Gap commercials of the 80’s used to sign off with the baritone-sung jingle, “Fall into the Gap.” Well, Gap Inc. has certainly fallen into something with the not-so-silent release (belly flop) of its new logo. The mark, comprised of Helvetica type and a fading blue square, has become the logo everyone loves to hate. Which begs the question: Is this some sort of joke? Or is this some genius move to stir interest in the flagging brand of a company that can’t find anyone to buy its stock let alone locate a decent graphic designer?
Adding insult to injury is the company’s bait-and-switch to rally a Facebook crowd-sourcing project to… what? Save the company from itself? Keep the Gap name in the spotlight through the all-redeeming holiday shopping season? If the whole thing was a ruse to lift sales, Gap is going to need to sell a record number of flat front khakis. If, however, the brand was realigned without a trace of guile then the retailer giant’s days are truly numbered because there’s a gap at Gap between management and perplexed patrons.
If there’s a silver lining in any of this it’s that the Pepsi logo is no longer the poster child of identity crises. Still, both brands (among many) leave us wringing our hands over the dearth of good corporate brand designers, and the lack of common sense of the people who hire them.
Woof.
Bad Dog, Part II
A Microsoft-Adobe marriage? Holy Matrimony, Batman! What’s the world of monopolist software coming to? If the rumors are true that the Rednecks of Redmond are considering a no-bullets shotgun exchange of vows with the Blushing Bridezillas of San Jose then “Mazel Tov!,” we say.
*breaks glass*
This is a match made in M&A heaven. Both companies lost touch with reality and customers long ago, and neither has had a breakout release since 2003. We wish them all the best as they drive—and fade—into the sunset.
*flings unopened AOL registration CDs at limo*
Follow up: From the And-There-You-Have-It Department, comes this gem. Sort of makes you feel bad for that intern at Laird and Partners, doesn’t it?
Editor’s Note: Spoke partner-in-rhetoric Ashley Lohman waxes nostalgic while blurring the lines between a Looney Tunes classic and modern branding. When not rubbing animated elbows with Bugs and Daffy, Ashley helps transform B-to-B businesses (many in the supply chain space) via strategic and creative marketing services. This is Ashley’s first time guest-blogging for Spoke. She seems to have enjoyed herself despite our involvement.
Is yours really a cute little pink bunny rabbit? Or is it Bad old George?
It’s old school but still a relevant analogy. Your stakeholders are like Hugo the Abominable Snowman. They will take your brand at face value. If you’re naughty to pretend you’re something you’re not, they will find out.
And then they will punish you good.
A story…
It was her first day on the job and my friend realized she was working for a very naughty company.
The boss and his office manager carried forth their poetic waxing about hearts over the bar and loyalty, caring and fairness—and Fun, Fun, Fun!—those unassailable attributes the company was so proud of. What a delightfully cute little pink bunny rabbit my friend was hired to brand.
But then her colleagues started quacking (yes, quacking). They were snarky about the boss, each other and their customers. They revealed evidence of high turnover—roll-calling the names of those who had quit in protest or who had been fired unfairly. They whispered of blanketing the region with their resumes.
Hearts clearly under the bar and with one foot out of the door, these people exemplified a very different brand than the delusional boss and office manager described. My friend decided that she wasn’t buying what they weren’t selling. She left, taking her considerable connections and value with her.
It shouldn’t have been shocking to her that the duck was cloaked in a bunny suit. Except it was.
It was because she hadn’t seen it coming, and theirs wasn’t a particularly sophisticated outfit. She realized she was as much of a Hugo the Abominable Snowman as anyone else, seasoned marketer or not. She took the brand at face value as other stakeholders had done before her.
The moral of this story and countless others like it: If you’re not living the brand, you’re dying by the brand. Try to fool people, and you become the fool. Your reputation takes a beating (not just your business), and the disaffected, duped and disappointed will take great pleasure in exposing you for what you really are.
If your brand is a lie, then what else are you willing to lie about? That’s the question your employees, prospects, customers, investors, partners, vendors or anyone else who touches your brand will be asking themselves as they walk out of your door never to look back.
So how do you build a truthful brand? Easy—you build one that does what it says it’s going to do, and eschew being something you’re not. I’ll buy from you if you’re insanely talented at producing what I want no matter your shortcomings, as long as I know what I’m in for.
You don’t have to be nice or beautiful or smart, you just have to be unapologetically real. Ask your customers why they would recommend you to their family and friends. Build your brand off of those, and only those, qualities.
If you don’t see yourself the way others see you, it’s not a fault of perception but a matter of you not living the brand. Consciously or not, you’re saying one thing and doing another.
How do you start living your brand? What do you do with those attributes that your customers say they value so much that they’re willing to steer their loved ones in your direction?
Most importantly, it’s what you don’t do.
Don’t contradict them.
If you’re progressive, don’t have Fox News playing in the lobby. Don’t put fake flowers around the office if you’re sophisticated. The employee restroom should not be used as extra storage space if you’re respectful. If you’re unique, the experience shouldn’t have a familiar ring.
Don’t be pretty. Be beautiful.
Design (with a big ‘D’) will put your most favorable attributes on display. Design is not brand, though it supports the brand. Customers have given you the brand’s true identity. Design is a way to give back. If you look good, they look good.
There is no real brand where the design and the experience don’t match. Fully engaging the senses (what we in the biz call “sensory branding”), or at the very least incorporating visual cues, will let people know how they can expect to feel when they do business with you:
Design is what they see—
The experience is what they get—
The brand is what they feel.
A brand lives or dies in the spaces in between.
The Bad old George that tried to fool my friend wanted a brand that screamed “Fun, Fun Fun!,” although clearly the brand offered none, none, none. Design must promise something the brand can deliver.
Abominable brands are the warts-and-all types, the truthful ones, the ones that are what their customers say they are and the ones that do what they say they’re going to do. They may not be pretty, but they’re always beautiful—and they should look, act and feel it.
And what if you’re tasked with branding Bad old George?
Quick hit: If there’s any correlation between the capitalization of a company and its online brand presence, it boils down to: “We can afford to look ugly.” At least that’s the conclusion we drew during a study of websites of the Fortune 100 we conducted while stimulating thought for a new project. The web is awash with sites that showcase design in order to inspire pro and amateur alike, but they never display the inspirational work of/for large multi-nationals, because, well... there isn’t any.
Sorta.
Kudos to those Fortune 100 companies who dare to be different (noted by an asterisk in the list below) and push the rest of us to think harder about what a website should be.
Notice anything missing? We made this list in late 2008. It takes time to rework a list of this length in HTML, and we only dust it off on rare occasions. Someday we’ll get around to doing that, but until then, please note that Apple (by far our favorite Fortune 100 site) is now #56 on the 2010 Fortune 100 list after only reappearing the prior year.
So, what do you think? Why are the websites of so many of these companies so embarrassingly bad? *ahem* General Dynamics.
Quick hit: It seems like a trivial thing. Like the difference between pudding and custard. But to a typographer, and most especially Mac users, you might as well be comparing bath tissue to a Boeing.
I’m talking about the use — and, most often, the misuse — of tick marks, primes, acute accents, apostrophes and quote marks. We’ve encountered a rash of misuse lately and would like to set the record (and our fellow craftsmen) straight. Much has been written on the subject. So, rather than add to the noise, we’ve elected to link to two helpful resources:
Recently, a client of ours sent us a logo they themselves had designed for an internal side project. It was a clean logotype treatment with a couple requisite mnemonic devices to give it some flavor. A worthy effort, but we knew we could make it sing.
“What’s wrong with it?” asked an incredulous marketing head. “There’s nothing wrong with,” we soothed. “But it’s a ‘6’ or ‘7’ on a scale of ‘10,’ and we’d like to make it a true ‘10’ for you.”
“Well, I like the font I picked, so can we stick with that?” she asked.
We recognized the font almost immediately. “Where did you get this?” we fished. “What’s it called?”
“It’s called “Swatch It.” I downloaded it for free.”
Uh oh.
What our well-intentioned benefactress had found was a free font based on the internationally recognized, and beloved-by-many Swatch AG (Swiss Watches) logo. This explained why it was free. The designer himself knew he was entering muddy legal waters. The poorly rendered characters and lack of kerning pairs, hinting, balancing and other niceties that are hallmarks of a professionally produced font further ensconced it amongst the poorer quality, unlicensed, gray market types so often (not always) distributed for nothin’. You get what you pay for.
Now, to be fair to the designer of Swatch It — he’s not making so much as a Swiss franc from this font. It’s clearly a free download, and the albeit limited licensing terms state that it is “Free for personal use.” This should be an obvious red flag to anyone who intends to use this and similar fonts, especially for commercial purposes. But, like software (and a computerized font is a piece of software), the end user licensing agreements (EULA) go largely ignored by most users.
We explained the inherent problems to our client:
The font is based on an existing, copyrighted logomark. Although some courts might classify the font as a ‘derivative work,’ the buttoned-up (and always punctual) legal counsel at Swatch could easily tie up the font designer and our client on Swiss home turf. We hear Bern is chilly this time of year — brrrrr.
Using a typeface that is so closely tied to a well-known and recognized company is never a good idea. Unless you’re creating a visual parody, it’s best to steer clear. Be unique.
It took little effort to convince her that we needed to start with a clean slate and develop the logo using a “proper” font. But, the situation did raise some nagging questions for us. Specifically, how does a designer, marketing VP or alpenhorn player learn how to legally purchase, download and use a font? Any font. Are we breaking the law by redesigning our client’s mark using any typeface we choose, even if it was purchased?
Combing through the arcane legalities that surround font design and licensing helped us cobble together some simple rules:
Always purchase for-sale fonts before using them. Don’t “borrow” fonts and don’t use font preview services to patch together your logo for final use.
Contact the type foundry and/or designer you purchased and/or (if it’s a free font) downloaded the typeface of your choice from and ask to have them clarify their licensing agreement for you. Explain what it is you want to do with the font, and listen closely to their response. In fact, write their response on a printed copy of their EULA, date it and record who you spoke with. Keep it on file. Stay clear of free fonts for commercial use unless the licensing terms explicitly state they may be used for your intended purpose.
Don't share or borrow fonts unless the EULA indicates if and how you may do so.
When crafting a logo or logotype, alter the typeface slightly. Many designers already do this in order to create a unique mark, but this practice has the added benefit of carrying your design through some legal loopholes. Most font licenses allow you to use converted outlines for things like logos. If you don’t wish to alter the characters, set them as you want, kern them, take a screen shot of the final arrangement, then trace the type using your own points and bezier curves. Cumbersome? Yes.
Final word: If someone asks, “Can we get sued for this?” the answer is ALWAYS “maybe.”
I had the pleasure of interviewing a talented and very recent BGSU (my alma mater) design grad. She had the usual assemblage of class assignment work, but it was clean, well-presented, inventive, and had more than the usual care applied to it. It was a solid book. Midway through the interview I asked who she followed (no, not in the Twitter sense) – whose work she admired and emulated. I instinctively knew the answer from the contents of her portfolio, but I was unprepared to hear it aloud: “Margo Chase, David Carson, Rick Valicenti...,” she rattled off. The list went on.
I was dumbstruck.
Twenty years ago, when I was a student, the hottest emerging designers du jour were Margo Chase, David Carson, Rick Valicenti, Rudy Vanderlans, Zuzana Liko,Paula Scher and countless others. And here, twenty years on, was a burgeoning designer repeating names I’d once similarly revered and made part of my own design lexicon. It was then I realized how doomed we are as designers to repeat the past. Each generation of creatives bestows the heroes of their own creative nascency upon the next – imbuing it with the fame and foibles of the design rock stars of yore. Back in the day, my professors had impressed us with the Design Immortals of their youth: Chwast,Glaser,Moscoso,Bass,Dunst,Chermayeff & Geismar, etc. They had reclaimed the work of those who had made the earliest and institutionally-sanctioned impressions on them decades prior. Now, once again, a fresh batch of twenty-somethings are being released into the vocation by well-meaning, but reprising, forty-somethings.
Where does it stop? Should it? Is it possible? What do we gain from insistently recycling our rich and storied visual communications history – each designer latching onto Hollis and Meggs as if he or she discovered them?
Originality is arguably impossible to achieve. Everything we do as a culture is derivative. It takes time to weigh the “sui generis” and importance of the works of others, and it is only through the passage of time that we can give these things their rightful place, and elect to (re)apply them to the zeitgeist. Yes, it’s important for a profession to have a continuum, to be able to draw upon tradition. It’s an effective means of evaluating the progress of any industry’s Darwinism. But if we’re ever to evolve; truly make the impact we believe ourselves capable of making; and sincerely fulfill Paul Rand’s declaration/edict/prophesy, “Design is everything,” then we have to be willing to put the past in its place; reinvent ourselves, our profession and portfolios. And kill our idols.
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