Bread Line Design

A logo I designed recently for a friends business, ayomedia in Newcastle. I’ve tried to make the design futuristic as well as give it a sense of speed.

Brand strength is a term that gets pandered around a lot, and at times can seem like a vague and aloft marketing term, akin to “Thinking outside the box” or “360 degree solutions”, however recently I was given a stark example of how brand strength can affect perceived product quality, and reminded me how important building a strong brand can be.

A friend of mine claims gin to be her staple poison of choice, and as we made our way to the beer shop she took great pride in telling me how, as good as Gordons Gin (£28.95 a bottle) is, it is considerably inferior to Bombay Sapphire (£38.94 a bottle). My reply?

“Bollocks! There’s no way you could tell the difference!”

Twenty minutes later we’re back at the flat and I’ve racked up 4 glasses, labeled A, B, C, and D, two with Gordons, two with Bombay Sapphire, and each with equal amounts of tonic added. How did she fair in this incredibly scientific blind test? She named two correctly, and got two wrong. Taking into account this fifty percent success rate (and ignoring the bruised pride) is it enough to justify the £10 difference between the two products? Probably yes, as it takes time to acquire the taste for gin subtleties (as with many premium products), and you can’t acquire that taste without buying the product many first.

What is startling though is how we let brands tell us and others that we have taste long before we’ve actually acquired it. An audiophile may explain in detail how their new B&W speakers sound better than cheaper models long before their ears have adjusted to the new sound, just as a fashionista might wax lyrical about the cut of a Saville Row suit when in reality a Top Shop suit feels identical.

As Wally Ollins said, people love brands, and understanding how a strong brand can affect how people see and project themselves now will help us to create and craft brands in the future. 

Last month our company was asked by .net Magazine to produce a design for their monthly “Build Off” feature, which boils down to three studios being given a fictional brief and creating a single homepage design to answer it. I’d like to talk about how I’m above such petty show-boating, and how I politely declined, saying that working for free (even for a publication) was a little unethical. However, as I’ve never had anything of mine published ever I nearly bit my managers hand off when he offered me the brief.

My efforts were included in the latest edition shown above (October, Issue 181), so if you fancy seeing my design as well as my fair and beautiful face pick up a copy in WHSmith and take a look.

Many agencies both big and small have strict policies involving what their designers can and can’t display in online portfolios. The popular line seems to be “Display your personal work, but keep all in-house work offline”. That’s all good if your a junior (you’ll just be damn glad you’ve actually got a job), but without work online what can you show relatives that just think you “do computers”, or that fine art student your chatting up?

It’s not hard to see why agencies adopt this policy. It prevents moonlighting designers from passing off group agency work as their own, keeps below standard/NDA restricted work out of the public domain and stops marauding recruitment firms from directly poaching design talent.

However some agencies do let their top designers publish their work in personal portfolios, and the most notable are arguably some of the best agencies on the planet: AKQA, 2advanced and North Kingdom. Their portfolios are featured below: 

http://www.killahgrafikz.com/   Kevin Hsieh               (AKQA)

http://www.shanemielke.com/   Shane Mielke             (2advanced)

http://www.designchapel.com/  Robert Lindstrom      (North Kingdom)

By letting these designers show their work in their own light, they become design heroes that others follow and respect. It’s a symbiotic relationship between designer and studio. The designers are allowed to show off all they’ve achieved, gaining both industry and in-studio respect, while the agencies shine in the reflected glory of their top designers, effectively turning them into one man recruitment magnets. What designer wouldn’t want to work and learn alongside any one of these guys?

It be great to see more agencies follow suit. After all, what could be better for designer morale than letting the best show-off and giving the rest something to aim for?

Hey troops, been insanely busy last month so blogging’s taken a back seat. I’ve got a fresh design for Breadline ready though so looking forward to getting that up and posting more regularly. In the mean time here’s a piece I’m still working on, keeping with the same style as my earlier illustration.  I’ll post up the finished thing when its done. Cheers!

Brand agency SomeOne have recently created a new logo and visual idenitiy for highstreet retailer New Look. According to their spokesperson the new identity will give “a mature direction to the brand positioning”. Not a bad move, as what they have currently is pretty young and feminine in a crowded teen market. What is surprising though is the timing.

With the price of living in the UK soaring, house prices falling and inflation rising perceived middle and high end brands have seen faltering sales. The masterful M&S rebrand was perfect for the economic climate of the time, but as shoppers lock down spending its the perceived budget brands such as Netto and Comet that are reaping the benefits. Suddenly looking cheap and cheerfull isn’t such a bad way to be.

Somehow “This isn’t just a recession, this is an M&S recession.” Isn’t gonna cut it.

Whether other major brands reposition themselves in the face of the brewing economic storm remains to be seen, but New Look’s brave rebrand will make an interesting study. Will a fresh face reinvogorate and inspire tired shoppers and sales? or serve to push New Look away from its target market when it needs it most? 

Procrastinating at work I came across Apples original logo, a bizarre and intricate illustration of Isaac Newton sat under a tree with the famous granny smith poised for a fall. It was great to see the where the Iconic mark came from, and nice to be reminded that even billion dollar tech companies once had impractical and over the top logos.

Ok I did this awhile back, but fancied putting it up anyway. Was a personal piece inspired by some great illustration I’d seen online.

Last week I defended the Tunbridge Wells Council’s decision to rebrand from a another knee-jerk media reaction, the majority of criticism seemingly leveled at the £18,500 price tag. The quality was also attacked, with the local paper pointing out that the new logo was by most standards a bit rubbish. They were right, but they failed to mention it was modern, the logos one saving grace. In contrast the previous logo belonged in an museum. The region needed a fresh face, and although the results were far from perfect, the time was right for a change.

Everyone has an opinion on the region they live in and the other regions of the country. On a local level we never really see the regions brand at work. We may occasionally see the logo in the local paper or the councils website, but it has very little effect on our day to day lives. Nationally however the picture is very different, and its on this stage that a modern identity starts to pay its dues.

Scotland is known for its countryside, Cambridgeshire its university and Manchester its football. Country, region and city, all with their own identities. They work hard to promote themselves nationally, though the locals rarely see it. You have to be in Glasgow to see a One North East advert,  just as you need to watching the TV in England to see a Visit Scotland advert.

And Tunbridge Wells? It be foolish to think an area that small can do without a modern logo. With local I.T firms struggling to tempt talent away from London, and local initiatives such as Kent TV allowing new platforms for area promotion, now is the time for a new face. And as for the £18,500 price tag? This is logo for a region where a pint costs £3.70 and a house over £300,000. For the same price as a new ford focus the town can present a logo that although not award winning, at least won’t be receiving a telegram from the Queen any time soon.   

Why is it always bad logo design that makes the news? Tunbridge Wells Borough Council’s new logo is the latest logo to get publicly slammed, appearing on the front page of their local paper in what must have been a really slow news day in Kent.

Costing £18,500 the local paper is not happy, and as the logo is pretty rubbish, its understandable, but is it really becoming acceptable to blast design work this publicly? The new logo is bad, but it is at least newer than the one it replaced, which had past its sell-by-date a decade ago. It seems since the Olympic logo was so brutally mauled the media has had free reign to decide what is good and bad value.

The situation isn’t helped by biased coverage. Headlines always make the price out to be for the logo alone, disregarding the consultancy, research and multiple concepts that come hand in hand with rebrands. Councils are big organizations, and getting buy-in from all parties on a new design would be a stressfully slow process. The paper decided to add a cutting insult to mild injury, stating “They would have been better off asking residents to submit their own ideas”.

Nice. Maybe next time there’s a power cut they should ask residents to submit their own batteries. 

This media attitude sets a bad precedent for freelance logo designers. If the public (aided by the media) believe their design skills rival established professionals, then the perceived value of design drops, and when that happens the lower end of the logo market suffers. Big brands understand the need for professional branding, but does the local plumber and the high street nail salon?  It’s clients like these that keep freelancers and small design business’s alive, and if their local paper is trivializing brand design then its people like them who suffer.

Public awareness of the true cost of branding needs to be raised if the tide of negative publicity is to be turned. Logo design is one of the smallest parts of a brand, but if the media continue to make out to be the biggest then the logo design industry will face a turbulent future.