Running The Ladder is the company blog of Bainbridge Studios, a tiny runt of a design practice based in lovely Tacoma, WA.
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So Exactly What Kind of Tagline Does $250,000 Buy You These Days?
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 | Tom Carmony
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?
Thursday, October 25th, 2007 | Tom Carmony
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 digital cameras.
(via Engadget)
It Was Just Inspiration, Right?
Friday, April 27th, 2007 | Tom Carmony
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
Monday, March 12th, 2007 | Tom Carmony
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?
Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 | Tom Carmony
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
