Was Just Inspiration, Right?

Tom Carmony — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 01:55:16 +0000

As broadband Internet access, in the form of DSL, Cable, WiMax, etc., continues to proliferate, former 800-pound gorilla AOL is struggling to define itself and its identity in the 21st century Internet. Their solution? Copy Yahoo!

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, among others, is reporting on the striking similarities between the new Beta version of AOL’s web portal and Yahoo!’s homepage. For all intents and purposes, the two are one and the same. The new AOL layout, first introduced by AOL Senior Product Manager Frank Gruber, is apparently even referred to by many at AOL as “the Yahoo portal.”

Now, granted, there are only so many ways in which to organize and present essentially the same basic mix of news, entertainment, sports and weather into a single-page portal format, and websites and companies are constantly “borrowing” design elements, features and the like from one another, but there’s a difference between being inspired by another and simply ripping them off.

Rebranding Government

Tom Carmony — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 06:41:46 +0000

King County unveiled their proposed rebranding yesterday, moving away from the longstanding crown logo and electing to honor Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will an eye-catching, b/w design. The Seattle P-I has the full rundown here »

The 2012 London Olympics Rebrand: What the Hell Happened?

Tom Carmony — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 01:44:36 +0000

The web has been abuzz this week since the announcement of the newly redesigned logo
and branding campaign for the 2012 London Olympics. Granted, the initial logo design utilized by the London Olympic committee, used during the process of bidding on the games, was a bit conservative and understated, but the new look (see below) goes 180 degrees in the wrong direction.

The Valve has dug up probably the best critique/one-liner of the new design, courtesy of a message board post:

“It looks,” says one of these latter message posters (called ‘NewLogoHater’, which is either a fantastically serendipitous surname or else an alias), “as if the 80s has thrown up into 2012.”
I couldn’t have said it better. Judge for yourself:

Old Logo

New Logo