Merriam Associates, Inc. Brand Strategies » Design

E Ink’s New Logo

LDMerriam — Fri, 13 May 2011 03:01:03 +0000

Congratulations to E Ink on their new logo. The company was a spin-off from the MIT Media Lab back in 1997 and pioneered the concept of electronic paper.

Old Logo

New Logo

Originally marketed for electronic signs, the company has enjoyed better success as a maker of mobile electronics displays. Paper thin and lightweight, the technology offers high contrast and low power consumption. Best known as the technology behind the Amazon Kindle, other users include Barnes & Noble, Casio, Citizen, Hanvon, Hitachi, Lexar, Motorola, Plastic Logic, Samsung, Skiff and Sony.

With a clear future as an ingredient brand, E Ink was more than ready for an updated logo. While the new logo is an improvement, I am not sure it does what the E Ink press release claims. The new logo is a safe corporate expression, but the company claims “new E Ink logo design emphasizes the cultural legacy passed on by technology. E Ink embraces technological advances while respecting human life, human culture and human nature.” Huh? Can’t say I’m seeing that.

(Full disclosure–I was E Ink’s director of marketing from 1998 to 2000, but the original logo had been chosen before I joined the company.)

A New Age of Luxury Retailing: Brand Expectations

LDMerriam — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:13:34 +0000

High end retail is changing. As part of a presentation to the International Retail Design Conference “A New Age of Luxury Retailing,” we talked to luxury shoppers on New York’s Madison Avenue and to former LMVH executive Philippe Soussand about brand expectations and design.

The key trends:

Luxury design and luxury products are becoming more common at the mass level
Actual luxury shoppers are searching for the truly unique
Relationship is of growing importance
Design plays a key role in brand relationships

For more on luxury branding: http://www.levinedesigngroup.com/

Everyone’s Crazy for a Sharp Dressed Brand

LDMerriam — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 04:21:37 +0000

President Obama’s reputation for dignity and style took a step back with his less than decorous vacation pictures. Gawker.com felt it necessary, due to the flip-flop flap, to provide how-to advice . The last time a President so crossed the line into “eew” was when President Johnson lifted his shirt to reveal a bare belly and surgical scar.

Don’t do this to your brand:

Brands should take notice: How your people look conveys a powerful brand message.

“A company that has employees meeting the public must realize that what they convey about the brand is just as important—if not more important—than the logo,” says New York-based business consultant Rob DeRocker. I talked to Rob after The Financial Times interviewed him for an article on dress codes.

I thought back to last year when my computer blew up while I was traveling. I had to get it fixed fast. I found a small local shop manned by guys with tattered t-shirts and plenty of body piercings. They were probably talented computer nerds, but I ended up in the safe environs of Best Buy, with their well-groomed and uniformed staff.

Ensuring staff conveys the brand with their grooming and dress can take many forms:

UBS has a 43-page dress code that gets into the details of how men should knot their ties and what color underwear women should wear. Too detailed? Maybe for some, but it might be just right for a Swiss bank.

The Hooters brand aims to be “delightfully tacky yet unrefined,” and that requires a very specific dress code that specifies flesh colored nylons at all times, no body piercings or tattoos and no bra straps hanging out or visible midriffs. Shorts must “not be so tight that the buttocks show.” Hooters even has a Web site devoted to achieving the ultimate Hooter-Girl look—be advised that the content is mostly pictures.

TGI Friday’s brand spirit of employees having as much fun as their customers with “an attitude of serious showmanship” was famously lampooned in the movie Office Space where the waitress character said, “We’re, uh, we’re actually required to wear fifteen pieces of flair…I, uh, I just grabbed fifteen buttons and, uh, I don’t even know what they say! Y’know, I don’t really care. I don’t really like talking about my flair.”

Dress codes can be controversial. Disney is still locked in a legal dispute with an employee who wants to wear a hijab to work. Disney’s position is that employees are entertainers portraying characters and types. The dispute is ongoing. One wonders what will happen when the employee portraying Snow White wants to wear a burka.

Company dictates on fashion are not merely about looking nice; they are about conveying brand. The human interaction experience has far greater impact on making a brand impression than the logo, name, color scheme, typography, etc. As Rob says, “People ultimately do business with people.”

The New Logo ALWAYS Sucks: Consumers Hate Change

LDMerriam — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:55:46 +0000

Okay, the new Gap log did suck. But EVERY new logo design ALWAYS kicks off a spate of negative logo reviews, and many new logos don’t suck. Crowd sourcers beware: consumers hate change.

Google “New Starbucks” logo, and you’ll see page after page of negative reviews. Negative response to change has always existed. That social media magnifies the negativity doesn’t mean that initial dislike signals a brand disaster. If every company making a logo change backs off when hit with inevitable Gap-like criticism, no brands will ever visually improve and great design will cease to exist.

Anyone who has tested new names or logos in a focus group knows the dynamic: when people are faced with something new and different, they recoil. Companies that back off change because of that knee-jerk reaction totally miss the point of doing something different. If you want to attract attention, convey a new message, become memorable, you have to unsettle people. In my naming practice, I know that names people like are names within the comfort zone. They are familiar, known, and understood–and totally the wrong choice for a winning brand. The same is true for logo designs. The best creative choice for a name or a logo is the idea that makes people stop and say, “whoa!”

When choosing a new logo, you want to get the associations right. Don’t ask non-designers to evaluate the art. You’ll get as many people saying “it’s too simple” as you will get saying “it’s too busy”. Dive past the inevitable superficial negatives and get to the specific feelings: “What does this logo make you think about?”

For a logo to become “liked” or even “loved” takes time. As Michael Bierut writes in the Fast Company review of the immediately much hated new Big Ten logo: “But let’s remember that the previous Big Ten logo, which fans now absolutely love, also met with resistance when it was first introduced twenty years ago.”

For the record, regarding the Starbucks redesign: The new logo is great. But the ability of a new logo to move that company beyond coffee is negligible. Starbucks has spent over a decade trying to be coffee + something more and has failed. The new logo won’t fix that problem.

The Gap Fiasco: The Latest in a Long Line of Brand Mistakes

LDMerriam — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:48:01 +0000

With everyone piling on The Gap logo redesign fiasco, it is a good time to remember that this is just one of a long line of branding mistakes.

Edsel–Spent $400,000,000 in development for a product that never found its market.

New Coke–Abandoning its venerated formula nearly sank the brand before it reverted back to its “classic” taste.

Premier Smokeless Cigarette: RJReynolds CEO F. Ross Johnson said, “ Tastes like shit and smells like a fart! Got ourselves one hell of a product on our hands. It’s one unique advertising strategy, I’ll tell ya that.”

Monday: When PwC Consulting separated from PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC Consulting selected Monday: as their new name, oblivious of the obvious negative connotations.

The new Gap logo joins a long list of brand mistakes that beg the questions: “Why?” “Who?” “How?” Why did The Gap feel the need to change a logo? Given the expense of changing out all the signage, labels, communications, I’d love to see the cost/benefit analysis that made it seem like a good idea. Who green-lighted the project? How did The Gap determine that particular design would be a good one? What is interesting about brand debacles is that no one ever comes forward to take the blame or explain how or why the slip-ups happened.

Boring Green Logo Redesigns Are a Color Cliche

LDMerriam — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:04:40 +0000

Green–it’s the new blue. As an overused boring corporate color, blue is losing ground to green. Corporations everywhere have been jumping on the “green” bandwagon, whether they are hotels that wash towels less frequently, moving companies that reuse boxes, or retailers that recycle plastic bags. The green washing trend is even spreading corporate logos. Companies with once distinctive and exciting brand marks are trading them in for boring green ones.

Mayflower Movers redesigned their logo and lost their iconic graphic presence. (That creepy giant girl puppet in Mayflower’s “Big Move” ads gets points for being unusual–but not in a good way).

Holiday Inn looks like they hired the same designer as Mayflower. They ditched their fantastic funky retro signature for this forgettable brand mark.

Animal Planet redesigned their mark so that there is no more animal and no more planet.

Quick Chek incongruously grew a leaf in their logo redesign.

Lending Tree went from a Fall-ish maroon leaf to a green one. And they’ve adopted the newly ubiquitous lower case typography that is supposed to make us feel warm and trusting.

Joining the crowd is never a good idea in branding. It’s time to induct the color green into the Overused Brand Ideas Hall of Lame.

Renaming Proxios: CEO Talks About the Process

LDMerriam — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:22:25 +0000

Fast growing, innovative companies can sometimes outgrow their brands.

“Our name became constraining,” said Frank Butler, CEO of Proxios, a fast-growing company using cloud computing technology to create affordable and reliable alternatives to traditional in-house information technology and phone systems. “Our old name Super-Server did not have broad appeal and it was dated.”

Merriam Associates gave this company a new identity that better fit their reputation and future aspirations. Our research showed that their competitors were all saying the same things and using the same colors, in the same way. Plus, in talking to customers and prospects, we found what truly made them special. Over and over, customers talked about how responsive the company was in understanding the intricacies of each business, in customizing solutions to fit, in answering questions quickly, and in resolving problems.

“We always thought we were a technology company. What we discovered in this process was that customers could not care less about technology,” Frank continued. “What they want is results. They could care less how we do it.”

Informed with that insight and a solid creative brief, we considered hundreds of concepts and tested dozens of candidates through our proprietary process. We recommended the name Proxios because of its deep meaning that is directly relevant to the promise the company makes to their customers.

Proxios derives from the Latin word “proximus”. That word has many meanings including “nearness”, “closely connected” and “close relationship”. The variant “proxios” literally means “freely”. We felt the word perfectly summed up the value proposition:

A close relationship with clients

Keeping them closely connected to applications and data no matter where they are

So that they are free of the headaches and risks of running their own information technology systems

The name is just the first step in creating a brand. We designed a new logo that raises the company above the visual cliches so common to the category. And to tell the Proxios brand story, we wrote copy and designed a visual system that unified the look of all the company’s marketing communications pieces. The new Proxios brand gives the company a solid foundation for fast growth and national expansion–and the stature of innovative and responsive company.

Frank concludes, “It was a remarkable process. It had a magical effect on our company.”

More naming resources:

Rebranding Proxios

LDMerriam — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:58:31 +0000

Outgrowing the Brand
Proxios had its beginnings as a small technology infrastructure outsourcing company called SuperServer. The company has grown beyond its Richmond, VA roots to have a national reach and had made significant investments in cutting-edge technology. They needed a brand that would convey the true stature of the company and give it a better footing for growth.

Finding Opportunity Among Sound the Same/Look the Same Competitors
Our work began with extensive market research, including a comparative analysis of copy and design used by competing companies, and interviews with current, past, and potential customers. We found that companies were using essentially the same words to say the same thing:

We found that competitive approaches to design were similarly undifferentiated:

We positioned company around the concept of “responsive service”.

Renaming: Finding a New Brand Name for the Company
The SuperServer name could not effectively carry the company forward. Both employees and customers felt the name was too small time and old fashioned. We conducted a thorough naming program, considering hundreds of concepts, testing dozens of candidates through our proprietary process and eventually selecting Proxios.

A New Logo
We created a new logo that raises the company above the visual cliches so common to the category.

A Visual System Unifies and Strengthens the Brand
To support the logo and tell the Proxios brand story, we designed a visual system that unified the look of all the company’s marketing communications pieces. We used hexagons in the logo and visual system because they are a visual metaphor of what Proxios offers:
* Are a highly space efficient shape
* Are one of natures strongest, stiffest, most stable structures
* Have a high ratio of strength to weight
* Tessellate—that is, they create a solid plane with no overlaps of gaps into infinity
*Are graphically simple and flexible

We selected at a color palette that is differentiated from the blue/green/orange cliches of technology—warm colors suited to the risk mitigation/headache removal story in strong hues that talk to the reliability/responsiveness positioning. We provided a usage guide to help our client manage the creation of materials internally and with other agencies.

Strong, Unified Brand Communications
We wrote and designed the entire suite of communications materials, down to the business cards, and continue to support Proxios through the brand relaunch and as they ramp up marketing.

For more about Proxios: www.proxios.com

More naming resources:

Naming How-To:

Companies and Products:

Additional Naming Materials:

Merriam’s Guide to Naming available at Amazon.com
Naming in general

Logo Styles and Logo Types

LDMerriam — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:33:34 +0000

After you have selected the name of your company, product or service, you will want to bring it to life with a visual representation–you need a logo!

You’ve got a number of approaches to choose from. Below are the four general logo styles in common use, along with their respective strengths and weaknesses.

Logo Style: The Word Mark

The Word Mark is the most common style of logo—39 % of the top 100 global brands use this approach. This type of logo turns the word itself into the graphic representation of the brand. The reasons for the popularity of this approach are:

Your logo is tremendously flexible in both a design and a business sense.
It can evolve to work with new businesses and sub-brands. The Microsoft brand now works to endorse dozens of product brands such as Windows and Business Solutions.
From a design sense, you are have more graphic freedom. Your logo doesn’t compete against your graphics in brochures, Web pages, and ads.
The cost is lower to implement
The logo is easier to use

This approach works best if you have a unique name.

Logo Style: Symbol

On the other end of the spectrum are logos that are only a symbol. No words necessary. The benefits of this approach are:

Your brand transcends language—it has meaning everywhere
It creates an iconic presence

Only 3% of the top brands in the world are strictly symbol brands. It takes an enormous budget, wide distribution and lots of time to establish a symbol as a brand that speaks on its own.

Logo Style: Combination Mark

Some designers believe you can get the best of both worlds by combining a word mark with a symbol. The thinking goes:

The symbol and the mark give people two cues to memory
The symbol can communicate a message that supports the name
If the name is not particularly unique, adding a symbol can make it easier to copyright.

Unfortunately, too many symbols attached to brands are just random generic shapes. Perhaps the designers have some arcane explanation of what the symbols mean, but can the average consumer perceive the story behind those blips in the Blackberry logo. Too often even the biggest brands with huge budgets cop out with some version of the swoosh.

Logo Style: The Emblem

Perhaps a better approach for some companies is to make their name an intrinsic part of the symbol—creating an iconic emblem of the brand. This approach:

Creates an icon that is supported by the name
Is easy to use—many product brands use this approach to stamp their products like a cattle brand
It’s compact
It’s self-contained—the meaning and the name are one entity—not a word and a widget

This approach works best for short names. For all it’s benefits, it can be inflexible.

Visual Systems Strengthen Brand and Cut Costs

LDMerriam — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:21:24 +0000

Taking a systematic approach to your visuals, whether for your web site, brochures, business cards, even videos, will dramatically strengthen the power of your brand while cutting your production costs.

Creating a tool kit of graphics, typography, color palette, and imagery will turbo-charge the visual impact of your communications. Instead of each piece standing alone, they will work together, build on each other, and create a unified and consistent brand across media, products, audiences, cultures, functions, and parts of the your organization.

When UPS rebranded, they created a complete system for their brand:

UPS has used the system for ten years and counting for everything from their envelopes to their web site to trucks and race cars.